What should we do about Wikipedia's porn problem? Recognize that there is no "problem"---that this is no more a "problem" than any other content on Wikipedia that some people don't like---and move on to something that's actually important?

Buttbuttinate. That is all.

Sure, but the government is only regulating itself (and their political subdivisions). I read the bill; all they're doing is regulating what their boards, agencies, commissions, &al., may in turn do.

I guess this is yet another unintended consequence of having the government create such boards, agencies, and commissions in the first place. The government creates regulatory agencies with the hope of doing something good, people and businesses come to trust the word of such agencies (e.g., insurance companies making risk determinations), and then the agencies get captured by interests that co-opt them. Now they agencies are untrustworthy, but since they're a government monopoly with no competition, what are people to do?

The libertarian idea is guided by the Non-Aggression Principle (NAP), which states that only the initiation of force or fraud against another is immoral. Anything else is permitted, including using force or fraud to stop someone who has initiated such against another. Another way to frame it is that it's never moral to interfere with another's freedom of choice. This all stems from the idea of self-ownership: That a person is absolutely the owner and controller of their own mind and body, and that no one else can own or control them without their consent.

The NAP therefore prohibits stuff like theft, kidnapping, assault, rape, and murder. All of these actions are initiations of force or fraud, all of them are interfering with another's freedom of choice, all of them are disrespecting a person's absolute self-ownership. The NAP does not allow for common laws such as paying nonconsensual fees to the government (taxes, licenses, permits, &c.), requiring permission from the government to engage in various activities (drive a motor vehicle, engage in certain professions, develop a piece of land, hunt, fish, purchase or carry a firearm, &c.), and prohibitions against things such as drug and alcohol use, assisted suicide, or any consensual sexual activities. In fact, since all of these laws interfere with a person's freedom of choice, the laws themselves are violations of the NAP.

Sure. What you're describing is close to what libertarians call the Non-Aggression Principle.

Indeed it's different, but its intent was the same: Social engineering via legislation.

I didn't say that corporations should be considered people ("artificial persons" in legal parlance, actually). That is indeed a legal fiction, which is useful in some contexts, but highly dangerous in others. What I said is that corporations are composed of individuals ("natural persons" in legal parlance) who have rights, and those individuals do not lose those rights simply because they are acting in concert.

That said, the Citizens United decision is a great example of an unintended consequence so often seen when the government tries to legislate away our rights. The only reason that corporations have sought to donate money to political campaigns is because the government has imposed campaign contribution limits on individuals, and myriad other regulations. If the government wasn't meddling in individuals' right to fund and support other's freedom of speech, said individuals wouldn't need to come up with clever, convoluted ways of enhancing their ability to contribute to campaigns via artificial persons. This is the same reason cryptic entities like 527s, PACs, "Super PACs," and so on, have been invented: As yet another way around laws that shouldn't exist in the first place.

Whereas in reality, that's exactly what the other side does. Government-funded science, government-run schools, &c., all make sure that the proper, useful theories are taught to the people, while the ones counterproductive to the goals of government expansion are not.

Corporations are nothing more than individuals voluntarily acting together. Banning a corporation from doing something is banning its owners, stockholders, executives, employees, &al., from doing something. How does people acting in concert with one another deprive them of rights they may have as individuals?

This proposal may not wholly force people to live a healthy lifestyle, but that is its intent. It forces people to stop engaging on one unhealthy activity. What's next?

Precious metals are very different than paper money. The only thing that gives paper money its value is the "faith and credit" of the printer. If that backing becomes non-credible, the money isn't worth the paper it's printed on. This has happened countless times throughout history.

The value of precious metals is intrinsic---a combination of their rarity and the labor/production costs. Gold has always been nearly universally accepted as a medium of exchange, along with silver.

I guess you don't know what the word intrinsic means.

A U.S. Federal Reserve note has about $0.04 of intrinsic value, whether its face value be $1 or $100. Here are the intrinsic values for U.S. coinage---again, nowhere close to their face value.

if i was that close to sea level i would design and build stuff to account for it getting wet (and maybe even staying wet for extended periods of time).

How un-American of you, taking personal responsibility and making choices of your own free will like that! Don't you know that around here we're supposed to let the government "planners" do all our thinking for us and then tell us what we can and cannot do?

How is a prediction a "fact"? A fact is something that is. A prediction by its very nature is in the future, and nothing about the future is certain.

I know you were being sarcastic, but you actually did hit on the key difference: The government passing a law forbidding itself or its political subdivisions from doing something is an entire world of difference from them forbidding private entities (businesses or individuals) from doing something. The latter is infringing on people's freedom. The former is, in this case, protecting it.

I am not a Republican.

Government "planners" should be barred from existence.