Yes, it's true, and I'm ashamed to admit it. But at the time, I didn't realize what I really was.
I grew up thinking that voting Republican was the right thing to do, and that it would solve all of our country's problems. How it would solve our problems wasn't really clear to me, but that's what I believed.
Eventually, I became more aware of the issues that defined being a good Republican. I believed in low taxes, small government, and kicking ass with our military. I believed in the conservative dream of being able to impose my moral beliefs on the rest of the population. Yes, I believed that being a Republican was good.
I then learned that some Republicans weren't really so Republican, but that we still had to vote for them if it came down to voting for either them or the Democrats. After voting for G. W. Bush twice, I learned a hard lesson about that.
After a very disappointing stint as a county GOP precinct chairman, a district chairman with the Republican Liberty Caucus, and as a Tea Party Leader, I finally learned what Albert Jay Nock warned us about 80 years ago. That is, that once a citizenry loses its liberty, it's impossible to regain it via the normal political process. I now understand that the real answer to regaining liberty is for the populace to practice massive non-compliance with state dictates. A few Irwin Schiffs, and few Bundys, and a few Hammonds will just get abducted by The State and left to rot in prison. And currently, the populace is so distracted by a completely meaningless election that they don't take notice of our political prisoners.
But just imagine what could happen if the entire populace were to rise up and yell, "We're not going to take it anymore!" Wouldn't that be a beautiful site?