Re: What has influenced you to your current position in politics.
 

Personal philosophy...I've always been a libertarian, I just didn't know it until I came to understand what the word meant.

The "fact" that one can rarely get a politician to give an honest answer to an honest question only reinforces my belief that my political position is justified.

Re: What has influenced you to your current position in politics.
 

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How have you come to acquire the opinions that you currently have?

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Long and painful analysis of my own hypocrisies.

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Share some of that analysis with us.

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Well long story short I used to be a raging socialist because I was taught that the rich are evil and we should all help the poor and I genuinely bought into it. However I didn't see the underlying violence that was ever so thinly veiled behind all the actions of government. Wealth redistribution sounds like such a good idea until you realise that it is removing property from one person under the threat of jail (or worse if you resist arrest) and giving a small fraction of that money to another based on arbitrary whim.

I always knew that the initiation of violence was evil. Not just not nice but a moral crime. Once you look behind the curtain and see the violence the "make sick kids better and free puppies for all" bill doesn't seem as good as it used to.

I was a hypocrite because I said that violence was wrong but I wanted to use violence to achieve my own subjective ends. Not only is that a moral evil but it has the secondary problem that it never actually works either.

Re: What has influenced you to your current position in politics.
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
How have you come to acquire the opinions that you currently have?

[/ QUOTE ]

Long and painful analysis of my own hypocrisies.

[/ QUOTE ]

Share some of that analysis with us.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well long story short I used to be a raging socialist because I was taught that the rich are evil and we should all help the poor and I genuinely bought into it. However I didn't see the underlying violence that was ever so thinly veiled behind all the actions of government. Wealth redistribution sounds like such a good idea until you realise that it is removing property from one person under the threat of jail (or worse if you resist arrest) and giving a small fraction of that money to another based on arbitrary whim.

I always knew that the initiation of violence was evil. Not just not nice but a moral crime. Once you look behind the curtain and see the violence the "make sick kids better and free puppies for all" bill doesn't seem as good as it used to.

I was a hypocrite because I said that violence was wrong but I wanted to use violence to achieve my own subjective ends. Not only is that a moral evil but it has the secondary problem that it never actually works either.

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You didn't happen to read this http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=1826?

Re: What has influenced you to your current position in politics.
 

Pure freaking logic running on a 180 IQ platform.

natedogg

Re: What has influenced you to your current position in politics.
 

Didn't know much about politics until senior year of high school when our U.S. Government teacher explained the difference to us: Democrats want to help people, Republicans do not. [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

I became a Democrat.

Freshman year of college, several professors preaching anti-capitalism.

I became a socialist.

Junior year of college, Microeconomics class.

I became a libertarian.

Junior year of college, hearing my friend say that Bin Laden "doesn't believe in government". An intelligent guy not believing in government? Also at this time I started realizing that democracy is not all it's cracked up to be (50.1% of the people can compel the additional 49.9% to pony up a few hundred bucks a year for a public library?).

I became a libertarian with anarchist leanings.

Senior year of college, read "Summerhill", about a "free school" in London where the children are not forced to do anything. This made me realize that since children do not need the strict structure of normal public schools and they do fine without it, adults and society as a whole should do fine without government as well.

I became an anarchist.

Re: What has influenced you to your current position in politics.
 

When I was 16, and got my first paycheck, looking at the paycheck stub and realizing the government stole over $140 from me for no apparent reason.

(That was alot of money then, looking at my check stubs now, I would be happy with $140 in taxation per pay period.)

Then, around 18, realizing how huge the government was, and how much they are in the business of the average citizen, made me a strict constitutionalist libertarian, on the brink of becoming an ACist.

Re: What has influenced you to your current position in politics.
 

If the vast majority of people don't answer "my parents", then there is a serious lack of self-awareness in this thread.

For me:
Parents, church, friends, a strong belief that money isn't the most important thing in life, constitutional/legal study, a pretty good BS detector.

Re: What has influenced you to your current position in politics.
 

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If the vast majority of people don't answer "my parents", then there is a serious lack of self-awareness in this thread.

For me:
Parents, church, friends, a strong belief that money isn't the most important thing in life, constitutional/legal study, a pretty good BS detector.

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I guess I could blame my parents, as they are both hardcore HillaryCare democrats and I hated that hippie bs my whole life as a child.

To quote an Everclear song that had an effect on me:

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I hate those people who love to tell you
Money is the root of all that kills
They have never been poor
They have never had the joy of a welfare christmas

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My parents were poor and proud of it, I was a product of government entitlement programs. I always felt a sense of shame growing up because of that. The free lunches, etc.

Re: What has influenced you to your current position in politics.
 

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How have you come to acquire the opinions that you currently have?

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This

Plus:
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Long and painful analysis of my own hypocrisies.

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Re: What has influenced you to your current position in politics.
 

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If the vast majority of people don't answer "my parents", then there is a serious lack of self-awareness in this thread.

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"My parents" would have been my answer 3 years ago, but they weren't an influence on my current position on politics.