What has influenced you to your current position in politics.
 

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

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.

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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I like the answer. Kudos if it's true.
Also, the rent control proof from econ has led me to support policies that reduce gov't interference with the free market.

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

pretending to read the crap that i write

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

A combination of personal preference and rough analysis that I can't really sum up. Actually I'd like to learn a lot more about politics and I'm not hard set in a lot of my positions.

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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Starting a business and realizing that for every one thing I want to do, there are at least 2 government agencies that want to tell me if and how I can do it.

There is no way that so much regulation, and so many do-nothing departments can foster a healthy economic environment.

Notice I haven't even mentioned taxes, as I don't think I can say anything about that that everybody isn't already aware of.



There are plenty of other things that got me to really pay attention to politics, but this was the catalyst.

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.

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

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A combination of personal preference and rough analysis that I can't really sum up. Actually I'd like to learn a lot more about politics and I'm not hard set in a lot of my positions.

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Perhaps you can give us some examples at least?

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

Paying 40% of my income from poker to the government.

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

Working for "the man" for 7 years has left me a little bitter. I now hate pretty much everything about big corporations and feel as if every decision from our corrupt government makes it easier for big biz and harder for individuals.

It makes me sick to think how far out of touch most politicians are, like they are betraying humanity or something. Going from Bush to Clinton to Bush to Clinton for 24+ years doesn't give me much hope that democracy is working either.

Thats why I am a libertarian. Thats why I support Ron Paul, one of the few politicians who I think hasn't yet sold out. I don't even agree with a lot of his views.

I really think the American people need to hear each presidential candidate answer this question at the debate.

"If the country gave you $2 billion/week from taxes, and that all you were allowed to spend would you choose to spend the money to help citizens in this country or continue to pay for a mess of a war in Iraq?"

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.
 

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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.

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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.

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

My story is essentially the opposite of yours. I became the left-winger that you see now as opposed to the unreflective moderate that I was as a youngster, in part, because I had a lot of right-wing instructors whose ideas, theories and principles struck me as wrong. Attempts to persuade me that libertarianism or "religious rightism" had the opposite of the intended effect. In fact, if I had to identify one point as 'the turning point', it would have been the course I took in microeconomics (with a clear right winger, even for an economist). What pushed you to the right pushed me to the left.

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

When I was 2, my sister was born with cerebral palsy. She required a lot of attention from my parents. Being raised in that environment, I grew up learning to be very independent. The realization that people develop strengths to cope with situations where they don't led me to question a lot of the myths I was taught in school (especially from my 8th grade civics teacher who was a bleeding heart uber-leftist). This of course led me to right-wing conservatism, where I happily remained for several years. Until I went to college, all I knew about libertarians was that "those are the weirdos who just want to legalize drugs." In college I learned a) libertarians aren't just about that, and b) legalizing drugs is actually a good idea.

FWIW, my father is the world's most outspoken moderate. ([img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img])

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

I started out as a communist. My family had always supported the socialist party (NDP) which is fairly popular up here in Canada, so I did too. Eventually I started posting on the internet, got my ass handed to me constantly and started to question the ideas I believed in. A few years ago I encountered Anarcho-Capitalism on this forum, laughed at it for a while, tried to poke holes in it. I have had many strong libertarian leanings throughout my life, sort of intuitively realized how harmful the war on drugs is and have always been very adamantly anti war (especially offensive imperialist wars). Maybe 6 months ago? I started reading mises.org pretty heavily and watching videos / listening to lectures. Took 'Ethics of Liberty' out from the library, read 'Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against nature' (both by Murray Rothbard, the second being a collection of essays)... and that's basically how I became influenced to be an anarcho-capitalist.

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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Knowledge of history, experience with the brutality of some societies, studies of humans in organizations, working in a wide variety of jobs both in the public/private sector, politics, my military service and my grandfather who many times over put everything on the line for what he believed in.

And with that came the realization that there exists no ultimate truth to complex problems, that several things can seem completely opposite but both still hold true, that good solutions are mostly compromises and that many systems' best value is how good they are at resisting those who wish to exploit it. And maybe last but not least, if you don't wish to fight for it, what you say and think is useless.

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

Reading Nietzsche.

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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BCPVP losing argument after argument to Borodog. Damn you!

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

First I noticed that I didn't seem to like it when complete strangers presumed to order me (via government power) how to live and distribute the fruits of my labor. Then later I noticed that complete strangers didn't seem to like it when I presumed to order them (via government power) how to live and distribute the fruits of their labor.

