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Individual liberty is *one* factor in the creation of a nation. If it was the only factor, there would be no nation in the first place. You determine which individual liberties you violate by measuring how they allow for the exercise of freedom by others. The simple example is laws against murder. Your individual liberty to kill who you want infringes on the victim's right to life as they see fit (or at all). We, as a society, decided that police are the mechanism for enforcing laws, and that requires money, which requires taxation. Your freedom to not pay taxes is infringed because the police must exist to enforce your many other freedoms. Obviously there are plenty of laws and regulations that fail this balancing test, but that does not nullify the concept. "Taxation is theft" is some truly Simple Jack political reasoning. Once again, name a single functional society in all of human existence that persisted without conscription or taxation. Until then it's no more a valid political construct than communism. Atlas Shrugged was a fictional love story, not a handbook for running a nation.

Dude… vote. That’s your voice, and after that deal with the results. The second people scream dumb mottos like “taxation is theft” my immediate question is do you expect the fire department to show up if you call 911, or an ambulance to come when your kid gets hit by a car riding his bike? Do you like knowing your tap water isn’t full of some heavy metal chemical because an agency is insuring people aren’t violating the law? If you want these things, there is a social cost associated with an understood social contract. Part of that societal contract waaaaaaay down in the fine print is the understanding that we will abandon the status quo to defend it. Maybe that’s with massive reapplication of resources and industry, or maybe that’s with bodies whether they are direct combatants or they are (more likely) the immediately deputized post conflict population the maintain some semblance of order and protection while we get society back on its feet. That’s really where the plan for conscription is. We could be more “free” without those things… there are plenty of countries attempting that method of freedom. Nobody comfortable in the US would probably want the trade offs that come with it. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

When I was in my angsty libertarian phase, God blessed me with the funniest shit ever. Libertarians manifest destinied a town in New Hampshire and put their full jihad into effect and soon bears invaded the town and took over as everything fell apart in a couple weeks. So funny. https://newrepublic.com/article/159662/libertarian-walks-into-bear-book-review-free-town-project

No, but I'm still trying to find parts to turn my existing Form 1 guns into this. Looks like the perfect truck gun.

Don't make the mistake in thinking libertarianism is a single coherent political ideology. It isn't. I mean there are people who claim that mantel while being anarcho-commies. I'm not even sure how that makes sense, but whatever. In any event, I am not arguing for anything in particular here at all. I'm simply saying a violation of individual liberty is exactly that. Other people's desires means nothing in that context. If you want to make the argument that good outcomes determine the morality of acts, have fun. I very much disagree, lots of death and suffering throughout history is down the consequentialist path.

As I said, there are simply realities of being human. One of them is that you are stuck on a giant ball full of other people. You have to be born to people who you have no control over their beliefs or ideologies. Just like your children will be. It is impossible to exist in a society that does not place obligations on you, because the very existence of that society required obligations of others. Libertarianism is arguing for something that cannot exist. Also, taxation is not theft. Taxation is taxation. It's just another thing that you don't have to do. Don't work, there is absolutely no forcing function for work, and you can live your whole life without paying any taxes. Of course if you want any of the luxuries provided for in a modern society, especially one that is heavily capitalist (as the libertarians so dearly love), then you have to make some sacrifices to get what you want, because you expect to get those things from other people. Those other people have formed a society that has things like taxation and conscription. Like Lawman, just vote. The libertarians have quite consistently gotten dog shit results in every election, which means people simply don't agree with them. But those majorities are supposed to adapt to the desires of the libertarians? There is a lot of very good foundational theory in libertarianism. But when you get to the practical level it's almost always a bunch of well-off intelligent people with limited experience dealing with the weakest/dumbest/most psychotic in our population. The libertarian stance on drug policy is a perfect example.

Most libertarians I've met and interacted with are weirdos who have one or more things they like or want to do that are either illegal or highly regulated (for completely legitimate reasons) and wish those barriers didn't exist. Turns out if libertarians as a group had their way it would just mostly be anarchy.

With how many total flying hours in your logbook were you doing this? That’s the unbelievable part of this, this is not about phoning in training for studs who have 500 CFI hours and 1000+ corporate or regional now going thru a military flying course, I’ll bet the average stud has about 100 something T-6 hours plus maybe 50 ASEL hours… how the ever loving hell do we not see a huge risk? Keep fighting the good fight and debating on BO but this is crazy, ask yourself USAF, how many other militaries around the world are doing this with their multi engine pilot training? None. So why are you the outlier USAF? Contract on the multi basic part, teach in house the mil specific items and contract the cherry on top modern transport category training and experience.

Shack. I am philosophically sympathetic and enjoy libertarian discussions as a thought experiment or conversation starter; however as a movement they’ve proven incapable of operationalizing anything. They can’t compromise, can’t organize, and will unfortunately remain politically irrelevant.

