Heart Check

Me: "Mmmmm, those look tasty...."

Her: "The burgers or the waitresses?"

Me: "Yes!"

This past summer, I did quite a bit of traveling, visiting friends and family and couch surfing in several States on the West Coast of USA Inc. What I observed in various places troubled me. But it wasn't all visions of apocalypse.

On one of those trips, I finally paid a visit to an establishment I saw featured on the Tell-A-Vision a couple of years ago - The Heart Attack Grill. Love that place. It is the only burger joint for which I've eaten at in the past 4 years or so. It was quite the entertaining dining experience, and one for which I enjoyed completely.

As I'm the guy well known for doling out the dietary advice (when asked), and for being strict in abstaining from so many foods (FEED), the group I was with was shocked at my enthusiasm for the whole experience.

"Wait, isn't this the guy telling all of us we should quit eating at McDonalds, Burger King and Jack in the Box?"

Yup, that would be me. But this place? I love the entire theme. It essentially sticks the middle finger at the conventional wisdom of the modern health and medial fields entire set of dietary guidelines THEY would have us all follow.

PRAISE THE LARD!

Freedom fries, deep fried in lard, like they typically used to be before the federally subsidized, Big Ag's round up ready vegetable and grain oils became ubiquitous? YESSSS!

A quadruple bypass burger stacked with 4 1/4 lbs. patties of beef, tomatoes, onions, bacon, and cheddar cheese? Oh yeeeeaaaah baby!!

Heart Attack? Not from the food...

I broke the whole mound apart and ate everything except for the bun, Atkins-diet style (not because I wanted to eat low carb, but rather because I know that most commercially baked hamburger bun products are made with white flour and hydrogenated vegetable oils -- aka margarine).

Unless the lard used to make the french fries was hydrogenated, I am almost certain that the hamburger bun was probably the only truly unhealthy component of the whole meal.

I even finished it all off with a WHOLE FAT chocolate milkshake with a chunk of butter thrown on top for good measure. Hey, if I'm going to "cheat" on my normally strict diet standards, I'm going all in!

It was the most memorable restaurant meal of my summer, that's for sure.

At this point, you may be asking yourself, "So what is the point of this blog post?"

A dining review for The Heart Attack Grill?

Or is it simply an opportunity to gratuitously post pictures of the hawt H.A.G. waitresses (Look! An antonym-acronym!)  serving up the goods?

Yes.

Of course, those are not the only reasons.

Ever since that meal in that fine, MAndrosphere-appropriate themed restaurant several months ago, the idea for this blog post has been resting in the back of my mind, waiting for the right inspiration to bring it forth.

Sadly, the impetus for that one was the recent news I received of an acquaintance who passed away of a heart attack at the age of 31. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?!?!?

This person I met several times (a friend of a friend) was a victim. A victim of lies, propaganda and misinformation, that resulted in literally eating to death. As Author Michael Crichton once lamented, "We believe what were told. My father suffered a life filled with margarine, before he died of a heart attack anyway."

Go ask Googliath about the Heart Attack Grill. Big Brother G will show you a list of links reporting on instances where obese, malnourished Wal-Martians died of heart attacks while eating there. Which is it? Correlation? Causation? Take your pick.

Fact is, a very sick, obese person with clogged arteries and struggling with hypertension and diabetes is susceptible to suffering a heart attack within an hour or two of overeating a heavy meal.

Of course, the mainstream media reporting on the Heart Attack Grill stories, all take the slant that the meal itself killed 'em right on the spot! It really IS a HEART ATTACK causing restaurant!

Correlation or Causation?

Yes.

Ok, the joke is getting old. All apologies. When I first said it while we were waiting to be seated at the H.A.G., it made my entire group laugh uproariously. Such moments of social triumph are too good to let go so easily....


What I tried to explain to them all after we were seated was that I believed if the H.A.G. made some slight modifications to their menu, such as gluten-free hamburger buns made with butter or some other healthy source of fat, used 100% grass-fed/free range beef for their burgers, and got the lard for their fries from free range pigs, it would actually be a Paleo-styled Health food restaurant!

