So...I go to John Lewis if I'm an old man who wants to look at little girls through a telescope?


The Man in the Moon had silver shoon
And his beard was of silver thread;
He was girt with pure gold and inaureoled
With gold about his head.
Clad in silken robe in his great white globe
He opened an ivory door
With a crystal key, and in secrecy
He stole o'er a shadowy floor;

Down a filigree stair of spidery hair
He slipped in gleaming haste,
And laughing with glee to be merry and free
He swiftly earthward raced.
He was tired of his pearls and diamond twirls;
Of his pallid minaret
Dizzy and white at its lunar height
In a world of silver set;

And adventured this peril for ruby and beryl
And emerald and sapphire,
And all lustrous gems for new diadems,
Or to blazon his pale attire.
He was lonely too with nothing to do
But to stare at the golden world,
Or to strain at the hum that would distantly come
As it gaily past him whirled;

And at plenilune in his argent moon
He had wearily longed for Fire-
Not the limpid lights of wan selenites,
But a red terrestrial pyre
With impurpurate glows of crimson and rose
And leaping orange tongue;
For great seas of blues and the passionate hues
When a dancing dawn is young;

For the meadowy ways like chrysophrase
By winding Yare and Nen.
How he longed for the mirth of the populous Earth
And the sanguine blood of men;
And coveted song and laughter long
And viands hot and wine,
Eating pearly cakes of light snowflakes
And drinking thin moonshine.

He twinkled his feet as he thought of the meat,
Of the punch and the peppery brew,
Till he tripped unaware on his slanting stair,
And fell like meteors do;
As the whickering sparks in splashing arcs
Of stars blown down like rain
From his laddery path took a foaming bath
In the ocean of Almain;

And began to think, lest he melt and stink,
What in the moon to do,
When a Yarmouth boat found him far afloat,
To the mazement of the crew
Caught in their net all shimmering wet
In a phosphorescent sheen
Of bluey whites and opal lights
And delicate liquid green

With the morning fish — 'twas his regal wish —
They packed him to Norwich town,
To get warm on gin in a Norfolk inn,
And dry his watery gown.
Though St. Peter's knell waked many a bell
In the city's ringing towers
To shout the news of his lunatic cruise
In the early morning hours,

No hearths were laid, not a breakfast made,
And no one would sell him gems;
He found ashes for fire, and his gay desire
For choruses and brave anthems
Met snores instead with all Norfolk abed,
And his round heart nearly broke,
More empty and cold than above of old,
Till he bartered his fairy cloak

With a half waked cook for a kitchen nook,
And his belt of gold for a smile,
And a priceless jewel for a bowl of gruel,
A sample cold and vile
Of the proud plum porridge of Anglian Norwich —
He arrived much too soon
For unusual guests on adventurous quests
From the Mountains of the Moon.

I used to think like this, but then I finished high school.

Seriously, anarchy is a lovely ideal. Everyone lives in peace and harmony and no-one is tramping anyone elses rights. When a job needs doing, we find someone willing to do it and compensate them (preferably with a barter system or something).

One minor problem though..

IT

DOESN'T

FUCKING

WORK.

We don't live in some kind of post-scarcity utopia. I wish we did, but that is simply not the reality of human society or history. Anarchists and libertarians seem to think that anyone who disagrees with them loves government and simply can't wait to pour their hard earned money in a military industrial complex.

I don't know anyone like that. I don't like my government, and I sure as hell don't like yours. I don't mind paying for hospitals and roads and welfare (and yeah, I don't even really give a fuck about "welfare queens" or "dole bludgers" or other mythical right wing beasties), but I fucking hate the idea that my money goes to fund the pointless "war on drugs" or on mass surveillance.

But I recognise that for all its ills, the system (for the most part) works. People today have a higher standard of living, live longer, and have more rights than at any other time in history. Some of that is down to science; some of it is because of private innovation and some of it is simply that we have changed the way our societies run through elections, etc.

What I do know is that when government becomes beholden to private interests (lobbyists in the USA) shit goes bad. But the solution to that is not to allow powerful people even more leeway to fuck over the weak.

@newtboy
i know man and got respect for your position.
have many friends who feel exactly the way you do.
so im not hating.

i have sacrificed much to hold fast to my conviction.
i deal mostly in cash or barter.
i do not and will never have a credit card,nor a bank account.
i drive "illegally" ,though it is rare,because i refuse to subscribe to mandatory insurance.or any form of insurance for that matter,mandatory or not.
i treat opiate addicts for free and give them a place to stay because the clinics (state run and corporate) have a zero tolerance policy.they pee dirty ONCE,for anything and they get booted.so i take them in.

this one,in particular,gets me into some serious trouble with the authorities at the local addiction a.k.a methadone pill-mill.they turn me in at least once a year.the baliffs at the courthouse know me by name.

i get in trouble at tax time because i dont file.my business is not income driven but rather "donation" driven.so...suck it county clerk!

i do work at a friends restaurant as a bartender/waiter and thats on the books,but thats mostly for my child support.

all this has been hard on my family,well,my boys mainly.while they were growing up i didnt have a lot of extra resources,but they turned out pretty damn good.

simply put(me?simple?ha!)
my faith dictates my politics.

