I think the flaw here is assuming that a father's only value is financial. Creating a bunch of single mommies with privatized child support downplays the developmental & psychological benefits of having a present father figure in your child's life.

Moxie is an acquired taste, and you aren't a *true* New Englander (Massachusetts obviously doesn't count) until you've passed the initiation ritual of acquiring it.

No, it’s not “billionaires.” It’s because Maine is a small-state economy with big-state bureaucracy. Aren’t you a fisherman? You should know better than anyone how this works. The fishing industry has been buried under licensing requirements, reporting rules, gear mandates, federal whale regulations, seasonal restrictions, fuel costs, bait costs, insurance costs, and compliance costs, all while the same political class tells working Mainers they’re "fighting for them." They blame billionaires in the abstract while protecting the exact bureaucratic and regulatory system that created the problems in the first place, making it harder for smaller operators to stay alive. If you actually cared about working Mainers, you'd stop defending the machine that makes their lives impossible while simultaneously acting shocked when only the rich can afford to navigate it.

There's no greater joy than being a father and husband (especially to this absolute dime). This house is so full of love than I ever thought was possible... and I've never experienced anything like it.

John Doyle says "everything is downstream from immigration." No. Everything is downstream from economic and monetary policy, and those bills he accuses Thomas Massie of voting against on immigration were larger packages with broad fiscal consequences, including deficit expansion. Immigration might change the speed or shape of certain pressures, but without fixing the underlying economic issues in this country, you're not actually addressing the root problem. If the currency continually loses purchasing power, if deficit spending keeps expanding, if housing and asset prices are inflated by monetary policy, if political incentives continue to reward debt over productivity, those pressures will not just disappear because you stop letting in immigrants.

Citizens United v. FEC & Speechnow v. FEC are a huge part of the problem when it comes to politics in the US, but no one is ready for that conversation. Money is NOT speech, it's a resource. I think libertarians have historically been wrong on this issue, and this is one of the few times I have disagreed with Ron Paul. The birth of the Super PAC was one of the worst things to happen to modern political incentives. It’s a mechanism of political capture that encourages rent-seeking and turns elections into proxy wars between donor networks. This only fuels socialist thinking because when people see that political weight increasingly depends on whoever has the most financial resources, they start to believe the system is rigged against them. And on this issue, they’re not wrong. When wealthy donors can contribute unlimited sums of money to a politican in a state they don't even LIVE in, who is the politician REALLY representing? Not their constituents. This is political coercion. This is cronyism. And until conservatives and libertarians get their heads out of their asses on this particular issue, we will keep watching politics in this country become more and more corrupt.

Democrat and Republican is a false dichotomy. Assuming either label consistently represents a fixed set of principles or beliefs at this point is foolish. They’re largely just the only viable vehicles people can use to gain influence and win elections. Do your research and vote for whichever candidates are best on net. (ideally that's whoever is best on economic freedom and monetary policy.. but ya know I'm a bit biased.)

Me watching the live @RepThomasMassie election results rn:

I’ll let you guys keep arguing about dress code policies for the rest of the day, but while I have your attention, I am spending today participating in a 5K fundraiser benefiting the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. The event raised nearly $100,000 so far today for CF research, treatment, and support for families dealing with this lifelong and debilitating disease. If you’d like to learn more about cystic fibrosis or make a donation, check out the website linked in the comments below.

So how does that translate to sex workers? Are their bodies collectively owned by the state? If the state or "collective" owns the "means of production," and your body is the ultimate means of production for your service, then the state or "collective" claims ownership over your person. If I own my body, I have the right to lease its services privately. If I'm forbidden from doing so, it implies the state owns me as a public utility. Is self-employment allowed in your socialist society? If a person runs a private service without employees, do they still own the fruits of their labor? If they do, how is that an "abolition of private property"? If they don't, how are you not just promoting state-sanctioned slavery?

It's because they don't respect women as a whole (clearly.) It stems from a refusal to acknowledge the personhood of women. If you have zero respect for someone, nothing they do is going to be good enough. It's always going to be framed as lazy, wrong, selfish, incompetent, or manipulative. If you meets one standard, they will simply move the goalpost or find new flaws to focus on. Damned if you do, damned if you don't, so you might as well just ignore them, do what's best for YOU and YOUR family because some yapping podcast bro isn't going to be the one paying your bills or raising your kids.

I always disliked my last name and never thought I’d struggle with changing it, but my dad died in 2020 and now the thought of changing it makes me want to cry. It feels like this piece of him that I carry as part of my identity. I probably wouldn't think twice about it though if he was still alive. Might eventually hyphenate but it's definitely a decision that weighs on me which might seem dramatic I guess idk?