Misanthropes & The State: How I became a libertarian

[Travis Retriever]

Optimism goes well with libertarianism.  To illustrate this, I'll talk about the debate me and Shane had that got me to become a libertarian, way back when--specifically over what caused/who predicted the financial meltdown of 2007.

I thought it surely *couldn't* be as bad as he was making it out to be, right?  I mean, if some of the things he said were true, it would mean that we were being taxed (robbed) of roughly 75% per year, minus the unseen destruction of wealth by regulations which prevent wealth from even forming.  I knew people in general were at least capable, but that amazing?  Wow.  Eventually he showed me some stats from the government's own figures, that showed that the progress for the poor--and especially poor minorities--was increasing faster during the 20 year period after the Civil War than any time before or since.  Which completely blew my mind, and continues to do so even today.

Hell, even during/after that original debate on one of my old YouTube accounts, I thought, "I'm not sure if I should be glad that people in general, myself included are that capable, industrious and smart.  Or if I should be that upset and depressed that government is doing such an amazing job impeding this. "

But yeah, libertarianism really changes your perspective, you know?  During the debate I kept harping on him for going against what my professors and teachers taught me--they were my best friends from high school until after I transferred to a 4 year college.  Surely they wouldn't betray my trust by lying worse than a creationist, right?  Boy was I disappointed.  I even was pointing out to him, "yes, but even in the private sector people believe in Keyesianism! You're making it sound like a conspiracy!"  I mean, if we can't trust the academia to tell the truth on stuff like that, how can we trust on them, well, anything at all--from physics, evolution/biology, math, chemistry, the 9/11 attacks, the chemtrails, the moon landing, etc?  Hence one reason I can't help but feel sympathy (not a whole lot mind you, but still) for conspiracy theorists for taking this all the way and not taking a single thing any of those guys say seriously.  They lied about this and that, how do I know they aren't lying about the rest?  This is made especially irksome when most (if not all) research of this kind seems monopolized by the state.

This is one reason I was glad to have folks like Stefan Molyneux around.  I have my own beef with him, but he showed me in his books Everyday and Practical Anarchy how to obliterate some really stupid shit with a single question.  e.g. "Who lobbied for the copyright laws or for the anti-trust laws?" When dealing with IP and the robber barons respectively.   One reason why that logic stuff is so important.  It can save you a lot of time and headaches by tossing out stupid shit without having to look at a single source.  Now if only I had some good rules of thumb for empirical sources (e.g. experiments) on things instead of just logical. >.> (though the Baloney Detection Kit does seem to help a little).

PS:  Yes, I changed my name yet again.  Last time I promise.  And since *everyone* here seems to not know what to call me, just call me Travis from now on, thanks.

[R.E.H.W.R.]

Micheal Moore's book Angry White Men is what set me on the path to libertarianism.
Was a fan of Moore, read the book, when I finished it, my first thought was, "Holy Shit, this motherfucker is crazy!"
Then, I discovered P&T Bullshit!

[Travis Retriever]

Micheal Moore's book Angry White Men is what set me on the path to libertarianism.
Was a fan of Moore, read the book, when I finished it, my first thought was, "Holy Shit, this motherfucker is crazy!"
Then, I discovered P&T Bullshit!

Yeah, I've seen a lot of libertarians even on this board who've been convinced by Penn & Teller.  Oddly enough I never really heard of them until I was much more into libertarianism.

[ArtemisVale]

I was never really a statist growing up. I never knew government did anything until i was in high school. During then, i discovered ron paul and it all went downhill from there XD

[VectorM]

TheAmazingAtheist was the one who suggested the idea of personal freedome to me. And then Libertarianist had one of Shane's videos on his channel, so that's where I got in to the free market thing.