Rule of thumb: if any given piece of legislation can be interpreted more broadly than legislators intended, some overeager prosecutor will do so.

The sign on the door at Abunara says, “Closed until further notice”. I sure hope they come back, because it was a pretty cool place to hang out. Until that time, Social Sundays / Game Night will be at 12 Emerald St. in Keene at 5pm. Here’s the forum thread about the change.

Liberty-minded people called “Talkback” on WKBK last week to discuss electricity and World War II atrocities.

Grab the archive.

Please join us for our weekly chat and calling sessions on Saturday mornings from 11a-12p in the Liberty Radio Network Chat room. If you’re online, you can listen to Talkback streamed live via the Liberty Radio Network and if you’re in the Keene area you can tune in to WKBK 1290 AM or 104.1 FM. The Talkback discussion thread is here on the Free Keene Forum.

Just as I was writing my post about the hook-up culture and death of dating as our Grandparents knew it, the feminist blog-sphere was being lit up. In this corner of the Internet the old argument “is the hook-up generation bad for girls?” had been dug up from the bin of tossed around ideas, like a discarded dress with shoulder-pads finding itself once again trendy.

Dusting off the question–which is usually favored by conservatives shaming the pro-sex third wave– was an unusually fresh “girl’s expert” Rachel Simmons who writes advice for TeenVogue.  Basically her argument was that during this era of easy hook-ups and birth control pills, girls are being expected to be casual and cool about relationships And that the ball is in the dude’s court on to be bf-gf or not to be. The girls are then left with bated breath, hoping that he will ask. So pretty much the same old story we’ve been fed throughout generations. Only this time they are engaging in blowjobs before he asks her to the prom and she comes down the stairs in slow-motion with a make-over.

Rachel’s thing is that this is detrimental to girls because all of the power lies in the guys court. I would be lying if I didn’t acknowledge that this does happen and that it is a product of patriarch and not so good.  But Rachel  falls into the trap of pining a bit too much over the courting rituals of old. If the hook-up culture is rooted in patriarchy, old style courting was buried in it. I don’t need to point out how the same thread of sexism that ran through dating and has trickled down into the hook-up culture. Kate Harding already explained it on Salon more swiftly and gracefully then i ever could.

What does get old for me in Harding’s argument though are the many assertions of how the patriarchy hurts women in dating. Don’t get me wrong, I think it is sad that some women let men decide for them when and if they will date. And shockingly sad that women’s magazines and self help books have us ruminating over being perfect for a man. But the patriarchy hurts everyone and the male version of “10 ways to keep a man” is the “how to  impress a girl by saying/doing douchey stuff” ala Maxim/Mystery. Both are products of the patriarchy and I’d rather pluck out my eyelashes then read articles on either. But both men and women are hurting here.

What is needed is for men and women to learn honest communication, with themselves and with each other. And if you read my piece on how feminism changed dating, you can probably guess my answer. While the sexual revolution and feminism have erased the old rules, we are still knee-jerking our way through fucking and loving with the old sexist positions. Instead of guessing and hemming and hawing over what each other think, the new relationship needs to be one based on honesty. The advice Rachel Simmons needs to give her TeenVogue readers is to simply start being honest. First honest with themselves about whether or not they truly want a relationship (or if it just seems like the right thing to do.) And second, to start being radically honest with their partners about what they want.

Because that is how we are going to change this. It isn’t going to be about “teaching boys to be more respectful of girls” as she suggests, because really that is not the issue here. It isn’t an issue of conscious disrespect, but rather of playing a silent game and boys and girls being expected to take certain positions within that game. The issue here is that these kids are not talking about the relationships they are in. And let’s be honest,  it is not just kids doing this.

Now, back to that question that the TeenVogue readers should first ask themselves, “do I really want a relationship?”  Where this gets sticky is in the conditioning on how to feel about hook-ups and  boyfriends. Girl-Drive sums this up beautifully in her post on the matter “If we’re told that casual sex is unfulfilling and that we’re going to want relationships, chances are we’ll end up wanting them. And why not? That’s what Seventeen, Glamour, and all my friends always told me.”

We should teach girls that they don’t have to justify their hook-ups to themselves. Further, hooking-up doesn’t mean you should or can have a relationship with someone, explore what you really want. Where I stand on this old “does the hook-up culture” hurt girls is that no, hooking up is fine, great even for some people.  I think it is so important for people in Simmons position to let everyone know that teenagers are sexual beings with a right to a sex life, and consensual sex of any kind is okay.

