That's an easy thing to say for someone who obviously enjoys roads and infrastructure. Sure, Argentina is a socialist hell-hole, but you certainly enjoy the electricity connections and roads that lead to your libertarian paradise. Oh wait, did you pay for those yourself?
Please tell us Steve, that you don't claim social security or any other retirement benefit in the US. I actually respect you and the fact that you live out in the sticks. Wouldn't mind retiring in a similar place. But it's hard to respect your love of a hack writer/hypocrite.
Wow, so now we judge people because they find certain authors to have some relevance (notice I didn't say God-like influence, nor belief in every word that writer has ever written). I've never seen Steve say he either loves this author nor that he follows her writings religiously. And I think of all the people in this world who people claim to "love" who are as well hypocrites (or downright complete fools) because they like their acting or their writing or their music, or what-have-you, and wonder, should we really be belittling them because of this?
What about belief in a book that was written over centuries, the last contributions to which were written some 1800 years ago or so and compiled into a set of beliefs at the direction of a Roman emperor, which tells us all how we should act, based on some "divine" guidance that no one can actually point to or demonstrate that such guidance was more than the superstitious ruminations of a number of mortal people? Which has brought as much or more pain and suffering to this world than any benefit it has given us? Should we all start trying to humiliate anyone who even references anything from any religious book, for example?
And it's OK for one member to continually bait another member of this forum because that person has found something of relevance in a writer who you don't like or respect? And it's OK to continually (incorrectly, as I remember Steve mentioning that he's not a libertarian previously) assign attributes to Steve because of this? I mean, how shallow is that?
What's funny is, I am indeed a libertarian and yet I don't like that author's writings (though I feel in a general way that she does have some relevance from certain points of view, no matter her personal life) - and even she claimed emphatically to not be a libertarian. Even if everything said was true about this author, even if you don't believe she is a person worthy of any consideration - how on Earth is it an excuse to continually hound Steve about a conversation that happened some year or more ago? I don't know Steve personally, but somehow I really doubt he defines his life by a single book or a single author - he seems way too intelligent for that.
And even if Steve was a libertarian - please explain to me how it is hypocrisy to follow the laws of the land, such as, for example, paying into social security all your life and then expecting to reap the benefit of that when you retire just because you believe the system is wrong? Might be a different story if Steve evaded taxes all his life and then turned around and tried to claim SS benefits (but funny, the government wouldn't pay because you have to generate enough into the system to get anything back out). And I don't know that Steve doesn't believe in social security, nor whether or not he collects a check from that system - and couldn't care less either way!
As well as someone who "enjoys" roads and infrastructure, while paying for it (in both places, here or there - or at least paying for services that use those roads, etc) through being legally in the system and paying taxes, even if one doesn't believe in taxes or governments building infrastructure. Why exactly does this show any kind of strange behavior, much less hypocrisy? Just because someone doesn't believe in something like that, having paid into it (particularly due to having no choice in the matter if one wants to keep one's freedom) why shouldn't they enjoy benefits as needed? What the hell?
Those particular attempts at insult completely boggles my mind.
And I don't care, either, that Steve likes some of the works of an author I don't care for (and who, as a person, does seem to have been fairly hypocritical in her life), because Steve has shown himself repeatedly to be a thoughtful, considerate, helpful person in spite of his comments about a specific writer that a few here (well, one in particular, so I thought, but maybe not just one after all) just can't seem to let go of.
I just really can't believe that 1) Ajo can't pull his head out of his smelliest, darkest orifice long enough to contribute something other than one liner comments in general and specifically insults to Steve since Ajo doesn't seem like an idiot either and that 2) others who seem to have a modicum of intelligence would support him in either his one-liner self-absorbed comments or the simple insults continuously thrown at Steve.
Maybe I'm missing something. Wouldn't be the first time, I suppose.
