Hi all, I am currently a 30-something, 9" male living somewhere in the US. To understand me, its best to start at the root, It all started when I was a teenager.
I was a republican leaning fool throughout my teenage years. But I was some how always instinctively critical of government. I cheered when Newt shutdown the government. I hung a newspaper articles on my bedroom wall about what a failure NASA had become and thus why it should be defunded.
But it wasn't till I was a high school senior that I lost my innocence. He was an older man, a teacher of mine. The class was called US Government. On the very first day he defined government for the class. He said that government is an organization the extracts wealth from the population, and uses it to coerce them to follow its laws and pay the taxes. Believe it or not, this happened in government school. He also posited other definitions, but it didn't matter. The idea was already inside me and there was no going back.
Years later I registered Republican so I could vote for John McCain in the 2000 primaries. I voted Bush because I though he would shrink government and end all the overseas expeditions, which, even at that time, i knew was the root cause for terrorism, along with support for Isreal. But then I watched in horror as George Bush grew government. I saw him attack the 4th amendment.
I'm ashamed to admit it, but I believed that it was understandable at the time. I remembered back to my Government-camp indoctrination programing that Lincoln had violated civil liberties in order to win the Civil War. I remembered that the liberties always came back, and that America was an idea that would always bounce back.
But it all ended when the US department of agriculture asserted that no private company can test the beef for mad cow, and affix a label attesting to its cleanliness. I saw George Bush give a speech where he said that every company must follow the same standard, the government standard, and that this is how the free market works.
I was completely heart broken. Not just by Bush, but I watched McCain turn into a sell out bitch as well. I had lost all faith and interest in politics. I went from listening to 6 hours a day of Hannity, Rush, Oreily, to being completely lost.
Then in 2007, on a fateful night, I was watching the idiot box when i happened to tune in to the debates. There, right before me, was this congressman espousing the ideas of liberty. I'd seen him before, I was a Fed Watcher and remembered all the times this weird gentleman from Texas would grill the Maestro. He'd ask him about gold and blame him for inflation. I was in love. Thought he was wrong about the whole war thing, but i started to watching his Tubes. I started following the daily paul, next thing i knew I was hooked!
Hooked on the most powerful gateway drug of all. So I got in my truck and tailed it up to New Hampshire. By god I was going to get this man elected. This is when I learned just how brain-dead the average American really is. I thought if i preached the message and explained the arguments I could get people to understand.
Then it was back home, after the election in defeat. The next few years became a blur, but I started listening to Ian and Mark. At first I though Ian was a pompous jack ass and a crazy man. Maybe he's softened up over the years. Or maybe its because he turned me out, turned me into a hard core voluntaryist.
I started buying guns, and refusing to show ID to police. One time they even tried to break my door down because I walked away when they demanded ID.
I don't know where this is going, but I think some day i may just end up in New Hampshire. Honestly though, I'm really waiting until either my finances improve, or the real migration starts.
With Love,
FuckNut
Welcome - see you soon!
You should check out liberty forum
http://freestateproject.org/libertyforum
and porcfest
http://freestateproject.org/content/porcfest.
These events are good ones for visiting NH.
Hope to meet you soon,
-James