Moriartis

@Jeff: Thanks for the input. I have really no experience whatsoever dealing with Anarcho-Syndicalists or Anarcho-Communitsts. The one experience I had was looking up an anarcho-communist podcast to research other viewpoints. It was a group discussion where everyone involved was basically saying that there were no alternatives other than violence. It was a rather terrifying experience, I couldn't make it through the entire podcast. My purposes here were just to educate on some points that can be brought up in conversation with your average left-wing statist that may help some people in their dealings with them. I will definitely keep what you said in mind though if I ever end up in conversation with syndicalists or communists. I think I need to do more research on anarcho-syndicalists, because the entire concept of that just confuses me.[/font] @Alan: Yeah I agree, that has been my experience with the left and right as well. My time in the Coast Guard I was surrounded by right wingers, so I have quite a bit of exposure to that ideology.[/font] @STer: Very valid points. I definitely think that a lot of the trauma and clinging to unresolved childhood issues will prevent a LOT of progress. Stef definitely makes a lot of points on this and I think he's dead on with it, so I would be remiss to attempt to ignore it. Ultimately I think psychology and therapy will do far more to save this world than politics could ever dream, but I'm trying to add my two cents to the movement regardless of how much worth they may have. My intention with what I was saying was more in terms of how to counter typical arguments that one ends up in without breaking into the psychological aspect of it. In order to free a slave, you must first show them they are a slave. My line of reasoning is just an attempt to show someone how the system really works and not how it appears to work or hypothetically works. If you can shake the foundation of those irrational beliefs, you may get them to start asking questions themselves, which is always good. The idea is to put them into a situation where they have to recognize their cognitive dissonance.[/font] I'm sure the same can definitely be done from the perspective of the right wing as well. I have a LOT of experience on the left. I watched The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, Bill Maher and Michael Moore religiously, so I figure my contribution can be to help people understand that perspective.[/font]

Yeah, I was never trying to imply they were ancaps. To my knowledge, there are no success stories of stand-up comedians that are ancaps. To be fair though, Doug Stanhope is openly Anarchist and has dallied in Libertartianism(including a presidential bid and then later a supporter for Gary Johnson), so it's very likely that if he were to seriously dig into the philosphy he would be an ancap. What I meant was that a lot of the ideas that are put forth by these comedians(atheism, voting being a complete waste of time, not spanking children, etc.) are very much in line with ancap philosophy and yet even those who regularly watch them do not connect the dots to get the whole picture. I watched and loved Doug Stanhope comedy for several years while still wanting to be a left-wing ideologue. My point is basically that even if I do material that consists entirely of ancap philosophy, there is a very good chance that most people that run across my comedy and like it will probably only cherry pick the ideas that already fit into their pre-existing ideologies, just like I used to do. I think I'm going to start doing some brainstorming and see if I can get my sense of humor about being a slave back.

I have some of the same issues with lefties. I'm a gamer geek and nerd culture is filled with them, so I end up in a lot of similar situations. It's a little worse for me because a couple years ago I was one of them, so the situations are quite awkward. Your book sounds like a good read. As far as wether or not the left will like it, it depends. If you have a lot of material about rigging elections against the right-wing/libertartian candidates, then they may see it as "far-fetched" or some other such nonsense. To them, people on the left would never ever do something like that because it's the evil Capitalists that are against true Democracy. If the material is about rigging elections against the left wing, they will probably eat it up, because it lets them view their political views as the underdog that is battling against evil, which of course is just more "proof" of how correct their views must be. Everybody generally accepts that election fraud is a very real thing. Why they still support Democracy believing this is completely beyond me, but they do. So for you purposes, just remember this: Those who worship Democracy worship elections. A story about election fraud is always going to be an exciting read for someone who sees elections as sacred, regardless of their political affiliation. Your book idea definitely has the potential to do very well. I hope you share it with us on the forums when you're done with it. Not for free of course. You get that bad boy published and I'll be your first purchase.

I definitely feel this way as well. My current problem is that the idea behind all of it just makes me angry and sad(very recent convert to the ideology), making it hard to write comedy about it as it just spirals into an angry rant that isn't really funny The other problem with comedy is that you have to quickly convey ideas to people and the more counterintuitive the idea, the harder it is to quickly convey to people. Libertarian ideas are pretty counterintuitive(especially economics). This makes it to where a lot of comedians have very libertarian ideas without even realising it and yet someone can still watch them religiously while simultaneously thinking Ron Paul is crazy. For instance, I knew a guy who swears that he lives by everything that George Carlin says and yet backs Obama 100%, making every possible excuse for his actions. George Carlin may be a number of things, but a supporter of government really wasn't one of them. The one time he did show some form of support for government, it was for Bush(this was shortly after 9/11). I myself watched Doug Stanhope a few times and completely loved everything he said while maintaining extremely liberal viewpoints on virtually everything. I need to wait until my ideology settles in and my sense of humor about the topic comes back, and then maybe i'll be able to make it funny.