Of course, this didn't really register with them. They had a hard time comprehending my previous announcement that lard fries are actually good for you. At that point, I think I triggered the cognitive dissonance effect in their minds, interrupting their regularly scheduled programming, causing a processor shut down. Ah well. The meal was still enjoyed by all. They just all thought they were eating really unhealthy, while I was relishing every last gloriously greasy, healthy bite!

Anyways, back to the oh so serious topic at hand.

The entire raison d'etre of the H.A.G. is to flaunt the dietary health and nutrition recommendations of the establishment. It's the literal manifestation of some of the more intense Western allopathic medicine detractors: Go to the Doctor's, listen to their recommendations, than go home and do the exact opposite.

That's not to far off from the truth.



So what's supposedly so bad about the Heart Attack Grill? All the cholesterol and saturated fats can lead to heart disease, right? Lets see what the establishment's foremost authority on heart health, the American Heart Association has to say about fats and how they relate to your heart health:

The "bad” fats are saturated and trans fats.

Saturated:  Saturated fats occur naturally in many foods.  The majority we eat come mainly from animal sources, meat and dairy (milk fat) such as fatty beef, lamb, pork, poultry with skin, beef fat (tallow), lard and cream, butter, cheese, and other dairy products made from whole or reduced-fat (2%) milk.  These foods also contain cholesterol.  Many baked goods and fried foods can also contain high levels of saturated fats. Some plant foods, such as palm oil, palm kernel oil, and coconut oil, also contain primarily saturated fats, but do not contain cholesterol.

Trans:  Trans fats are found in many foods.  About 20–25 percent come from animal fat and 75–80 percent come from partially hydrogenated fat – especially in commercial baked goods (pastries, biscuits, muffins, cakes, pie crusts, doughnuts and cookies) and fried foods (French fries, fried chicken, breaded chicken nuggets and breaded fish), snack foods (popcorn, crackers), and other foods made with partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, traditional vegetable shortening or stick margarine.  (Soft margarines typically contain very low levels of trans fats.)

Saturated Fats and Trans Fats...the BAD fats. So should we eliminate both from our diets to ensure heart health?

Very small amounts of trans fats occur naturally in some meat and dairy products, so eliminating trans fats to zero is impractical.

Yes, impractical....and unprofitable for Big Ag Feed Products! See, the Big Ag Sheeple Feed Industry (aka Processed Food Industry), needs to have trans fats because they extend shelf life of their products, allowing them to be made in a central processing facility, packaged, shipped and stored all across the globe, with minimal spoilage and loss of unit sales.

So what's to be done? Oh, here we go, since a very small amount of Trans Fats occurs naturally, than we'll allow small amounts of it in the feed supply - whether it's natural or not. After all, Trans fats are trans fats, right? Not so fast.

Most of the trans fats we eat -- by far -- come from partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, produced from liquid oils by industrial processing to create a firmer fat. Others occur naturally in milk products, formed in the rumen (or first stomach) of ruminant animals such as cows, goats, sheep and yaks when they're fed a grass-rich diet.

Several studies of large populations have looked at the link between trans fatty acid intake and risk of developing atherosclerosis, and all have shown that the risk goes up only with the intake of "industrial" trans fatty acids, not the natural ones.

Aha! But since natural trans fats occur in some meat and dairy products, the AHA considers it "impractical" to eliminate Trans fats entirely. Why not just ban artificial trans fats completely? That would lead to too much good health.

Follow the money.

The following 0 grams trans fat products are listed by percentage of saturated fat, from lowest to highest.  Choose the product with lowest saturated fat that works for your menu item.  The American Heart Association recommends limiting saturated fat to less than 7 percent and trans fat to less than 1 percent of total daily calories.

Note the names of the producers of the approved products that are considered "Heart Healthy."

Unilever Food Solutions, ConAgra, Mid-Atlantic Vegetable Company, Ventura Foods, ADM. All produce variations of butter substitutes, recommended by the AHA as "heart healthy, because they're low in saturated fat.

Thanks AHA. Glad you're looking out for the health of all those people who's bottom line depends on selling these poisons to we the sheeple. GFY, I'll stick to my highly saturated fat-rich butter and coconut oil.

