My name is Christopher James Lowery, you can call me C.J.. I am a 21 year old college student at the University of North Florida studying for a bachelor’s degree in Computer and Information Sciences, and I work as a dining room supervisor in a retirement community. I have been an anarcho-capitalist since I was 16 years old and run a small brand called Consensual Interaction. I have been detained by the police 14 times, and I have a clean criminal record. This is my story.
I want you to come on this adventure with me. The adventure is a long and dangerous one and it will involve facing many foes along the way. But at the end of the journey, the human species will know relative peace and aggression will no longer be institutionalized. Together we will change the world and our great grandchildren will be eternally grateful, even long after we have passed on.
My parents did their very best to raise me. While I was not raised 100% peacefully, sent to public school, and taught that god was real, it was heaven by comparison to the way my parents were raised. My parents did their best to reason with me and treat me like an independent human. Both of my parents grew up poor, and my father was badly beaten by his fourth stepfather on a daily basis. My father grew up in fear of what his stepfather was going to do to him next and I have the honor and privilege of growing up with my dad as my hero, and in many ways, he still is. After all, without mom and dad, there would be no adventure for me to go on, and they have done their best to aid me in my quest.
I was detained by the police for the first time when I was about 13 years old for riding a motor scooter. At the time, I saw the police as servants to the public who single handedly kept the streets safe. It was not until years later that I began to come to terms with reality and began to objectively view the world we all live in.
Up until about age 15, I was a neoconservative. I really did not know what I was talking about when it came to philosophy, politics, and religion. But I knew that my parents voted for Bush, and I knew that I went to church sometimes when I was little. I discovered a man on the internet named Ronald Earnest Paul. Ron Paul happened to be running for president, and he happened to be saying things that made a lot of sense to me. Within perhaps six months, I was a pro political action libertarian leaning conservative, a constitutionalist of sorts. I understood the Non-Aggression Principle and I had a new found sense of pride about myself. I lost 30 pounds of extra fat that until that point I did not know I even had and I became confident enough to actually speak to the opposite gender.
When Ron Paul lost the nomination for president, I was devastated. It changed me in a lot of ways. It drove me away from political action and led me to total insurrection. I became an anarchist. I understood that government could not exists without violence and I no longer wished to tolerate violence done to innocent individuals.
My philosophical evolution continued for some years. I continued my job as a server and got a promotion to supervisor. I began practicing martial arts and after some years became a black belt in Taekwondo. I won and lost a few girlfriends, and had quite a few confrontations with the police.
In January of 2014, I founded a brand I called Consensual Interaction. This started as a Facebook page dedicated to eliminating aggressive behavior in all human interactions. I made the point with the title alone that all human interactions should be voluntary and free from coercion. That we, as sentient human beings, own ourselves and that any nonconsensual act towards us is an act of aggression.
I used my Adobe Photoshop skills to create high quality graphics to help spread liberty, and I converted a few great friends of mine to fight for the cause of liberty with me. Having friends in the fight has been the best thing about this adventure. At one time, I was in this alone, only having those on the internet with me, but not anymore.
Consensual Interaction evolved. I started a YouTube channel and on that channel I uploaded videos of police interaction, gun range videos, on the street interviews with strangers, and a video podcast series I called Consensual Interaction: More Than Liberty, where the topics have ranged from relationships to government and from philosophy to technology.
Now the election is coming up and everyone has gone crazy. Statists state harder and the fight for freedom only becomes tougher. That is why I invite each and every one of you who have read this far to join me in the fight against aggression. Through peace, love, prosperity, individuality, strength, patience, voluntaryism, and liberty we can achieve a society in which all human interactions are free from coercion. Where we are going, we won’t need roads.