What got you to wake up?

Miscellaneous General
1

I used to be a Democrat. I was pretty much a left-wing radical though. This was in 2008. Before then I was always looking on socialist websites and I was reading about how capitalism couldn’t sustain itself and how it needed the government’s support. I really hated the free market at the time and I thought that all the Republicans were corporate pigs. I was one of those people who just hated supply side economics, and, I knew that Republicanswere in favor of it.

For me it was reading articles that had headlines like Republican economics doesn’t work, or, that people reject Republican market economics. That lead me to understand that the problems of our economy weren’t really the fault of the market philosophy, but, at that time my naive understanding of the economy lead me to believe that Republicans were at fault for the economic problems, and that it wasn’t a problem of the market.

At that time I didn’t realize how deep in the Democrats have been involved in with the ruining of the political economy. The Democrats, now, as I realize have proposed many well intentioned populist programs that have helped damage the economy equally as much as the Republicans have. With the Republicans reckless disregard of the damage that the system of fiat money- coupled with the populist approach of the Democrat’s populism, what we have is a potential problem.

Why do we have a problem? As I’ve realized- it may have very well been that we thought we could afford all of these populist programs in the 60s and the 70s. With affordable housing and what not. What we didn’t realize is that we were just giving people affordable housing… and people couldn’t pay back their loans on their mortgages. So now we have this huge mess, and, it was created by the housing boom of the previous generation.

It’s things like this and learning about how the federal reserve creates low interest rates which drive people further and further into debt and then they come up short on their payments and not being able to continue on their business embarkments… that has gotten me to wake up. You see, with me I’ve always been skeptical about claims about big government, and, how it’s gotten out of control. But like… the way I see it- all this populism, was well intended. Yes? It’s caused a lot of problems… and it’s created these bubbles, that could just pop any moment… and what seemed to be working at the time isn’t working anymore.

Also, the stimulus bill was another well intended economic policy. It meant to create lots of public works for everyone, and, it meant to provide money to the educational distrcits. It was meant to help the states. It was meant to help put money in peoples pockets. I thought that was all good… but I was alarmed at how all the money was going to big banks like AIG, and, how the Democrats were all in support of it. Henry Paulsun threatened Marshall Law if the stimulus bill didn’t pass. I really didn’t know what to make out of all of it. Then came the election. I kind of went back to sleep after that for a bit.

Then, what kind of woke me up again after that, was all of the news about Obama continuing all of Bush’s policies. Obama is continuing Bush’s policies to detain anyone without a warrant, he claims the right to kill Americans without a trial, he has been continuing the military commissions, he’s argued to change some of the Miranda laws, he’s continued Bush’s faith based leadership, and he’s intervened in several foreign countries without the authorization of war from congress, much like his predecessor. I also can’t believe all of his campaign ties. He has ties basically with all of the bad guys. If you looked at all of his ties- you would think that he was a handpicked candidate (and he probably was).

So, I still don’t really know what to make all of this. Obama’s talking about closing Gitmo, but, he continues to operate Bagram in Afghanistan. All of it’s confusing to me, and, it’s gotten me to wake up to state power. I still detest corporations- because I view corporations as products of incorrect rulings by the supreme court, and, pieces of legislation giving them more status than normal businesses. But… now I have a more realistic view about how bad things really are.

I ask you now. What caused you to wake up? Do you have a similar story? What’s yours?

2

When I felt I was being lied to, or when others were being lied to, or when I thought others or myself were perpetuating lies unconsciously.

The Internet did the rest when I eventually got a computer.

3

Thanks for your story. Mine is different, because I didn’t really care about politics before I “woke up” so there was less to let go of in terms of right and left, Republican and Democrat.

G. Edward Griffin woke me up. I stumbled upon a youtube video of his documentary World Without Cancer while researching alternative cancer therapies. Then I found his organization Freedom Force International and read his five part essay The Future is Calling. This completely changed my entire worldview.

Here is how I understand things:

Mainstream left/right politics is just a distraction, a false paradigm, a puppet show. All major politicians, Republican and Democrat, serve the same big banks and corporations. The people pulling the strings are the “power elite” (term used by Rothbard), super-wealthy banking dynasty families like the Rockefellers and Rothschilds. Behind the scenes, they are engaged in a power struggle with other elite families to dominate the world, and the masses are easily controlled and manipulated through television and propaganda. Murray Rothbard did a fantastic job explaining this conspiratorial view of history, notably in his (long) essay Wall Street, Banks, and American Foreign Policy.

There are very few places like the Mises Institute that truly stand for individual liberty. Most political ideologies boil down to the view that government is needed to solve problems, and that individuals must be sacrificed for the “greater good.” Griffin calls this collectivism, and it includes left-wing, right-wing, moderates, socialists, communists, fascists, etc. Here at Mises, people generally believe the opposite: individual rights to life, liberty, and property are intrinsic to each and every person, not granted by government. Griffin calls this individualism. Happiness and prosperity are achieved through the enforcement of property rights and voluntary exchanges on a free market. The role of government, if any, is to protect life, liberty, and property. Many argue that the role of government is to just disappear.

