Introducing... a Bird
I found out about Steemit like everyone else: I was browsing my favorite libertarian group message and someone, probably @insanityisfree, mentioned something along the lines of "You know you can get paid for blogging on Steemit?". I thought, "Jeremiah, you've really lost your mind now". But then I looked into it.
A little backstory: I was the first feathered, endothermic vertebrate to pass the SAT with a favorable enough score to be admitted to a nationally accredited university. I'm currently studying a double-major of Political Science & Political Theory and American History (with a deep love of Medieval European History), as well as a minor in Communications & Media Studies. I would say I have a ravenous hunger for knowledge in some pretty niche subjects, but before knowing about Steemit I had no reason to take that knowledge anywhere. Hopefully, that changes with every post.
What Kind of Bird Am I?
Funny you should ask! I'm a yellow canary (Crithagra flaviventris).
But that's boring! Let me tell you a little bit about myself.
My writing, and who I am as a bird (my ethics; moral code), is shaped by my beliefs as a libertarian. Now, I know what you're thinking- another libertarian bird? Yes! And I'll have some more information specifically about that lower. I can't promise you I'm very different from any number of other libertarian birds but what I can promise you is interesting content!
I am an essayist. My strongest writing can be done anywhere between 15 and 30 pages. My particular interests? Western history and libertarian political theory. These interests inform almost the entirety of my writing. Sure, I love my baseball and I love my crypto, but I also know my place. I'll leave the crypto to the experts and the baseball to drunken mid-season rants about the Mets. Don't be surprised if those rants make it to this website, though!
From Nest to Now
I wish I had a cool "How I Became a Libertarian" story for you, but I don't. I grew up, as every bird does, watching clips of George Carlin on Youtube and having my mind blown about the stuff he would say about "the establishment". My favorite TV show was Penn & Teller: Bullshit!, and Penn was probably the first libertarian I'd ever heard talk about what it really meant to be libertarian. Regrettably, I totally missed the Ron Paul train. I have vague recollections of Ron Paul's 2012 Campaign, but I was never interested enough in politics to have focused on it anyway.
I really feel like I "woke up" in and around the Summer of 2016. Specifically, I remember watching The Joe Rogan Experience #820 with the now infamous Milo Yiannopoulos and finding myself agreeing with nearly everything Milo was saying. But, it wasn't Milo that "red-pilled" me (as unappealing the phrase the "red-pilled" is), it was Steven Crowder. During that episode of the JRE, Rogan had played a video clip of a guy dressed in a suit with a fake mustache and a bowler hat, reacting to a video of a fiery Nigel Farage giving British Parliament their comeuppance. It was pretty much from "go" that I started following Steven Crowder and his work, and I owe a lot of my intellectual advancement to him. Funny enough, bonding over Steven Crowder is what brought my girlfriend and I together (she is not a bird; my bird parents are not pleased). But that was Act One in my political awakening.
Act Two was Twitter. As much as I hate Twitter, I also deeply love it. Its full of vitriol and anger, and yet it has connected me with such wonderful people and, probably more importantly, ensured that my meme game is on point. I was introduced, or perhaps just reintroduced (considering the sentiment was always there), to the concept of libertarianism when I was followed by Anarchyball. After a few months of back and forth, gaining and losing followers in heart-wrenching fashion, I joined a pretty large group message with some prominent libertarians. Sharing ideas and book recommendations, I took about a year to consume massive amounts of libertarian content. I credit Lysander Spooner's No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority with solidifying my beliefs in voluntaryism. So, in summary, I went from a pretty politically uninterested person to an edgy millennial paleoconservative to whatever the heck I am now. I tend to call myself a libertarian for anyone not familiar with the more complex labels, but I regard myself most closely with being a voluntaryist minarchist (I'm sure for those who know, that alone is probably worth explaining in a good, extensive post).
What Can You Expect?
Now we're getting to the good stuff! I finally have a place to write about all of the useless ideas I have!
My main intention as a Steemian is to publish my writing. This includes both my short-form commentary on contemporary events and happenings in the world of politics, libertarian or otherwise, and my long-form essays on subjects of deeper interest (particularly historical analyses and case studies from which we can glean information and lessons as libertarians). I'd hopefully like to use Steemit, in regards to my long-form content, as a place to put out samples of my work, as well as a link to where a PDF of the full document can be downloaded.
Most of all, I hope that whatever content I do put out reaches you. Whether you agree with it or disagree with it, the most important thing to me is that you find it compelling.
I appreciate your reading this, and I hope you follow and upvote! In return, I promise moderately interesting to very interesting content in an unreliable to irregular timeframe!
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Follow Me On:
Twitter = For Spicy Content
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