Oh, but wait....those are the recommendations for restaurants. What about the average consumer? Why, the AHA gives us a recommended shopping list! Go read it! Look at all those heart healthy whole grains, lean meat products and butter and dairy substitute products! Why, this list contains all the right foods to make sure you adhere to the USDA food pyramid recommendations!

The answer is quite clear. The AHA is nothing more than the snake Big Ag oil and Processed Food Industry marketing department, and steady supplier of heart disease case work for the cardiology industry. Those AHA web pages show the connection between Big Ag food corporations and the establishment health care industry. They are just two arms of the same beast.

The medical and nutritional establishments, agribusinesses and industrial food processors, mainstream media and the Government - all have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo in the current nutritional disaster and state of obesity and ill health. They are all part and parcel to the system of Concentrated Sheeple Feedlot Management. And the last thing THEY want, is for any of us to escape the feedlot.


As J. Stanton over at Gnolls.org concluded a while ago:

Simply by eating a paleo diet, we have made ourselves enemies of the establishment, and will be treated henceforth as dangerous radicals.

This is not a conspiracy theory. By eschewing commodity crops and advocating the consumption of grass-fed meat, pastured eggs, and local produce, we are making several very, very powerful enemies.

The medical and nutritional establishments hate paleo, because we’re exposing the fact that they’ve been wrong for decades and have killed millions of people with their bad advice.

The agribusinesses and industrial food processors hate paleo, because we’re hurting their business by not buying their highly profitable grain- and soy-based products.

The mainstream media hates paleo, because they profit handsomely from advertising those grain- and soy-based products.

The government hates paleo, because they’re the enforcement arm of big agribusinesses, industrial food processors, and mainstream media—and because their subsidy programs create mountains of surplus grain that must be consumed somehow.

Is anyone surprised that a government which spends billions of dollars subsidizing the production of corn, soy, and wheat, would issue nutritional recommendations emphasizing the consumption of corn, soy, and wheat?

So remember sheeple, when you go shopping for your feed, look for the Heart Check Marker on your processed feed packaging! The processed food manufacturers pay donate good money to the AHA for their stamp of approval on their feed products!

And for Heaven's sake, don't eat at a place like the Heart Attack Grill, they use LARD... stick to an establishment that uses a Big Ag produced, AHA approved soybean or canola oil for frying, since those oils have 0 grams trans fat per serving! 

Seriously. Your choice of fats is the most important decision you can make when it comes to your food choices. Your heart health depends on it.

Soluble Synergy

Mmmm...delicious globules of fatty FAT!

I've been studying, experimenting and evolving my attitudes and beliefs about diet for a long, long time now. Low carb this, paleo that, caloric restrictions or going vegan... focusing on the diet and lifestyle proscriptions in total, I believe they all miss the most important aspect of any diet: KNOW YOUR FATS.

Eating as much healthy fats in your diet as you can is the key to your health and well being. Fats lead to satiety, nutrient absorption and most importantly of all, protection.

The healthy fats will make you thrive. They will protect you from the worst effects of other junk food, alcohol consumption and other poisons you may ingest. The healthy fats protect your liver and give your body the best material to work with when it has to manufacture the hormones, neuro-transmitters, and other substances vital for healthy living. More specifically, the healthy fats give you the most overlooked class of nutrients: Fat Soluble Vitamins. Vitamins A, D, and K. And these vitamins work in synergy - in other words the combination of those vitamins are vital for your body to digest protein, absorb minerals and nutrients, build your bones and teeth, and support the good gut flora that is the foundation of your immune system. More specifically these are the fats you should be eating on a regular basis - especially if you're pregnant. 

Bone Marrow and Rendered Ruminant Fat - best if sourced from free range, pastured animals that have access to their natural diet and plenty of sunshine. The best way to get this is to make Bone Broth. There's a reason the old wives tales suggest chicken noodle soup for a cold. That's because before the days of canned soup full of additives and having all the fat removed, chicken noodle soup was made with the boiled carcass of roast chicken. All of the marrow, tendons, skin and cartilage would be rendered into the broth's liquid. The fat globules you see floating on the surface of the broth? That's the MAGIC.

