living-liberty - Tumblr blog

[living-liberty]

The same way that one who is morally opposed to war can get out of the draft as a conscientious objector: one who is morally opposed to war should be able to get out of paying taxes when our military is at war.

If a conscientious objector doesn't have to fight a war: a conscientious objector shouldn't be forced to pay for a war.

ayoungconservativeblog in response: I feel like these aren't really applicable to each other...Your tax dollars, in particular, may not even go to anything related to war.

living-liberty in resposne to that: So long as there is a war being fought, every dollar I give to the government could potentially be spent on war--and when I give to the government knowing what I give could go to murder, even if I was forced to give I feel guilty for conspiring to kill people.

[living-liberty]

The same way that one who is morally opposed to war can get out of the draft as a conscientious objector: one who is morally opposed to war should be able to get out of paying taxes when our military is at war.

If a conscientious objector doesn't have to fight a war: a conscientious objector shouldn't be forced to pay for a war.

[living-liberty]

In MY opinion, this is what should be done with social security and similar "benefits"

1: The money that has already been taken out of peoples' paychecks should be immediately returned to the individuals who paid it, plus the amount they would have earned on interest had they bought government bonds instead.

2: People should be free to make their own decisions with their money, and thus subject to the consequences of their own decisions. If they want to invest it for retirement, let them. If they don't want to invest it for retirement, don't force them. And if they make poor financial decisions, the freedom of doing with YOUR money what YOU feel best also comes with paying the consequences if you mess up; don't bail them out.

3: Transition programs like disability and Medicaid to a charity based system in which a web site, similar to the Obamacare one but actually functional, connects people to charities in their area. Instead of government subsidies, incentivize charitable contributions. Give incentives to corporations that donate to charities on the site--for example, if they donate a certain large amount then they get free advertisement on government web sites, such as the one that connects the needy to charities and the White House site; if they donate a lesser amount then they get on a publicized list of sponsors; in addition to the free publicity they would get the tax incentives involved with giving to charity. Develop an incentive program for individuals who donate to such charities, too. This will make it so that the bulk of support for the needy comes from meaningful, heartfelt, voluntary contributions rather than thievery at gunpoint/the threat of prison.

[living-liberty]

WOW MUST READ…

KEEP PASSING THIS AROUND UNTIL EVERY ONE HAS HAD THE OPPORTUNITY TO READ IT… THIS IS SURE SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT!!!! THE ONLY THING WRONG WITH THE GOVERNMENT’S CALCULATION OF AVAILABLE SOCIAL SECURITY IS THEY FORGOT TO FIGURE IN THE PEOPLE WHO DIED BEFORE THEY EVER COLLECTED A SOCIAL SECURITY CHECK!!! WHERE DID THAT MONEY GO? Remember, not only did you and I contribute to Social Security, but your employer did, too. It totals 15% of your income before taxes. If you averaged only $30K over your working life, that’s close to $220,500. Read that again! Did you see where the Government paid in one single penny? We are talking about the money you and your employer put in a Government bank to insure you and I that we would have a retirement check from the money we put in, not the Government. Now they are calling the money we put in an ENTITLEMENT when we reach the age to take it back. If you calculate the future invested value of $4,500 per year (yours & your employer’s contribution) at a simple 5% interest (less than what the Government pays on the money that it borrows), after 49 years of working you’d have $892,919.98. If you took out only 3% per year, you’d receive $26,787.60 per year and it would last better than 30 years (until you’re 95 if you retire at age 65) and that’s with no interest paid on that final amount on deposit! If you bought an annuity and it paid 4% per year, you’d have a lifetime income of $2,976.40 per month. If you have a deceased spouses who died in their 50’s — their S.S. money will never have one cent drawn from what they paid into S.S. all their lives over the past 30 years! THE FOLKS IN WASHINGTON HAVE PULLED OFF A BIGGER PONZI SCHEME THAN BERNIE MADOFF EVER DID. Entitlement my foot, I paid cash for my social security insurance! Just because they borrowed the money for other government spending, doesn’t make my benefits some kind of charity or handout!! Remember Congressional benefits? —- free healthcare, outrageous retirement packages, 67 paid holidays, three weeks paid vacation, unlimited paid sick days. Now that’s welfare!!! And they have the nerve to call my social security retirement payments entitlements?!? We’re “broke” and we can’t help our own Seniors, Veterans, Orphans, or Homeless. Yet in the last few months we have provided aid to Haiti, Chile and Turkey. And now Pakistan……home of bin Laden. Literally, BILLIONS… if not TRILLIONS of DOLLARS are unaccounted for!!! They call Social Security and Medicare an entitlement even though most of us have been paying for it all our working lives, and now, when it’s time for us to collect, the government is running out of money. Why did the government borrow from it in the first place? It was supposed to be in a locked box, not part of the general fund. Sad isn’t it. 99% of people won’t have the guts to forward this. I’m in the 1% — I just did. and that’s why is so important to reach YOUR OWN financial freedom!! TAKE CHARGE OF YOUR FINANCIAL FREEDOM HERE: http://nomore925ever.com/

[living-liberty]

[living-liberty]

you are human before you are any label

exactly

Obviously killing Shiites is bad, but Shiism hijacked Islam. What do you say we do about that?

Salaam,

Please remember that you are human before you are any label and that you kneel before Allah swt before you stand above anyone else.