So, that’s my point of view, or part of it at least.

4

Few videos of stefbot. I think I was born an anarchist (srsly), because I had this feeling that there was something wrong with the status quo pretty all my life. I questioned myself why this has to be like this, not like that etc. Though I was apolitical in my teenage years. But this “conversion/realization” happened so fast that I believe I was anarchist by nature. It’s a state of mind, just had to have some time to let go all shitty propaganda I was taught in school and other public places.

5

Nitroadict, how did you escape all the partisan drivel though? I knew most of the time that I was constantly being lied to. I felt that Bush was the cause of a lot of our problems and that people were denying how bad things really were. I however, only looked at the partisan version of history. You know the phony history that everything Democrats do is fine, and, that the Republicans are evil. I looked through history with that lense. Then I found out the truth and found out that both parties were equally bad and that corruption exists likely where all big powerful political agencies will at the moment.

And, I just wanted to make a note to my story that I think is somewhat important. I used to watch a lot of conspiracy films. I used to watch Alex Jones films, B Edward Griffon films… I watched all kinds of stuff. I watched films about CIA mind control. I watched a Jim Garrison film about JFK. I missed the point about everything. Everything went over my head. I never really come to grips that everything was probably as bad as these conspiracy theorists mentioned if not worse. I used to only think people were brainwashed, without really entertaining why they were, or, what not. People were being lied to all the time… and that was my world view for the most part. But… like I didn’t really understand that everything that I was seeing was real. Now I do.

Does anyone have somewhat of an experience like that?

6

Yes, but since Griffin provided me with the right context from the beginning, I understood right away that the conspiracies are real…or at least much more real than everyone realizes. History is basically an analysis of conspiracies, and it seems to me like the people who call conspiracy theories crazy are the ones who are really out of touch with reality. It would be nice if everything terrible in the world was just random accident, but I don’t think this is the case.

It’s good hear about other people going through this, since it’s pretty traumatic, right? Like a real world Matrix, no joke.

7

I remember being in highschool when boosh was president. Bush was lame because he was culturally different from me. So I was anti bush, which makes you pro democrat.

Later, I took an economics course and got taught ‘free market’ economics (monetarist). I read free to choose, and thought it was the greatest thing ever. I even asked my teacher why we couldn’t have private national defense, although he said he didnt want to go that far.

So I started reading a lot of political philosophy books, with really no way to choose which ones are good/bad. I flickered on/off as an anarchist for a while untill I found mises.org and started reading the material. This article pretty much solidified my viewpoints. Since then, I’ve come across a myriad of independent justifications for anarchism, and its just great.

8

What woke me up: The passage of time and economics. When I was in college, I was naive and ignorant about how the world worked. I was socialist, or socialistic. In time, my naivete faded. During the First Iraq War, I became a neo-Con. On Sept. 11, 2001, I became an enraged neo-Con. I didn’t care who we attacked, just attack someone to be make a point, I thought. The 2nd Iraq War was just the ticket.

Well, turns out the 2nd Iraq War is still going after seven years with no end in sight. Bin Laden was never caught, and no body seems particularly interested in finding him. I followed Ron Paul’s campaign. I read the Creature from Jekyll Island, then Lehman Bros. Collapsed in Sept, 2008. By that time I had discovered Mises.org. These forums pointed out the false left-right paradigm (I’m not sure I would have figured that out on my own).

Current events began to make sense. I was able to predict (in general terms) what was about to happen next. For example, Frank Shostak (see Mises Daily) was interviewed by Lew Rockwell in Oct. 2008. Shostak said that the money printing and the deficit spending would not work, and in fact, would make things much worse (he emphasized MUCH worse). 18 months later, look at this economic mess. I work with businesses every day, things are NOT getting better. The stock market rose due to money printing, GDP is up due to government spending. That’s it, that’s what $1.7 trillion printed by the Fed and $1.5 billion borrowed by gov’t accomplished; a phony stock market bubble and a statistical blip in a meaningless metric.

I discovered the Austrian business cycle is the correct explanation of the boom / bust phenomenon. Capital formation is real. The time structure of production is reality. It was economics that “woke me up”.

9

As lame as it sounds now watching Zeitgeist sort of woke me up. I was generally pro-market, but I didn’t know much of economics. Got more interested in Ron Paul and the Federal Reserve from watching it. Besides conspiracy stuff, I read two books. The ‘FairTax’ Book, which is more of just crap, and The Case Against the Fed. One thing led to another. Pretty much Zeitgeist led to Ron Paul, Ron Paul led to libertarian interest, interest in libertarianism led to Rothbard, Mises, and LRC. There wasn’t a big conversion or anything. I never had any socialist leanings, maybe some not well thought out one’s before actually reading on the subject, though.