Next time your sick, go buy some soup bones, or a whole chicken (from grass fed/free range animals would be optimal). Boil it with some sea salt and a bit of raw apple cider vinegar. That deliciously fatty broth is a rich source of vitamins and minerals rendered from the boiling of bones. If $$ or availability is really an issue, than forget it, it's better to make it with typical grocery store meat even if they were from a feedlot animal.

The fat, tendons, cartilage and marrow are still great medicine for whatever ails you. I recently caught a mild flu from some friends. They missed work for a whole week, and barley left their house, coughing, running noses, soar throats and fevers for five days straight.

As soon as I felt the symptoms, I went to a local Pho restaurant and ordered up a bowl of Vietnamese bone broth soup, in which they boil the shin bones of cow for over 24 hours to make the soup base. I ate the entire bowl, then ordered one for takeout to eat first thing the next day. My throat was mildly irritated, I had a slight cough, and a very low grade fever. It was completely gone in 24 hours. I truly believe a large part of my immune systems strength and why I was able to shake off the flu so quickly and with minimal effects was the immunity boosting effect of the bone broth's Fat soluble vitamins. 

Your gut bacteria is the engine of your immune system. Bone broth us rich in vitamins, minerals, collagen, can heal damaged guts and boost your immune system.


Butter and Dairy Foods from Grass Fed Ruminants - In most places in the USA, you can find KerryGold Irish butter from Ireland. It cost double what butter from US factory style dairy. It's worth every penny. Use this butter as one of your base cooking oils. It makes everything taste better. Better yet, put that butter on any and all your steamed veggies like broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, asparagus, brussel sprouts, squash, etc. Or sautee your veggies in it. That butter is rich in the fat soluble vitamins AND it also helps your digestive system absorb the nutrients from the foods your eating with it.

Extra Virgin Olive Oil - Speaking of fats helping you absorb vitamins, minerals and nutrients, this is where the idea of salad dressing came from. Except now most salad dressing people eat are commercially made, "low fat" and made with vegetable oil crap and have sweeteners and other garbage in the ingredients. Use Extra Virgin Olive Oil and some good quality vinegar and you're also good to go. Everyone knows EVOO is good for  you....but most don't know that it's very susceptible to heat and you should never really cook with it. At best, add it to your stir fry or dish right at the end of your cooking so it's not heated up too much and for too long.

 Extra Virgin Coconut Oil - Other than rendered bone broth and grass fed cow butter...EVCO is the holy grail of cooking fats. From Coconut Oil for Optimum Health:

Coconut oil is the most saturated of all fats. Saturated fat has three subcategories: short chain, medium chain and long chain. Coconut oil contains approximately 65% medium chain fatty acids (MCFA). Although recognized for its health benefits many centuries ago, it wasn’t until 40 years ago that modern medicine found the source to be MCFA. Remarkably, mother’s milk contains the same healing powers of coconut oil. [5]

The saturated medium chain lipid lauric acid, which comprises more than 50 percent of coconut oil, is the anti-bacterial, anti-viral fatty acid found in mother’s milk. [6] The body converts lauric acid into the fatty acid derivative monolaurin, which is the substance that protects adults as well as infants from viral, bacterial or protozoal infections. This was recognized and reported as early as 1966. [7]

Since the first half of the 19th century, infection has been implicated as a cause of cardiovascular disease (CVD). [8] Researchers have been studying what causes the changes in the arterial wall. Professors Russell Ross and John Glomset formulated a hypothesis in 1973 about what causes CVD, concluding that CVD occurs in response to localized injury to the lining of the artery wall, which has been brought about by a number of things including viruses. [9, 10] The injury, in turn causes inflammation/infection. The plaque that develops is a result of the body trying to heal itself. It has been very well established that pathogens play an integral role in cardiovascular disease.

What is interesting about the role of viruses that have been found to initiate cardiovascular disease is they can be inhibited by the medium chain fatty acids in coconut oil. One could say that consuming coconut oil decreases one’s risk of cardiovascular disease.

And it's not just good for your heart...it's great for your liver, too.



Like Frost over at Freedom Twenty Five, I'm basically become a "paleolithic alcoholic." By eating nutrient dense foods and a lot of healthy saturated fats, I've found that my tolerance for alcohol has skyrocketed.