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

Off the top of my head:
- Discussion in college and on assorted forums and the realization that people who disagree with me are not selfish, cold heartless bastards that kick cats around for fun. Well, at least I hope so...
- I had initially posted in here just to mess around and troll Ac'ists after reading those crazy whining threads in ATF about these forums. However, I eventually saw that they had good points, as well as the more mainstream politics posters also were worth listening too. The recent thread about voting requirements may be a good example of relatively civilized and thoughtful discussion IMO. But anyhow, this is more of the first point anyways.

- When I didn't know where to place myself on the left-right thingy.
- When I learned in high school, that the Civil War was not just about slavery
- When I learned about interference in South America
- When I learned more about other countries. In particular Canada and many countries in Europe that don't have this bizzare morality crap towards homosexuality and abortion, or at least as not as bad in the US. Of course, the more repressive regimes, where people are jailed for saying the wrong things on blogs, where people are killed for being gay, or where women get stoned for adultery would show me some of the other extreme. This would liberalize my previously narrow views about homosexuality, drugs, and more.

- The UIEGA, simply because I'm self-centered

- Most importantly, 9/11. When I saw those planes crash into those buildings I knew that a lot of [censored] was going to happen as well as the actual terror coming close to home.

- And the above two lead to Ron Paul, who I see as sort of a "lesser evil" kind of thing. I don't really see him as some kind of savior, but I don't know where else to go.

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

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Paying 40% of my income from poker to the government.

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yes

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

am i the only one whose parents (as far as i can tell) have never had the slightest interest in politics whatsoever? i mean i have never talked about anything remotely political with my parents, and they definitely don't vote.

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

My intellectual hero, R.I.P [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]
http://www.mysharetrading.com/files/...n-friedman.jpg

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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Yeah, Long and painful analysis of Tom's hypocrisies.

Cody

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

Anyone who is paying 40% of their poker earnings to the gov't and is winning any decent amount of money should hire a better accountant.

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

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am i the only one whose parents (as far as i can tell) have never had the slightest interest in politics whatsoever? i mean i have never talked about anything remotely political with my parents, and they definitely don't vote.

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Up until I got into politics my parents never spoke on any major issues going on in the world. Like after 911 happened everyone in my house was basically "whatever, I gotta go to work no time to watch TV" so I pretty much found my views without them. Now that I am a huge politard though I have gotten them into it and we have politard discussions at every family dinner.

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

My political positions have been shaped by a lot of things. One which I never want to admit is my room mate who like to constantly play devils advocate anytime we watch the news or do just about anything. He challenges every single idea I have and forces me to look at things from the opposite side.

This forum has played a big role. I spent a lot of time with people who have no problem admitting that they are socialists. Even though I am not the most adamant supporter of the free market this board has given me a extremely well reasoned and logical representation of a free market capitalist. People like borodog do a good job of giving sound opinions and is not a dick about it.

Also my political science 110 teacher was extremely influential in how I go about looking at different political views. He taught me that you can take something on face value you have to as he would say "put some meat on them bones" and add depth to any argument or idea that you hold.

Also my older brother. He never really gave me any advice outside of "don't just answer the questions, question the answers" which I like to feel like I have followed.

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

I've been a libertarian since I took my first micro-econ class in college (apathetic before then) but I didn't buy into anarchism until I started reading this forum and pvn was tooling everyone in debate after debate. This was about a month before Boro's famous "any anarchocapitalists out there?" post. I remember having a lot of debates vs. BVCVP when he was a rightist and hmkpoker when he was a leftist.

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

Personal experiences and observations

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

[ QUOTE ]
My story is essentially the opposite of yours. I became the left-winger that you see now as opposed to the unreflective moderate that I was as a youngster, in part, because I had a lot of right-wing instructors whose ideas, theories and principles struck me as wrong. Attempts to persuade me that libertarianism or "religious rightism" had the opposite of the intended effect. In fact, if I had to identify one point as 'the turning point', it would have been the course I took in microeconomics (with a clear right winger, even for an economist). What pushed you to the right pushed me to the left.

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Interesting. Want to share your logic in where you are at and how you came there?

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

Being in the Army, going to West Point, and thus rebelling against it once the build-up to the Iraq War started (not one of "our nation's best and brightest" that I knew of were questioning it, it was gung-ho city).

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

Originally, it was my parents. My parents are conservative christians and own their own business and that led me to despise government regulation. I read Freakonomics and that changed my mind on abortion. I finally realized how wrong it was to force my morality on other people.

Recently this forum has had a huge influence on me. I would consider myself a libertarian, more than anything now. AC is very interesting, but I'm not completely sold on it for various reasons. I think the biggest thing that this forum has taught me is how ignorant I was/am to soooo many things.

Also, I would like to thank PVN, BCPVP, Morobot, Iron, and Borodog for posting interesting topics, and having discussions/debates that I find entertaining and incredibly informative.