Winging from the T-6, SIM only for multi engine and then put into a real Heavy unit flying military missions. There's a big difference between flying a T-6 and a multi-engine jet that weighs over 250,000 lbs.

Services? When I was in the LPA (simpler times, man I miss it) we funded our own burgers and condiments. Good quality meat, even added bacon. We were always ahead of budget so it was an every Friday thing. Screw Services!

No they don't. You are conflating politics with the citizenship. Abortion is another example where "we the people" sit in the sane middle between two insane political positions. Your average Democrat didn't vote for Biden because they believe in giving puberty blockers to children. I await your example of a single society that was formed and survived through the ideals you are currently promoting. I used to think I was a Libertarian until I realized it's the same as a Progressive at the functional level. Ideologies that require a history they abhor to create a safe society that allows them to hold impractical absolutist ideals.

Divest the T-1 sim, save money and just go get them a multi eng civ course plus training The Navy and by extension the USMC & USCG are still giving their guys real flight time, the Army ditto, we should be able to do the same with our 215 billion appropriation. Civ multi engine course, military multi engine course air mobility training & planning then a type course in a transport category aircraft contracted out. Put the multi engine mil course at a base / state where the CODEL will be highly motivated to preserve this mission while affording a training opportunities for what the future likely entails for Air Mobility in the future (austere unprepared locations; threat assessment, mitigation and resilience; working with unmanned assets, EMCON conscious ops and planning, adhoc and dynamic planning, etc…) That’s a lotta shit to get done but as the pointy nose community is kinda merging or wants to sorta merge phase 3 with IFF training the multi crew community needs to do the same. Not merely to produce a better graduate but to change the culture of the MAF and multi crew communities (maybe not AFSOC)

A hundred years ago today, at 8:30pm on 18 June 1924, McCook Field chief test pilot John Macready departed Dayton, heading for Columbus, in a 2-seat biplane to test out nighttime navigation beacons. On the return around 10:15pm, his engine died as he was nearing Dayton. Luckily for him, he had turned down his wife’s request to join him on the flight, a privilege pilots were only recently afforded. The darkness prevented him from finding a safe emergency landing spot, leaving little choice but to “hit the silk.” Fortunately, the engineers at McCook had developed the Air Service’s first standardized parachutes and its commander mandated that every pilot wear one. His colleague Harold Harris had become the first “save” of those the previous fall. Macready bailed out, landed in some trees, and became the latest member of the “Caterpillar Club.” He lived to continue his distinguished career, which had already included being the first to fly cross-country non-stop in 1923 (Macready shown here before that flight), taking 26 hours.

So now it’s blood AND/OR treasure now. But nobody ever wants to talk about time. I think in our lack of a LSCO in recent times we’ve forgiven that those wars are thought of in spans of years. Iraq was an anomaly. What were general staffs doing in April-July of 1945… figuring out what they wanted to do in 1946, because there was never an assumption the end of a conflict was just around the bend. For less than 10% of the annual DOD budget because 811 billion per year is 80 billion annually in a 2.5 year of which ~60% of it went directly into building out our own stateside infrastructure and purchasing new stocks in exchange for old DRMO ones necessary to conduct LSCO in the evidence of expansionist policies from both our major opponents… we managed to: -Contribute to Russia losing something along the lines of 20% of its tactical Air power… -Destroy 60-70% of its Gen III+ MBTs and later armored vehicles (4th guards was training with T62s last summer)… -Neutralize every warship that would able to contest us or influence NATO territory with Calibr from the Black Sea or Baltic since that’s who they largely augmented with… -field test a butt load of emergent tech and methods rather than learn them the hard way… At the rate we are going between attrition in this war and NATO members moving to develop a real military across the continent we won’t need a 2 theatre military, because Russia won’t have one left to field offensively. This is the lowest return on investment in the history of our military spending. And in the meantime we demonstrate to the Chinese who are watching “no you can’t just invade and hold while we lose our attention span on your annexation of a neighbor.” Yeah that’s a win worth far more than maybe a dozen more B21s 6 years from now provided somebody doesn’t reappropriate that money for other things because we forget great powers type war is still a real thing out there like we did through the 90s and early 00s. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I'm definitely not debating his guilt on whether he was doing what the ATF said he was doing but.... They purposely waited until he was home to execute a search warrant. Not an arrest warrant. They no knocked and kicked in the guys door at 0600. They knew what was going to happen. You awaken to someone kicking in your front door at 0600, what is your response?

He's lucky to have such supportive fathers!

I just watched one of my sons graduate USN bootcamp. He shot expert! He's off to Coronado for SWCC training. The navy did a good job with the graduation. All of the people in attendance were super stoked that their loved ones were now sailors. All walks of life were present. Very cool seeing all different types of Americans being happy together and serving this great nation.

Aircrew and missile crews coming down with all kinds of nasty cancers