With all due respect, I would appreciate it if messages like these were not sent to me.

Insha Allah khair

[living-liberty]

Yes: I am opposed to Russia's anti-gay policies.

However: I am also opposed to my own country's policies of quieting the truth by intimidating potential whistleblowers.

This includes: Opposition to the way my own country treated Edward Snowden when he made sure the world knew how wrong our leaders have gone with surveillance.

And: I thank Russia, and Putin, for taking in Snowden for the past year to save him from the wrath of an overzealous Obama.

In conclusion: Russia's leaders are far from perfect, but so are our own--and don't let the Winter Olympics prompt you to forget the error in our own leaders' ways.

[living-liberty]

Admittedly inspired by Canadian cities, I have modified the usual Rebel Alliance/U.S. hybrid flag of my icon to be a Rebel Alliance/Pro-Gay-Rights flag in protest of Russia's anti-gay policies.

[living-liberty]

Canadian cities are flying Pride flags outside their city hall buildings for the duration of the Olympics in protest of Russia’s anti-gay policies.

From top to bottom: Ottawa, Edmonton, Toronto, Montreal, Calgary, Quebec City.

(Vancouver and St. John’s are also flying them but I couldn’t find good photos)

[living-liberty]

[living-liberty]

LOVE WILL ALWAYS WIN

[living-liberty]

Obamacare:

Enroll!  Because your employer has dropped you to 29 hours a week and stopped offering you a decent insurance plan so they could avoid being hurt by Obamacare mandates, and now for only about 5% of your income you can have a plan that will leave you with only 30% copays--so just make sure you do not actually need hospital care or you'll still be paying far more than you can afford!

Deregulation.  Permitting hospitals to choose what doctors are qualified to work for them instead of mandating an expensive licensing/testng program that only makes money for the corporate friends of politicians.  Shortening the length of time pharmaceutical patents permit medication monopolies so that less expensive generic drugs can get on the market sooner.  Permitting insurance companies to compete over state lines.  Establish a system where doctors and patients sign an agreement that if a mistake is made the patient cannot sue for over a certain amount, thus lowering the cost of malpractice insurance and therefore the cost of healthcare.  Permit consumers to choose what their health care plan will and will not cover and thus how much they'll have to pay to be covered, instead of mandating all plans cover virtually everything.  These are all true ways to lower healthcare costs.  Obamacare is not.

Find a Local Insurance Agent at Policy Online Agent Network http://bit.ly/AgentNetwork

[living-liberty]

haven't you ever heard of a sperm bank?

imagine if you got paid to masturbate 

[living-liberty]

It seems the artists these days are not who you think.

Panic! at the Disco in their song The Only Difference Between Martyrdom and Suicide is Press Coverage

It's off of the album A Fever You Can't Sweat Out, before they became so much worse than they once were and became an artist that wasn't who I thought they were.  I realized that after listening to the first three songs of their latest album yesterday and thinking "what is this crap?"

[living-liberty]

Neither have I.

I just want Tumblr to know that I have never, not once, wanted to reblog a text post as a link.

[living-liberty]

"a special robotic spacecraft captures a suitable asteroid with a space lasso and puts it in a stable orbit around the moon."

All I can picture is Bender from Futurama tossing a lasso at an asteroid....

Asteroids Should Be Colonized Or Used As Transport To Planets, Russian Scientists Say

The potential colonization of asteroids is one of the most promising areas of space exploration - even more so than mining them for resources, Russian scientists say. The creation of closed-cycle ecosystems could possibly turn asteroids into space bases.

Asteroids are often easier to access because they sometimes pass very close to Earth. In fact, they are typically easier to reach than the moon, said Sergey Antonenko, head of the Khrunichev State Space Research and Production Center.

“About 10,000 asteroids are circling around the earth and the asteroid belt consists of approximately 2 million bodies. Their total size is three times larger than that of the earth,” Antonenko said at a space technology forum on Thursday, adding that it would be much better to develop the asteroids’ interiors rather than mine them for mineral resources.

His view is shared by Andrey Degermendzhi, director of the Biophysics Institute of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, who believes that an asteroid’s rotation could generate gravity and that closed-cycle ecosystems may be created inside the small celestial bodies.

He says such closed system technologies could be tested on Earth first. Degermendzhi also believes that asteroids could be used as a method of transport.

“Asteroids that have elliptical orbits fly to Jupiter and Mars and may be used as a new means of transportation or base,” he added.

NASA has plans to put humans on an asteroid as early as 2021. This goal is expected to be achieved with the help of a new heavy lift rocket, which is currently being developed. The blue print is called the Space Launch System and it is hoped to be operational after a special robotic spacecraft captures a suitable asteroid with a space lasso and puts it in a stable orbit around the moon.

NASA has acknowledged that any mission to put astronauts on an asteroid will be fraught with challenges and risks.

Asteroid mining is also an attractive idea for some private enterprises. Planetary Resources, a US based company, announced last year that it aims to develop a robotic asteroid mining industry. Another US-based firm, Deep Space Industries, said in January this year that they also hope to start a private development of asteroid mineral riches and manufacture products in space.

Source: RT

Related article: Asteroids Could Be Used As Transport To Deep Space

[living-liberty]

If tumblr has taught me anything, it’s that the vast majority of people really, really dislike critical thinking.