Hello all, I recently converted from Lefty-ism and I have had some small success with converting some friends of mine from it as well. I have also had some colossal failures in converting some friends which I am no longer friends with due to the encounters. I recently had a discussion here on the boards about it and I realized some tactics that actually worked quite well and chipped away(sometimes only marginally) at the dogma of the left in some people I know and I thought I would open up a discussion so that others may possibly benefit from my experience. To combat the left's propaganda, you must first understand it, obviously. I wanted to be a champion of the left as either an actor or stand up comedian, so I have a really good grasp on how they think. I'm going to list some of their basic religious beliefs. A lot of this will be quite obvious, some of it not so much. Hatred for Corporations: they see corporations as free market capitalists that want to keep government out of their business so that they can increase poverty and hence their power over the populace. They see corporations as a corrupting influence on government and generally tie all corruption in politics to corporations. Hatred for Republicans: republicans are rich, white men that want to deny rights/opportunities to women, blacks, gays and any other minority because they hold onto outdated religious/cultural ideas and are generally close minded. therefore, anyone who advocates Capitalism/less government is advocating for the supression of the poor and minorities and is advocating for more corporate control of society. Democrats are the "good guys": Democrats aren't perfect and all politicians are corrupt, but Democrats are "less" corrupt and are trying to do the right thing. Anything that can be blamed on Republicans instead WILL get blamed on them. Some examples: Democratic Congress votes for war with Iraq, Republican president openly advocates for it. The president gets blamed, congress gets let off the hook. Years later, under a Democratic presidency and a Republican congress, more imperialist foreign policy and police state domestic policy gets enacted, but this time the congress gets blamed and the presidency gets let off the hook. This is also the case with drone strikes, the patriot act, gitmo, etc. The common denominator is that the Democrats are the ones being made excuses for and the Republicans are the ones getting the finger pointed at them. It is worth noting that this is exactly the same but the other way around with Republicans and their justifications for their party, but for our purposes in this conversation it isn't important. Hatred for Capitalism: Capitalism and Corporatism are the same thing to the left wing. They are unaware that corporations are invented by the state and that all of the problems of corporatism couldn't exist in a stateless society. They confuse the profit motive(i.e. greed) and sometimes money itself with Capitalism. They see the state as the protector of the common man from the predations of the rich. These economic beliefs are all hangovers from Marxism. Hatred for Bigotry: The left wing despises bigotry, with the notable exception of hating "the rich" or "Republicans". When it comes to social issues, the left wing is very aware of how bullshit collectivism is, which is why they are knows as the champions of trying to defend minorities on social issues. Their clearheadedness ends with the social issues however, because tragically, they don't seem to understand how this applies to economics and aren't consistent with the philosophy. But to be fair, if they were, they'd be Libertarians. Alright, I think we all get the idea of how they think, so I'll stop beating that thoroughly dead horse. Now, there are a number of things that I have used in conversation with them that has actually been quite helpful. First off, I personally believe that all people are inherently rational and that irrational beliefs and world views are only possible due to cognitive dissonance or a lack of knowledge on certain topics. This is of course barring mental trauma due to child abuse. 1. Outrighteous the righteous: A lot of left wing ideology is based on the notion of the oppressed versus the oppressors, another hangover from Marxism. Showing them that you also have a passionate hatred for injustice and oppression from the higher classes while simultaneously explaining that the oppression is coming from and indeed has to come from the government or with considerable government assistance can go a long way in showing them that government regulation is not their friend. That the regulation itself IS the oppression from the ruling class. This takes their compartmentalized beliefs of "rich vs. poor" and "government protects us from the rich" and forces it to sit in a box with "regulation is a tool of the rich", which will challenge their cognitive dissonance. 2. Outpeacing the peaceniks: The actions of the CIA and the FBI go a long way in showing the true colors of the government. Helping them understand that the CIA is a direct reflection of what the president wants because they answer only to him and their actions CAN'T be blamed on the other parts will help them understand how criminal their government really is. There is also considerable hard evidence to back it, so any claims you get of being a "conspiracy theorist" can be easily dismissed with a ten minute visit to www.foia.cia.gov the CIA's own freedom of information act, government run website. It is very important if you want to use this line of reasoning that you do research on it first, as there are a lot of potential pitfalls. A number of them were overthrown by Republican presidents. The defacto assumption/excuse they will use is to assume it was the policies of Republicans. Familiarize yourself with Mohammed Mossadegh, Patrice Lumumba and Salvatore Allende. Mossadegh and Lumumba were both basically Democrats and would have been upheld to the same esteem as Obama(by Obama supporters) and were killed by Eisenhower(who would today be considered a Democrat, so much so that even Rachel Maddow wrote an article on it) in order to install right wing fascists. Allende, another left wing champion, was taken out by the Nixon administration in 1973. The very important component to this conversation is that these policies, which are literally a direct reflection of the president, DO NOT CHANGE when presidents change. Both Democrats and Republicans are overthrowing the same kind of people and installing the same kind of people. I've attached a link that shows a list of all the US backed coups since 1944. The list never stops. It goes through EVERY ADMINISTRATION, from Roosevelt to Obama. They will be inherently ignorant as to the character of the people who were assassinated/overthrown and will most likely assume that they were bad men and that the overthrow was somehow justified, just as they do now with drone strikes, so when you educate them on the character of these men, it's important not to attack the left wing ideologies of the leaders but rather to paint them as the crusaders for peace and justice that a left-winger would view them as. If you can get them to see that the government, both Democrat and Republican will call ANYONE a terrorist/communist/anti-american-buzz-word-of-the-day in order to justify killing them for corporate profit, it will be a lot harder for them to justify supporting drone strikes and denying people trials merely because Obama deems it necessary. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covert_United_States_foreign_regime_change_actions The second part of this is COINTELPRO, brought to my attention by none other than Noam Chomsky. This was a program run by the FBI from 1956-1971, which spans the presidencies of Eisenhower, Johnson and Nixon. It came to light when a small group of political activists suspected the FBI of engaging in black ops against their own people. They took several steps to have the FBI audited and after failing at every step of the way, they took matters into their own hands and broke into FBI headquarters. What they found was incredibly explosive evidence that the FBI was nothing more than the American version of the Nazi Gestapo. They were conducting propaganda, assassinations, intimidations and beatings against anti-war protestors and civil rights movements and most likely had a hand in the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The FBI was also responsible for investigating his murder. The documents discovered were never given ANY mainstream press, with the news media outlets stating that to release that information would be a threat to "national security". This, for me, was a matrix red pill moment. How can we really be a Democracy when the FBI is actively undermining the very concept of Democracy against it's own people? This is a very important piece of information showing the state for the mafia that it is. Martin Luther King Jr's family also took the FBI to civil court over his assassination in 1999 in what should have been an historic case, but was also completely ignored by the media. Their lawyer wrote a book called "An Act of State" detailing the case. Showing them the cognitive dissonance of being against Republican foreign and police state policy when Democratic foreign and police state policy is virtually identical helps break down those preconceived notions that there is a difference between the parties. Taking their hatred of Republicans and showing them that the Democrats and basically Republicans in disguise is very hard for them to argue against without undermining their own ideology(which they will do). 3. The Against Me Argument: Stef goes into this in great detail in his podcasts, so I won't go into any real depth on it. Suffice it to say, the left wing prides itself on being peaceful, so any time you show them that their ideology is actually incredibly violent it can really shake their foundation. There is a lot of fertile ground here. Showing an anti-war hippie the violence inherent in the system is possibly the best way to get them to give up their Statism. As Stef warns, this is not an argument to break out lightly, so do your research and put some thought into it first. 4. The Cult of Democracy: if you're a statist in America, there's a damn good chance you worship the Constitution and/or the idea of Democracy. The only thing I really "learned" in 12 years in public school was false moral arguments about the superiority of Democracy and how it is the reverse of slavery in that man owns the government and not the other way around. The best argument I have found against Democracy is the inability to verify votes. Are votes rigged? The default answer should always be "I don't know" until evidence is presented going in either direction. This is very important, the burden of proof is on the person saying that the system IS/ISN'T rigged Assuming one or the other is completely irrational. The evidence for voting being rigged is pretty plentiful. The elections of 2000 and 2004 had massive amounts of claims of voter fraud that were never investigated on a national level, at least not to completion. The primaries of 2008 and 2012 had massive amounts of claims of voter fraud that were also never investigated at all, especially not on a national level. This is more than enough evidence to cast doubt as to the validity of voting. On the other side of that coin, where is the evidence that it isn't rigged? There isn't any. It is completely impossible to verify votes. It is done in secret by millions of people you can't interview, a large number of whom feel that their secrecy is sacred, so you cannot verify the counts individually even if you tried. It is then counted in secret by people you've never met or programs that were written by people you've never met and cannot verify. It is then compiled by people you've never met and can't verify the identity of and told to you by authority figures that have a vested interest in the total. No matter which way you slice it, it is completely and totally impossible to verify the accuracy of votes. There are too many curtains and too many hands involved to have any clue how accurate it is. To believe in what the authority figures tell you is to assume those in positions of power have no reason to lie. "You know, comrades, that I think in regards to this: I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how: but what is extraordinaritly important is this - who will count the votes and how?" - Stalin. Add to this the fact that policies don't change when Presidents do(Obama continued every single one of Bush's policies) and the fact that Congress has a single digit approval rating and it becomes pretty obvious that voting is complete bullshit. Democracy is a complete pipe dream. It is also the bedrock of Socialist ideologies. Showing them this can help to undermine their foundation for their belief system. Or just really piss them off. Ok, that's all I have for now. I don't know if this will be of any value to anyone, but it's here none the less. If you find any of this to be incorrect or if I've messed up somewhere or you have any other critiques or comments, please let me know. I'm not interested in being right, I'm interested in becoming right, so I am always open to being corrected.