10

What happened to me is that I thought the NAP sure sounds nice, or so I thought, but what’s the point. I developed skepticism towards the viability of anarchocapitalism, and being told that its impossibility is irrelevant, it seemed to be dogmatic nonsense. Justice through the heavens fall was stupid, I didn’t want heavens to fall, so justice lost its libertarian meaning. After that, most libertarian arguments turned out to be cheap rhetorical tricks, and so I moved on.

11

scineram, corporatism is viable so far. Are you a corporatist?

“After that, most libertarian arguments turned out to be cheap rhetorical tricks, and so I moved on.”

Do you have any examples of this?

12

After that, most libertarian arguments turned out to be cheap rhetorical tricks, and so I moved on.

One-liners were more persuasive?

While I agree that one should not accept an ideology by assuming it’s the correct one (which is why I do not really consider myself an anarchist, although I recognize that anarchism is probably the ideal society from a purely economic point of view), and I also agree that too many anarchists argue by appealing to anarchism as some kind of infallible idea (although I do think that they are right in saying that you really don’t know what an anarchist society would look like until it happens). Nevertheless, neither do I think that many serious anarchists are suggesting a sudden change to anarchism. Instead, an anarchist society would probably be the product of many decades of reform, crises of interventionism, et cetera. The private institutions that would uphold rule of law in an archist society would probably have to be developed before the abolition of government (although, I have my own reasons for believing anarchism to be untenable, which I rather not get into right now).

But, most other libertarian arguments are not ‘cheap rhetorical tricks’. Well, back to what I was originally saying; cheap rhetorical tricks seem to make far more sense than one-liners.

13

Totally. If I were president, I would explain to everyone that im not going to force a free market down America’s throat. We can start small, abolishing the very worst programs first, and observe the consequences. Hopefully after a string of successful de-socializations, people would warm up to the idea. And always, always tell people exactly what you’re going to do and when you’re going to do it to give the market time to react. Regime uncertainty is one of the most damaging things to markets.

14

I find that most people who choose to dismiss the idea of anarchism because “we don’t see it around us” are those who aren’t interested in ideas. Some people think ideas don’t matter. Imagine talking about microbes and developing the idea of them 1500 years ago. We can’t see them, so the idea of them doesn’t matter. We can’t see calculus, so calculus doesn’t matter.

15

I was politically agnostic and economically illiterate. When the stock markets tanked at the end of '08 I set out to discover why it all happened. I think I started out, by chance, with Peter Schiff, and then went on to find Mises.org and LRC. Now I’m reading more and more about Austrian economics and consider myself politically atheist :stuck_out_tongue:

16

scineram is breaking his 1.5 sentence average but still saying absolutely nothing.

I developed skepticism towards the viability of anarchocapitalism, and being told that its impossibility is irrelevant, it seemed to be dogmatic nonsense.

Nobody told you that. You’ve been here long enough to know better. This is just lies on your part. It isn’t impossible, and both history and present affairs have cases of private law in operation.

Justice through the heavens fall was stupid, I didn’t want heavens to fall, so justice lost its libertarian meaning.

Huh? Our doctrine isn’t responsible for state intervention, bubbles, sovereign insolvency, or any chaos that ensues from them.

17

I was a socialist too, but really just because of family influence and not really into politics. I use to follow politics but just standar left-right politics, until when I was 19 and I became tired of it. I became completely unpoliticed until I discovered Ron Paul. The guy woke me up, and I have been studying monetary history since then.

18

E. R. Olovetto,

Nobody told you that. You’ve been here long enough to know better. This is just lies on your part. It isn’t impossible, and both history and present affairs have cases of private law in operation.

To be fair, this was a common argument at least a year ago and I’ve still seen it sporadically. Someone asks, “how would this work in an anarchic society?” Someone else would respond, “We can’t know, it would just work itself out if there was demand for it.” The latter is probably true in the sense that nobody can really know how an anarchic society would look like, but is rather discouraging for someone without the same fundamental belief and trust in an anarchic system.

EDIT: I’ve just re-read what Scineram wrote, and I see your point. Scineram said, “It’s impossibility is irrelevant.” You’re right, nobody claimed that.

19

Start a new thread?

20

I grew up in a Jewish family, mostly Communist, excpet for my grandfather who was an entreupanuer and always taught me the value of the dollar and hard work. He was a life long democrat but loathed paying taxes and found loopholes. I was a Neocon in 2003, loved the free market but also loved war.

Also in 2003, I was taking AP Government and Economics and my teacher called me to stay behind one day and presented me 2 things that I had to read by the end of the year.

  1. Frederic Bastiat - The Law

  2. Adam Smith - Wealth of Nations

As I started to get older, more mature, and more aware I was given Human Action and after that it changed my life forever. Free-Market, Anti-State, Anti-War