We've been on a bunch of dates
I weigh debates that this creates
And hate that state of forced introspection
We traded wit, we swapped some spit,
You fingered me a little bit
But we never really had a connection

You did nothing wrong, I have no excuse
Just my intuition telling me we shouldn't reproduce

I know I have to end it
But pretend to just suspend it
By contending that I'm busy all week
I let the foregone linger on
Text back with an emoticon
Withdraw from you by being oblique

Inside I know my tactics just delay it
But I'd do anything so I don't have to say it

I'll draw this out forever like it's Vietnam
Then one day I'll be gone like Bambi's mom Awww

Cause there's the right thing to do
Then there's what I'm gonna do
There's so much I should say
But instead... I do the fade away

Now I'm fading like chalk on a sidewalk
Or the polio virus after Jonas Salk
Like a Jewish guy at Sizzler on Yom Kippur
The Whig party post Millard Fillmore

The erection of a man on antidepressants
The cast of Diff'rent Strokes after adolescence
Reproductive rights below the Mason Dixon
Native Americans after the barter systems
Your thyroid gland after Hashimoto
The family in the Back to the Future photo
Yeah I fade away

We say that men are asshole who don't communicate
We revel in our victimhood and amplify our hate
We find ways to be indignant like it's a sport
Then dissect their malignance with the views we distort

The way men break up may be sloppy and terse
What they do is bad, but what we do is worse

We pretend to ourselves it's the nice thing to do
To let you down gently by just not ever telling you
And deep down we know it's the worst way to play it
But we are what we have... huge pussies

And women are hypocrites
Especially ones in comedy bands
We see your faults but not our own
Then we wonder why we're all alone

We fill you up with maybe's, excuses and stalls
But like a baby in China... it's better to have balls

Not the Good Wife type like Christine Baranski
So I'll pull out and leave like I'm Roman Polanski

Cause there's the right thing to do
Then there's what I'm gonna do
There's so much I should say
But instead... I do the fade away

Like Verbal Kint fading into Kaiser Soze
The rights in Arizona for a guy named Jose
Opportunities for a college grad
The love between your mom and dad
Gonna Peter out like a gay Cetera
Iranian relations since the Regan era
Black Nike sales after Heaven's Gate
Summer Camp attendance at Penn State
The name Adolph after World War Two
Like Debbie Gibson's pop career, Out of the Blue
Yeah I fade away

Cause I don't wanna get to know you
I just want to blow you... off

not really, I don't like my meat processed and chemically treated. I hunt deer, squirrel, rabbit, I grow and hunt quail, ducks, geese, chickens, I also hunt alligator since it's open season year around here due to overpopulation.

I have a chest freezer in the utility room with Elk, Mule Deer, Venison, Lamb as I can. We save thousands of dollars a year on meat since I hunt and have taught my son and daughter to hunt. My daughter is 13 and has already killed her first deer last season. I've also taught them how to skin and clean from fish, fowl and large game, although they usually just watch and clean the buckets for the large game for now, they happily help me skin squirrels, rabbits, bullfrogs for frog legs, etc. It's just how we live and keep grocery prices really cheap, since I usually barter gator tail/venison at the farmers market for most fresh vegetables.

Weapons of choice, .308 / 30-30 / 12 gauge - my daughter and son primarily use 20 gauge as it has little to no kick and great spread for shooting fowl.

The largest problem with the "free market" is that all people have ALL of the information they need to make good choices. And sure when people make deals or barter (Most of the time) they are doing it to enhance their end of the bargain. Most people don't care about win win, they care only about "do I win?" This means that if one party has more information than another about a particular bargain then free market capitalism breaks down. This is why we have insider trading laws. If anything government regulation should be stepped up to include those evil investment strategies where investors sell you one thing and then bet against that thing, hoping/knowing it will fail.

He is right that the free market is not like Darwinian evolution (I get irritated when people say that they are similar). In Darwinian evolution populations of organisms adapt to their environment and occupy a "niche space" the place in the environment they are adapted for. A corporation is like an individual consuming everything in its path. Corporations can also change the rules of the game. An organism in nature cannot change the laws of nature.

Lastly he clearly missunderstands the phrase a "dog eat dog" world. They idea behind that turn of phrase is that conditions are so tough in the world that dogs are eating other dogs.

Jebus this guy acts smart and hoity toity but sure seems ignore some obvious flaws in his arguments and touches on things that are neither here nor there.

I bought a Russian SKS, a double barrel Mossberg 12 gauge shotgun and a glock 9mm at 2 gunshows locally few years back no questions asked.

but private sale between citizens are fine here. If I want to sell my neighbor my tv, my baseball bat, my RC Helicopter, my car, my gun collection, etc I have every right to sell whatever I wish that I own.

