it'd be much appreciated if you did post it though. am at work now and can't access FDR. I am quite interested in his response since Travis' post seemed spot on.

Anything for you, Conrad.

Stef wrote:

Thanks Travis, that is a very interesting post, I will see if I can reply to it. Travis Touchdown wrote: I'm not sure why Barbara's words should be taken as hearsay because she is under grievence, and yet Tom's words should be automatically be assumed to be true. The guy was clearly upset about the evils that were being discussed (Iraq war, etc.). His father seemed like a mean guy, if we are to take what Tom says at face value. But evil? I dunno about all that. Someone that kills or steals on a regular basis seems evil to me. But a guy who breaks his own property and yells (even if it is at someone)? Not so much. It is abusive to rage in the presence of children, and to throw and break things -- children are so helpless and dependent that such rages are terrifying to them, as Tom testified. I will talk about Tom's words below, if that's all right. Travis Touchdown wrote: And the accusations against his mother in the podcast? They do not have any proof behind them. It is admitted that no proof is needed that Barbara knew Tom's father was a mean guy right off the bat. I know you've got your theories, but they need actual proof to hold up. Austrian economists don't just say "Hey, the government is responsible for the recession! This theory proves it!" They actually point out the proof of government meddling in the economy and a valid explanation of why it would affect it negatively. I am quite puzzled as to why Tom would accept such a theory without such proof. Well, I have brought a fair amount of evidence and theory to this question in a variety of podcasts and books, though of course I did not start talking about all that in the conversation with Tom. For instance, you might want to have a look at Gladwell's book 'Blink' for more on our amazing and extremely rapid perceptiveness, particularly with regards to other people's personalities. Travis Touchdown wrote: The only scrap of evidence that you have is what Tom tells you about how his father is now. Not only is that hearsay by your definition, but it is by no means proof that he was always like that. People's personalities are not static. I know plenty of people who are very different than when I met them. And she had kids because she wanted him to abuse them? I always thought that people had kids because they have a biological urge to reproduce, but I could be wrong... This is not quite the case -- as is mentioned in the article, Tom's father has suffered from mood swings and rages for years. People have a very strong biological urge for sex,but not quite as strong an urge for reproduction, as can be seen by the prevalent use of birth control. Certainly the mother's motivations are not proven fact, but we can judge that whatever continually occurs for a number of years for a person must have something to do with that person's motivations, whether conscious or not. In psychological circles, these are called "secondary gains." Travis Touchdown wrote: How would you expect someone to act if you make awful accusations against them without any proof? I'm sure that many a socialist has made horrible personal attacks against you. They don't make you upset even a little? How was Barbara supposed to feel? Was she supposed to be happy that you and her son thinks that she takes pleasure in her son's emotional pain? It is pretty obvious to me why she feels that the conversation was chilling. I think that it is important to remember the sequence of events, to keep them in perspective. First, Tom was abused by his parents for many years, according to his highly emotional report, which we have no reason to doubt, and which he had no motive for expressing. Tom originally was talking about his concern for animal rights -- he had no conscious idea that I would suggest that it might be about his childhood. His spontaneous and deeply felt eruption of emotion could not be faked -- I have been an actor, and I can tell you this for sure. Thus Tom first endured many years of terrifying abuse, which he then burst into tears about doing a conversation with me, and I then provided some direct sympathy and theoretical frameworks for his experience, which gave him some real comfort. If you are really concerned about "awful accusations" and "horrible personal attacks" I do think that it is important to focus upon the years of abuse endured by an innocent child, rather than the sympathy that I showed him during our conversation. Travis Touchdown wrote: Getting back to the article; why is it assumed that Barbara thinks that her son is stupid because she disapproves of his voluntary activities? Is she stupid or mistaken about her husband (who was also voluntarily chosen)? No, you think she is purposely complacent to fuel her emotional blood lust. Is Tom the same way? I hope not! I'm not sure what you mean by this, sorry. Travis Touchdown wrote: And why was it not suggested that the reason that Barbara contacted Kate and got the article printed was because she wanted to be with her son again? This conclusion is also quite obvious to most anyone who reads the article. She wants to see her son again and this is her only way of calling out to him. Well, as I said above, because Barbara clearly thinks that FDR is a cult, and the CIC advises against attacking the the "cult." If Barbara wanted to expose FDR as a cult, she could have done so without speaking highly negatively about her son in such a terribly public forum, by requesting anonymity. There is no doubt that Tom would have been told about the article by his friends who knows that he listened to FDR. The reason that I do not think that Kate contacted Barbara was because to my knowledge there are a grand total of four parents on the Internet complaining about FDR, out of the 90,000-odd parents whose children have listened consistently to the show. As a ratio goes, I am sure that there are far more parents complaining about Richard Dawkins' atheist website, yet he is not blasted with ridiculous accusations of "cult leader" in mainstream newspaper articles (at least to my knowledge!). Travis Touchdown wrote: I'm not on the whole "Stef is the devil" thing. But I don't think that this Barbara woman is the devil, either. I don't think you're all evil or stupid for thinking she is. I think you may be mistaken. I'm not sure where anyone said that the mother is "the devil."