I HAVE to drink on an empty stomach to experience an alcoholic buzz. Which is precisely why I like to have a couple of high alcohol content, micro-brewed IPA's after a day of fasted exertion (aka my routine of blue collar work without a lunch break).

But increased tolerance is only one aspect of it. The other is this: I cannot remember the last time I had a hangover. Well, I can.....but that was a long time ago. I'm talking over 2 years. No lie. I can easily put down 9 drinks (typically 4-5 beers, 4 drams of whiskey or tequila) in an evening, and then wake up at the crack of dawn and immediately start doing something physically strenuous. No headache. No nausea or queasiness. Zero. As in I feel like I never even had a drink the night before.

I'm a veteran imbiber. I was a binge drinker throughout my entire youth. I've now settled into a routine of 3-4 drinks a night, 4-5 nights a week, with the sole purpose to attain a pleasant, moderate buzz. I never drink for the purpose of getting drunk anymore, but if I'm at a social event and I'm not bothering to keep track of how much I'm drinking, I find it scary at the amount I can drink now without getting absolutely trashed, and even more surprised at the lack of consequences I experience the following day.

Now, don't get me wrong. I've had more than my share of hangovers. I've had hangovers that lasted 3 days. I've said many a prayer at the altar of the porcelain god. But ever since "going paleo" going on 6 years now, I've noticed a great diminishing in the frequency and intensity of my hangovers. Part of that is also probably attributed to the fact that I only drink high quality alcohol - micro-brewed "living" beers, non-blended whiskey, 100% agave tequila's, etc., and I never imbibe sugary mixed drinks...but still, I've gotten hungover from the over consumption of even high quality alcoholic beverages.

But when I began cooking nearly every meal with coconut oil, it seems like I've developed a steel liver.

Thanks to this product, I now cook with coconut oil at almost every single meal.

With the disappearance of my hangovers, I began to suspect that the increase in coconut oil consumption was most likely the factor. So I googled and found some PubMed abstracts that confirmed my suspiscions.

Check out these excerpts from this PubMed abstract:

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to determine the effects of saturated fatty acid (SFA) and unsaturated fatty acid (UFA) diets on ethanol pharmacokinetics.

METHODS: Sprague-Dawley male rats were fed modified AIN76 diets containing 10% coconut oil (SFA) or corn oil (UFA) for 120 days. A single dose (3 g/kg bw) of ethanol (13% solution) was orally administered using a gastric canula on day 30, 90, 105 and 120. Tail vein blood samples were collected at various intervals following ethanol dose and were analyzed for blood-ethanol concentration (BEC).

RESULTS: Compared to the UFA group (corn oil fed), the SFA group (coconut oil fed) exhibited significantly higher BEC, larger area under the curve, longer half-life of ethanol, and lower rates of ethanol elimination.

CONCLUSION: Dietary SFA protects liver from alcohol injury by retarding ethanol metabolism, and carnitine may be involved.

So my increased coconut oil consumption appears to be my alcoholism enabler.

Check out this PubMed Abstract too:

CONCLUSION: A diet enriched in saturated but not unsaturated fatty acids reversed alcoholic liver injury. 

 Coconut oil is the ultimate cooking oil, heart and liver protector and also a great natural skin protector and restorer from potential sun damage to your skin. Do you need anymore reasons to eat more saturated fat?



Here's the summaries of 10 more reasons you should eat plenty of saturated fats from the article I found while googling about coconut oil protecting the liver:

1. They lower Lp(a), a substance in the blood that is said to indicate proneness to heart disease.

2. They protect the liver from alcohol and other toxins like Tylenol (acetaminophen).

3. They ideally constitute at least 50 percent of our cell membranes, which gives our cells integrity.

4. They play a vital role in the health of our bones.

5. They enhance the immune system.

6. They are needed for proper utilization of essential fatty acids, like omega-3.

7. Stearic acid and palmitic acid, both saturated fats, are the preferred energy source of the heart.

8. They help protect us from harmful microorganisms.

9. They will help you lose body fat.

10. They are the best fats to cook with, including repeat frying.

In summation, I'll add an 11th reason: they simply taste better than regular fats that are a part of the industrialized, Standard American Diet. Butter tastes better than margarine. Boiled bone broth tastes better than "low-fat/low-sodium canned broth," and frying in coconut oil tastes a hell of a lot better than the typical rancid crap of most restaurant food fried in soybean, corn, canola or any other "vegetable" oil. 

