Do you remember the first time you thought about liberty, and an example of how it was being infringed upon?
For example, I remember being about 10 and noticing cuss words were censored on a raunchy cartoon on Comedy Central. I didn't get it; if it offended you, change the channel.
Maybe some of you had more serious reasons to think about liberty -- seeing a war play out, experiencing the end of an inflationary boom, etc. Or maybe it was something more simple, like you heard Ron Paul in a debate.
If you consider yourself more radical, what was it that got you there?
I clicked on a Ron Paul video. My life changed forever that day.
What was that video?
I know the most romantic answer is one in which he was discussing foreign policy, but the first one I saw was about Don't Ask Don't Tell. You?
You know, it's been so long ago that I honestly don't remember. I think though, that it wasn't necessarily the video that grabbed my attention. It was reading some of the comments about his anti-war stance that prompted me to look up more videos from the guy and hear it from his own mouth. After a while, I realized that he was the guy who I was looking for. My Parents and I have always talked about how crime would go down if we just legalized drugs, but we always seem to have dismissed it as being something too out of reach for American politics, and so we just went on bowing down to the government. Seeing the corruption geared towards shattering the Paul campaign made me wake up and made my parents wake up. I started doing all of the research that I could on this thing called "libertarianism" which Dr. Paul was a proponant of, which I had no clue of back then.
Reading anatomy of the state.
“Since people are concerned that ‘X’ will not be provided, ‘X’ will naturally be provided by those who are concerned by its absence.""The sweetest of minds can harbor the harshest of men.”
http://voluntaryistreader.wordpress.org
I literally don't remember, going to back to early childhood memories. But the concept of live and let live seems to be coded in my DNA.
More recently, it was:
Loose Change > 911 truth > Alex Jones > Ron Paul > Mises.org
I've been thinking about starting a similar thread wondering about the evolution of everyones political ideas, but thinking specifically about this one I remembered something else that long before I thought about politics at all, may have pushed me towards libertarianism.
Early in my life I think my Mom did more for me than most parents, I had a pretty damn good early upbringing. However starting when I was 13-14 she turned into a major binge alcoholic, when she was on a binge she wouldn't want me around, and she had me thrown in Juvi a couple times (once, I shit you not, for eating all the food in the house). I learned when she was on a binge to find somewhere else to stay and to hide from the cops. I always thought it was screwed up that just because she didn't want me around that meant I had to go to jail.
Truthfully I was violating peoples rights, when I couldnt stay with friends I found a couple abandoned rooms in apartment buildings to live in, but the police weren't after me for trespassing. The cops figured out pretty quickly what was going on and that when she sobered up it would pass. At a bowling alley my friends all used to hang at the cops would tell my friends to warn me to get out if I was there cuz they'd have to take me in if they saw me.
I was a complete idiot about political issues (and most things) till my mid 20's. I started thinking idealistically about politics when I was about 21. I believed in capitalism, and in people reaping the benefits and consequences of their actions, but I believed inheritance should go back to society, till I realised that meant that gifts would have to be illegal. Then I turned republican and listened to a lot of Limbaugh, till I got a pamphlet about Libertarianism from a booth at Lolapaloosa. I didn't start getting deeply into politics until a girl I used to hit on a a club brought me a copy of Ayn Rand's Anthem
RagnarD:a girl I used to hit on a a club brought me a copy of Ayn Rand's Anthem
We need a few clubs like this in my town.
Authority figures in my life sucked. I'm not quite sure what had the biggest impact on me though. Being forced to go to school was what really made me hate the current legal system. I was constantly bullied at school, to the point of almost committing suicide, yet I was still forced to go. Eventually I just stopped caring about the law, skipped school until my mother got me sent to juvie. What really topped things off is how she would always say, "I'm not going to jail because you refuse to go to school!", making the system responsible for my mother betraying me.