_________________
I philosophize, therefore I evangelize

SM, in response to Tom's expression of anger:
"That's good...that's what that story is for..."

SM, in response to Thirdear's expression of anger:
"I must say that swearing and getting so angry does not seem to indicate a lot of objectivity...."

hmmm....

Hi everybody,
Just two remarks.
The first being that the Molyneux cult bans everybody who disagrees with them therefore keeping their followers under tight thought control while being discussed at other forums. I doubt that the Molyneux followers visit other forums. So we have to be careful here to discuss molyneux in order to expose the cult but not to give it a non deserved publicity. I found it very disturbing for example that Molyneux's thinking was discussed on the Mises forum, we are giving him too much credibility here.
The second is that I think we have to go from discussion into action. One possibility I see is to sue the cult for hate speech targeting a special group in society and leading to psychological damage and suffering. I leave you with that. I don't have time to be enough on the forum but I will check your reactions and advice whenever I have little time.

Yeah, this sort of thing has already been addressed in the other thread about the FBI. One thing about most of us here is, we are all libertarians, anarcho-capitalists or otherwise advocates of freedom and opponents, if not downright enemies, of the state as an institution, and that includes it's monopoly court system and it's legion of jack-boots otherwise known as "Law Enforcement."

Even putting aside the questionable situation of a group of Libertarians suing for slander on behalf of some unspecified group, it just doesn't seem like there'd be any merit to the lawsuit.

I agree with the idea that suing someone for hate speech might seem like stifling freedom of expression and debate and we have seen how the WOT has produced exactly this in the aftermath of 9-11.
However, in a liberal democracy (I know most of you are anarcho-libertarian which is quite different), and we live in liberal democracies in the US and Canada, differences of opinion on important matters are resolved through dialogue, and spontaneous, as well as non spontaneous (through commissions, investigations, reports, etc...) social interactions leading to a consensus.
We can always engage in a battle of ideas about family, motherhood, youth, emancipation, and so on with people who have rationality and reason, which is not the case at FDR where they seem to be immune to all this. So how can we resolve these differences when they break social consensus, do damage, and leave open wounds and scars in society ?
The difficulty I see here is we cannot engage in a battle of ideas with FDR, and because we cannot do this, or else, we become collectively responsible for the damage that is being done. The problem I see here is a philosophical one and goes beyond the FDR cult which is a threat to some but not to society as a whole. What can we do as individuals in a democratic society when a group of individuals threaten our moral agency by creating an injustice for which they escape accountability ?

Well, we kinda tend to disagree about the liberal democracy being about dialogue part. Ultimately laws are enforced by the threat of imprisonment or worse. And I think the wounds created by the government are significantly, incomparably worse overall (naturally not necessarily per individual) than the wounds caused by Stefan, as big a douchebag he is.

Leaving that aside for the moment, I think social pressure is the way to go. Anybody Googling for Stefan Molyneux will find quite a few sites in which he gets exposed. The MSM are now researching him as well and they could use those online resources as well. Getting the word out is the way to go imo.

I'm so sorry that Stef has shown himself to be such a douchebag as the above comments by Sonia are the kinds of things he was so good at debunking. Sigh.

Sonia, I am not sure that you are any less dangerous than Stef.

Mob rule does not equate with justice. No one can threaten my moral agency. Only I am capable of being immoral or not. And besides, I don't buy my coverage from a discount moral agency, even if they do offer the best price in the hood.

- NonE