Another aspect of understanding the benefits of healthy saturated fats is eating as best you can under a limited budget. I've seen many folks complain about the cost of eating pastured, grass fed meats as prohibitive and a reason why they just can't stick with the paleo/primal diet. Don't let perfect be the enemy of the good. If all you can afford is factory farmed meat, you can at least trim the fat and than cook it in some healthy fats to compensate for the nutritional inferiority of the feedlot meat! When my budget gets tight, that's exactly what I do...I buy the discount meat at the grocery store, trim the excess fat off it and then cook it in a combination of butter and coconut oil.

I buy grass fed meat and bones as much as possible. It's just not always possible. But when it comes to food choices at restaurants and eateries and cooking food for my family, the one thing I always pay most attention to is the kind of fats used in preparation. I may occasionally eat something not "paleo," following the 80/20 principle, but even then, when it comes to bad fats, it's more like 99/1 I avoid things like hydrogenated oils.


Once you accept the concept of how important saturated fats are to your diet and health (and how bad most of the unsaturated fats are), you also come to another important realization: yes, you CAN eat food that tastes great and is still good for you.
 

The One On the Right is On the Left

"Well, the one on the right was on the left
And the one in the middle was on the right
And the one on the left was in the middle
And the guy in the rear..." - The Man In Black

Return of Kings writer Tuthmosis, recently published a piece entitled: "Liberals" are not the Enemy.

For the most part, he's right, "Liberals" are not the "enemy." Most are simply the useful idiots of the ENEMY.

Same goes for most "Conservatives."

 Especially when you look at the various examples of dissension that tears apart any discussion all over teh Interwebz in any and every forum, discussion board and comment threads. As soon as the old left vs. right game gets going, minds close and truth gets obscured or marginalized and ignored.

DIVIDED into either Team Jackass or Team Pachyderm & CONQUERED and enslaved in mental confinement as bleating Sheeple.

The answer to all our problems will never be found by voting for neither any particular Jackass nor any particular Pachyderm.

Many people have tried to come up with a description or definition to this fringe sector of teh Interwebz...the MAndrosphere. Many argue that we need to "have a big tent" and strive to attain "mainstream exposure" to "finally have a real impact." We need to recruit Team Jackass members, fans and supporters as much as we need to recruit Team Pachyderm members, fans and supporters to our anti-feminist, anti-cultural misandry banner.

These folks mis-understand just what exactly the MAndrosphere is.

I think Novaseeker said it best in one of Dalrock's comment threads (I paraphrase from memory, I don't remember which thread, and I 'aint bothering to go looking for it...): "The Manosphere is a clearinghouse for TRUTH."

aka "The Red Pill."

Many people who find the MAndrosphere discover the topics covered to be eye opening, paradigm shifting and often times, world-view shattering. For some, it is indeed painful.

But hardest still, is for those who come around these parts, with what they think of as a fully developed political ideology based on choosing a side in our Two Party System. It becomes a part of your self-identity. How you define your personal political beliefs is connected to your sense of your personal morality and how you experience the world around you. It's really, really difficult to see the faults in "your team" and very easy to see the faults in the "other teams" ideologies. But even if you do happen to recognize some faults in "your team" the "other team" is always worse, so there!

This is essentially the basis of Tuthmosis argument. I know it, because I had the same perspective for years, just on the "other side of the aisle."

 That is the very essence of our "Two-Party System of Democracy."

"MY guy might be bad....but he's nowhere near as bad as YOUR guy!"

 I came to these fringes of teh Interwebz as a Team Pachyderm, FOXNews watching, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity listening, WSJ-NRO- reading, Neo-Conned "Conservative."

I had almost zero cognitive dissonance when I first began reading anti-feminist polemics, as anyone with two braincells knows, the Feminist vanguard is overtly "left." But it took me a long time to take step back and question my own beliefs and start to recognize that the years of Right Wing mass media brainwashing I'd consumed for years is just as complicit, just as responsible for the current zeitgeist of our Brave New World Order. I already knew the "left" is overtly feminist when I first found the "Red Pill."

