I’m Ben Southwood, 18 year old, in sixth form (last year of “high school”) in London. I have an offer from Oxford to study Politics Philosophy and Economics, which I begin in September, and hopefully that should add to the Keynesian/Monetarist indoctrination I have endured for the last two years studying “economics”. This of course adds to a thoroughly leftist/“liberal” staff, many of whom are excellent people, but whose political views are nothing if not mainstream.
I have read hundreds (literally) of mises articles, and quite a few books on Austrian Economics/Libertarian Political Philosophy, and I hope to move on to much more.
I’m Seth Johnson and I’m from Kansas. I’m 22 years old and am currently working on my second degree (this one is in Electrical Engineering). I became interested in economics after I decided to explore the economic aspects of my Libertarianism. After reading Rothbard, it cemented my views as a Ancap. My other interests are music, technology/physics, hunting/fishing/camping, firearms, sports, philosophy, and literature. And beer.
That is awesome man. I have been meaning to get into microbrewing myself. I have a friend who has made several batches, and my only problem is currently lack of space.
Part of me actually has sympathy for that perspective.
In that case, shame them by using their communist-Catholic perspective as a weapon against them. Tell them that they are replacing their faith in God with a silly faith in government.
Simply ask these people: “OK. How do you expect governments to take over the poor?? Exactly what are the internal affairs of other nations??” Basically, ask them tough political and economic questions. Eventually, you will likely lead them to concede something that they do not know and yet they have faith that it is a morally correct action to support. At which point, you can then stick the knife into their ideology by point out that they have faith in something without proof. (Not that there is anthing wrong with that per se but treat it as a weakness in their argument.) At which point, you tell them that they have stepped over their faith in God and replaced it with a faith in Man.
Twist the knife in their ideology by pointing out anything in their social beliefs which can be linked to the powers of government and to the secularization of society. Say something like: “You want the government to help the poor?!?? Well, that is the same government that wants to take Christ out of Christmas! The same government that wants to smash religious faith! The same government that wants to authorize divorce and gay marriage! blah blah blah” Granted, that is a cheap argumentative strategy but it might lead people to think outside of the box. Personally, I believe in the secularization of society and I am also a Catholic. However, my concept of secularization means a devolution of powers. The secularization that we commonly experience in the Western world is nothing more than a replacement of one type of power by an other type.
I am a highschool senior from Texas and am in the midst of finding my political identity and am just trying to educate myself the best I can politcally and economically
I plan on attending Texas State following graduation and majoring in Political Science.
I got to vote in my first election recently and discovered a lot about myself and really started getting interested in the political world. I supported Obama to start out (hes an appealing guy to youngsters) and I was really quite ignorant on all things. I was terrorized by my family and I honestly could not tell most of them who I supported. I was not totally sold on Barack and did a lot of studying for the year and a half up until the election (thank goodness, I dont know what I would think of myself right now if I had actually gone to the polls and ignorantly voted for him). I came to the conclusion that I was more of libertarian than a democrat or a republican. I read Ron Paul’s ‘Revolution: A Manifesto’ and became a big Ron Paul fan but ended up voting for Chuck Baldwin.
Ever since I have jumped on the Ron Paul bandwaggon I also really got into the pophet, Peter Schiff. The combination of Peter Schiff and Paul lead me to this website and have really made me interested in educating myself in Austrian economics.
I took Macroeconomics early at a local college where I mainly learned about Keynesian principals, not one time was Austrian theory mentioned. I am still learning a lot and am still very ignorant in the economic world but figured what is a better way to learn than to join a forum like this.
Looking forward to future discussions on this website, and thank you for letting me join!
I’m 23 - and lived in New York City all my life(Jamaica, Queens to be specific) .
Have a bachelor’s degree in Accounting from Hunter College and currently scouring the job market after being laid off a few months back.
I had some interest in economics early on in college, but back in 2004 my Macroeconomics professor - Steve Malin(who’s a Federal Reserve spokesmen and public educator http://www.practicalmoneyskills.com/summit2007/overview.php?speaker=malin) told everyone in the class that economics is useless as a profession and so afterwards I didn’t care to educate myself on it further.
Being muslim and of Pakistani descent- initially the most interest I had in government action was US foreign policy in the middle east and elsewhere. So when the presidental campaign of 2008 started rolling around- the only candidate that had any appeal to me was Ron Paul. Eventually that led to getting more familiar with Peter Schiff- which led me directly to mises.org and suddenly an entirely new world that I never knew about opened up and things started to make sense. When there’s so many places and people supporting government interference in every aspect of people’s lives- its so refreshing to know a place like Mises.org exists.
I am an anarcho-capitalist. Big fan of Sci Fi. My favorite libertarians are Jeffrey Tucker, Lew Rockwell and Walter Block. Other notables include Hans Hoppe, Mises, Rothbard and Ron Paul. I’m much more interested in ideas and opportunities than personalities and dogma however.
I’m all over the forum, so people know I like to argue to a fault. No big secret there.
I reject the state, politics, war and coercion in general.
Considering that everybody lacks the interest in learning about the life of a 13yrs old, I will thus tell you about the life of a just-turned 14 yrs old. But, seriosly public school is an atrocity-just seeing how I basicly have to self-teach myself Austrian Economics (almost finished with Power & Market), I also doubt that the macro-econ. offered by the Highschool will be of much use (the godly words of Keynes…not). But I was attracted hear because of Ayn Rand (read her last year, but no longer agree) and the Ron Paul Movement, yet aside from those was my libertarian History teacher who worked in public school due to the fact that he wanted to induce the ideals of libertarianism into other school children (though he was a chicago-ite).
My name is Justin. I’m 26 and currently live in Houston, TX. I received a degree in Political Economy (yes they actually do exist) from Tulane. I spent most of my time watching college baseball, drinking and eating an altogether insane amount, chasing women, and dodging the occassional hurricane. I found my way to Mises through re-reading Hayek and Milton Friedman.
I’m Swithun and am 22 years old. I graduated in Economics last summer from Cardiff University (Wales, UK) and am currently temping for the same university until I can get a permanent job.
I’m a Christian and a Free Market Anarchist.
My major area of interest is philosophy and in partcular, at present, the philosophy of education.
Markus, 18, currently finishing grammar school in Germany.
After that, I intend to get a degree in business informatics or a related field while teaching myself Russian and/or Chinese so that I’ll be of value to a multinational employer, or can start a business with ties to Chinese and Russian trading partners myself.
Im 18 and a senior in high school. I play xbox alot lol, and thats about it. If you wanna add me my gamertag is, “s3r3n17y” s(three)r(three)n(one)(seven)y
I thought so. I was a policital science major, then economics major and then i became a political economy major. I found political science to be annoying – it really just seems like what geography used to be. Real political economy (the old term for economics) is really a different approach than simply combining political science and economics. Trouble is that courses not with in the actual political economy department are generally taught by economics or political science professors. If it’s taught by a philosophy professor, you’ll be in luck.