If I haven’t beaten this into your brain enough by now, it is not the hook-up culture hurting us, it is the tired game of non-honesty that is hurting girls–and boys.  Even without the old courtship rules, we are still blindly going through the patriarchal motions which positions the male to pop the big questions of commitment and then carry us off into the sunset. All genders need to be liberated from this game and unless we start having intentional relationships where we are honest with ourselves and each other, it won’t happen.

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Related posts:

1. How Feminism Has Changed Relationships
2. Exploring What Intimacy Means
3. Ask Rabbit: Finding a Balance in your Dating Personality

The constitution is broken. Either it authorizes this spendthrift maxarchist police state, or it fails to prevent it. Much of those four historic pieces of parchment are dead letter. The president rules by executive order and sends us into wars on his own authority. The second amendment has been eviscerated. The fourth amendment is a cruel joke. The tenth amendment died at least 150 years ago. No matter how you slice it, the constitution is not working out.

Articles of Confederation?

So what comes next? Do we revert to the Articles of Confederation? That was a constitution too! The fact is that parchment and ink will never protect you from theft, fraud, assault or death. And the Articles didn’t even protect us from the (current) constitution. So, no, we can’t evolve backwards.

Secede?

Secession may open a few cracks in the federal state’s iron cage, but beyond that we can expect the tyranny to continue, albeit on a smaller stage. After all, a state is just a small country with a … constitution! If it fails on a large scale, why would it work on a small scale? The facts of the matter remain unchanged. Why trade a tyrant 2000 miles away for one 200 miles away? It’s only a marginal improvement, if that.

Another Kind of Secession

“The only idea they have ever manifested as to what is a government of consent, is this – that it is one to which everybody must consent, or be shot.” – Lysander Spooner

There is another kind of secession though – personal secession. As individuals, we can secede from this forced union of souls. Do you yearn for fiscal restraint, accessibility and accountability from your government? Is government not providing the kind of mutual aid and healthcare you expect? This may be the best solution for you. You decide how much to spend on services formerly provided by government. If your new service providers aren’t accessible or accountable, take your business elsewhere! If you can’t find an acceptable service provider, join with like-minded folks to start your own – no need to lobby Congress for permission first.

Government Services Better Provided by Individuals

The services you expect from government can be, or are already being, provided (better) by individuals. Roads are built and maintained by individuals all the time, whether governments hire them or not. There is already a thriving private market for home and workplace security. Private and family schools have left government ones in the dust. Before government butted in, private mutual aid was not only common but indefinitely sustainable. Healthcare was affordable.

Call it the Statement of Principles

What should follow the constitution then? I propose an agreement among individuals. Call it the Statement of Principles. All signatories agree to not commit aggression and to honor any contracts they voluntarily make (i.e., natural law). The Statement of Principles might go something like this:

I solemnly promise to never commit aggression against a fellow human being, nor to voluntarily and knowingly support the commission of aggression against a fellow human being. I will honor to the letter any contracts that I enter into. Should I fail to honor this promise, I will make all appropriate efforts to reach a settlement with the aggrieved party. If we are unable to reach an agreement, I will voluntarily submit to arbitration by a judge and jury, if need be, that is mutually agreeable to both myself and the complaining party.

300 Million Checks and Balances

How is it enforced though? Where’s the provision for police, national defense, courts, hospitals, the FDA …? If the 3 branches of checks and balances in the constitution appealed to you, consider how 300 million checks and balances would be even better. Parties to any controversies can hire their own judges and juries to hear any disputes they can’t resolve themselves. Communities can voluntarily band together to purchase home security services cheaply, or provide it themselves. Habitual criminals can be locked out of civilized locales. We can work together locally to solve our problems without the artificial constraint of getting it approved by 546 double-dealers in the District of Columbia.

Photo credit: notionscapital. Photo license.

The ATF confiscates a shipment of Airsoft plastic BB guns, Miami considers putting a ban on feeding the homeless, the Downsizer Dispatch, a UK woman in trouble with the law for failing to report buried treasure (yes she found an old coin), and the US government is killing indigenous fish and replacing them with rainbow trout.

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I need to apologize to listeners on behalf of Mike and myself for failing to deliver the after show last night. We intended to do the show, but due to a technical difficulty, the show ended when it should have continued to record after the live streaming ended. The content we had planned for the after show was very compelling stuff, and we will go over it next week. Furthermore, I apologize for the website outage today. This was due to my account being hacked, and the hackers installing a phishing site. These issues, unfortunately were outside of my control.