I guess there's a few things i want you to know about me. I'm not an esteemed economist like Robert Higgs, an eloquent logician like Larkin Rose not am i as well spoken as Sterlin Luxan. I'm just a regular guy wanting to live in peace and be free.
Also, and i think this will be clear once anyone reads this, I'm not much of a writer. So if you've gotten this far i thank you for taking some time from your life to muscle your way through my stumbling prose.
Ok, so I'm almost 39. I grew up in the south raised by evangelical Christians and rock ribbed Republicans. My family goes to church every Sunday and votes republican no matter what. Also they're racist; something i didn't discover until i was about 12.
I've always been skeptical my whole life. I was kicked out of vacation bible school for asking too many questions which made me "difficult". I had difficulty with authority according to my teachers. I was suspended in the 10th grade for refusing to say the pledge of allegiance. I loved punk music although i wasn't mature enough to embrace the ideals being gifted in the music.
Eventually i joined the army to become a man. I was a terrible soldier. I hated military regulations and procedures. I balked tradition. I fought with my peers.
Eventually i just left and was allowed to do so.
Towards the end of my military career i began using and smuggling drugs (weed mostly). Maybe later I'll get into the specifics but eventually i became a full blown heroin and crack addict.
During the early years of my 20s i decided i hated Republicans. I was an atheist. My family couldn't stand me. I despised racism and was very vocal about it. So i decided i was a liberal.
I did some jail time. In and out. All due to drugs until the very end when i embezzled money from my parents company. I hated the state but i still "loved my country". I lived in a constant state of cognitive dissonance.
I protested the Iraq war and was even gassed, tazered,and beaten by the police. I figured this was the result of republican policies. I would vote to change it!
But then they took my right to vote because i was a felon.
I was married twice and divorced twice. Maybe I'll talk about it sometime.
I discovered Ron Paul. He made sense. I read all his books. I searched out his writings and watched YouTube videos. I thought some of the things he said was "crazy" but i still admired him. But it was tough leaving my liberal/ leftist/ statist programming. I was a proud Obama supporter! In my mind we needed government to protect us and provide for us. I was confused.
Obama. What can i say? I was completely enamored. Then he continued the policies of the bush administration. And while he ramped up the drone program, passed draconian ndaa provisions, and cozied up to lobbyists i was alarmed. And other liberals were falling all over themselves to excuse him. It was sickening. I couldn't stand the hypocrisy.
So, Ron Paul was making more sense. No hypocrisy. Authentic. I began to question everything i believed. During this time i became acutely aware of police brutality. A friend told me about "voluntaryism" and i was instantly hooked. I never even had the obligatory libertarian/ minarchy phase.
It's tough to explain to my friends. They think I'm a radical. That I'm crazy. That what i believe is best for the rights of the individual is dangerous and unworkable.
But it's changed me for the better. I'm completely off of drugs. I've been married for 5years and have 3 kids. I'm a small business owner. And I'm peaceful.
It's funny. Before i became an anarchist i was a hot head and would fight at the drop of a hat. Now i don't believe in fighting unless necessary for self defense. I believed children should be spanked but now i believe they need love and reason. So anarchy, something i one associated with chaos, violence, and lawlessness, is actually the thing that made me polite, thoughtful, and ordered.