I can also barter for goods if I wish, If I no longer need the shotgun, but I'm out of a job and need food and I can use the gun to aquire a butchered pig/cow from local butcher I can do that as well.

course its simple in south east and everyone owns a gun, heck my 93 year old grandmother owns a .410 shotgun she keeps loaded by her bed. Course her husband, my grandfather, passed away before I was born, was a prison guard that walked inmates to "old sparky" in Florida long ago.

Reminded me a lot of the history channel, eventually they got tired of telling the same stories of the last century and instead found excuses to feature "historical items" with the addition of the "pawn stars" and other stuff of the like. I'm suprised that they didn't decide to take the opportunity to explain a bit more on the history of bartering, and how people found value in that which was strange and foreign, so on and so forth.

Didn't realize quoting something out of the video meant that I was wholeheartedly endorsing it. Just thought it was a point he made that was worth highlighting.

And there's no reason to jump straight to barter as that wasn't what was said. I could just as easily buy it in China or convince someone to take my Euros for a new computer. Both of those acts would not require me to believe in Dollar$ and would be consistent with his statement.

Either way, think maybe you need to chilaxe a little.

Next time you go buy a new computer, just remember to bring a donkey and a chicken so you have something to barter with.

>> ^Stormsinger:

I'm a bit curious how she manages to afford that nice apartment, without participating in our "wage slave" economy.
Personally, I find it hard to believe that I could have as much freedom and leisure as I currently have, if I was spending the time necessary to avoid participation. Specialization has distinct benefits, and I doubt that my specialty is much in demand among these folks, so barter isn't going to be an efficient option for me.


Freedom and leisure is a good benefit to keeping passive. Wage Slavery was considered a horrible thing back int he day...so horrible that Actual Slave owners were making the argument that it was worse than being actual slaves.

The idea is to keep everyone wanting bullshit, striving to gain wealth forgetting everything but yourself. It's hard to convince people to forget that they're all in this together, it's a lot of work but it is working to some extent at least. We should work to fight it, there's no reason why some Multinational Corporation needs to own your towns factory just so they could decide it's not making enough and close it. The people who work there, who have a stake in the place should own it.

Here's a good clip from "The Corporation" with Chomsky.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJrEQtQDmXQ

I'm a bit curious how she manages to afford that nice apartment, without participating in our "wage slave" economy.

Personally, I find it hard to believe that I could have as much freedom and leisure as I currently have, if I was spending the time necessary to avoid participation. Specialization has distinct benefits, and I doubt that my specialty is much in demand among these folks, so barter isn't going to be an efficient option for me.

Money isn't real?!
What the hell is that supposed to mean?

It sure is real. I've got it right here in my hand.
I can see it, I can touch it, I can smell it, (if I crumple it)I can hear it, (If I put my tongue on it)I can taste it. If I barter for something, I can use it in trade.

It is a token used for convenience. There is no way my employer can give me two pigs and four chickens every couple of weeks for the services I do for them so they give me tokens which represent items of trade and that in turn can be used by me to barter for other goods and service.

Yes, the banks have taken it a step further and digitized it so that now we use credit points on a plastic card still using the dollar and cents model. I can still trade those digital points for bills and coins that I can hold in my hand and I can still trade either points or coin for goods and services.

It`s still real. I don`t see this line of debate as a valid argument for an imaginary deity. A deity can be neither touched, seen, smelt, tasted or heard. It has never been proven in any way that they listen to you or grant you wishes. They have never left anything physical (something our senses can identify) in this world to prove they exist.

Believing in deities may grant you solace but solace is circumstantial as far as proof goes and people are fooling themselves with this every day. I can believe with all my heart that a stuffed animal can talk to me and guide me, and I can convince myself that it's true but no matter what I sell myself on the inside, the reality is that it's all in my head and not real.

People who believe in God have allowed themselves to be fooled. They may be and often are smart people but even smart people can be fooled, especially when they want it to be true. And most of them NEED it to be true, otherwise they don't see any reason for their existence. They can't accept that they aren't special, that they are mortal, that there is an end so they cling to the fantasy and call it faith.

>> ^truth-is-the-nemesis:

if there's all this recent commotion about financial trouble due to not raising the debt ceiling and defaulting on payments & losing the AAA bond rating causing more financial panic and hardship, then how in the world can shutting down the federal reserve be good?. and what do we use in its place?. Gold?, do we go back to bartering goods & services?.
Ron Paul seems to be the idealistic choice, but even so either he won't get what he wants put into action (like Obama), or he may not see the ramifications if they are.


That mirrors my take on Ron Paul. I can't figure if he honestly believes his ideas on the reserve and gold standards, or if he is just saying it to get votes from people who are upset with the status quo. In either case he's a dangerous choice. He's either dangerously ignorant of how the reserve works and it's importance, or he understands it and is just willing to ignore/lie about it and just do what's popular anyways.