But it took literally years of de-programming my mind to finally understand and recognize how the "right" has it's own significant role in covertly spreading and sustaining the ideology of feminism and the current state of cultural misandry.

I've finally come to the real "RED PILL" of modern Western Politics under Democracy:

MY guy is just as bad as YOUR guy, because THEY are not really OURS.





After reading Tuthmosis peice, I felt tempted to once again gird up the loins and enter the fray over at the article's comment thread and try and help him and all the other Team Donkey supporters to see the error of their ways. I'm a veteran Interwebz flame warrior... with well over 10 years experience in debating, arguing and flaming ideological opponents in a multitude of forums and message boards, over a wide range of websites covering various topics and interests.

I thought about for all of a few seconds, then I shrugged my shoulders, and logged off teh Interwebz and went and did something else instead.

It's part of a new, self-imposed policy I've been trying hard to adhere to - no more debates or flamewars on teh Interwebz.

I've come to that position largely after realizing that half the folks one may try to engage and debate with, may in fact be nothing more than cognitive infiltrators, paid shills and false flaggers. After I did the research to write my post about the existence of these agents of subversion, I resolved to avoid any and all online debates with any "unknown" or non-reputable identities on teh Interwebz.

In other words, I'd still happily debate a "Dalrock" or a "deti" or a "Novaseeker" but NOT get into it with "Anonymous" or "GreatTVShowsForMen." (But I did have to give it kudos for a great pun on everyone's favorite ritalin and adderall junky in the MAndrosphere. lozlzolzozlzol.)

Funny thing, is the more I eschewed anonymous debates, the more I found myself eschewing debates with the likes of even the known entities who may have written something I may disagree with. In the last couple of months I've actually typed then deleted more comments than I've actually submitted at a wide number of MAndrosphere blogs.

Meh. Guess years of reading voluntaryist ideology over at Strike the Root has given me new programming:

Whenever someone who holds a perceptual belief is challenged by a different or opposing view, the result is almost invariably that the affronted person becomes even more resistant to change – regardless of how cogent, rational, or objective the case being made might be. Emotionally, they dig in their heels and will go to almost any length from that point forward to defend their self-constructed system, no matter how much cognitive dissonance they must engage in to rationalize it. Very quickly, we find that the old adage, “The man convinced against his will, holds to his opinion still,” holds true. Debating such individuals – and it must be noted this represents the vast majority of society – is not only for the most part fruitless, but worse, it is actively counterproductive.

There is another reason why I believe it to be undesirable for Voluntaryists to argue our philosophy and debate with the uninitiated or those who stand in active opposition to our beliefs – and this stands outside of the fact that we can tend to make enemies, engender animosities, and escalate blood pressures.

---

When statists debate one another – as they do so often on various TV and radio programs for the benefit of public spectacle, to reinforce the psychological conditioning they have so successfully subjected the mainstream masses to – it is of little moral consequence. Both Left and Right advocate the initiation of force against others to mold the world according to their respective and inherently related social and economic goals. Hence, debating is just one more example of this overall philosophy. To wit, it is indicative of a desire to control. “It upsets me that you don’t think like I do. Thus, I aim to change that no matter what,” is the unspoken intent behind such endeavors.

I no longer have that desire to control others. I just want ya'all to leave me alone to do my own thing, and I'll keep my nose out of your affairs. As long as we don't infringe on each other's rights and basic human dignity, we got no problems.

But both Team Jackass and Team Pachyderm got problems with you and I. They both want to infringe on our rights and basic human dignity. Anytime you pick up the sword to fight against one side or the other, you are by association fighting for one or the other.

Quit being a JackyDerm.

Forget this whole RIGHT vs LEFT, Liberal vs Conservative charade. It's all a game of D&D... Distract & Divide.

Life is precious. It is finite. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to spend however much of it I may have left trying to make my case to those to whom it cannot be made. I have better and more important things to do with my remaining time. I expect you do too, whatever those things might be. Realizing this in itself is another big and indispensable part of being free. Don’t let it pass you by.