Oh, absolutely. I don't think there's too much difference in people and what they want. I think the main difference is what they are willing to allow and overlook in order to achieve those things. There is also a strong religious component to it. The culture is very uncomfortable with certain kinds of questions, particularly anarchist leaning ones. Any attempt at critical thinking is only allowed as long as the thoughts are not in reference to sacredly held beliefs, in which case there is a lot of hostility. It's all about bringing up the ideas in a way that is calm, open and inviting. Non-judgmental.

Touche Stef, that's one answer I hadn't considered. I use that riddle to show statists that being a statist is being religious. Left-wing Atheists hate that.

If you are a conservative, I'm "God" If you are a liberal, I'm "the will of the people" neither can be verified due to not existing.

Yeah I will second what RoseCodex says. I was a lefty big time and it was the works of Noam Chomsky that helped my understand how the system actually works. He pokes millions of holes into the State and reveals a lot of their crimes. He's like an encyclopedia of knowledge of American History and very clearly and bodly advocates Anarchism(although his definition of it is quite a bit different). I've watched several of his debates and he just eviscerates Statists with knowledge and facts that his opponents have no way of combating, it's quite impressive. As far as what he advocates for in place of our current slavery, I have no idea. He's stated multiple times that we aren't even remotely close to Capitalism, so he doesn't seem to have any irrational hatred for it like most left-wingers. He even states that those in power would never allow Capitalism to exist. He does seem to advocate for some form of Socialism and he very much sees things through the Marxist lens of "the workers" versus "the ruling class". I think he's very useful in getting lefties to abandon the damnable Democratic Party, which will get them to look for alternatives, which could lead to Ron Paul, but more likely to Ralph Nader/Jill Stein, etc. He is in a lot of ways an ally(I wouldn't be here were it not for his work) but not entirely.

I am a nonphysical entity. You cannot detect me with the senses. Men who wish to wield power use me to justify their positions and crimes. What am I?

Yeah, I too have a hard time. "The will of the people" is the new "God" and Democracy is the new Theocracy, and just as devout. I have had some luck with explaining the non-aggression principle and using the "against me" argument. Explaining the difference between Corporatism and Capitalism and showing them the corrupting evil of lobbying also helps a lot, because the left is incredibly ignorant about economics, if you can show them that it's actually fairly simple to understand it helps them to realize that their ideology is based on false premises, especially when you show them that you also have a hatred for Corporations, as that is a basic premise of their economic religion. Basically, anytime you can get them to realize that you know more about the topic than they do, and that you are aware of and "respect" where their views are coming from, there is a chance that they will concede ground and that you may get through to them. I'm also in luck because I'm a gamer geek and all of my friends and acquiantances are Lord of the Rings nuts, so when I show them the analogy and Tolkien's politics, it speaks volumes to them in a way no political argument could. Also, showing them the evolution of governments have been helpful. How they started off as tyrants raping and pillaging and then decided to make their crimes reoccuring and convince their victims that they aren't victims and that the crimes are necessary. This opens them up to the "tax farm" analogy that they would otherwise scoff at and reject outright. Ultimately I think the key is finding a way of reaching common ground about what about the current system is obviously evil(corporations, Republicans, etc.) and then showing them how the system actually works so they see that the reason it's evil is because of the government and not in spite of it. Play off of their inherent hatred of Corporatism, Republicans and greed and show them that a system of government will always allow those things to rule over the peaceful. I think I'm going to put up a thread about converting the lefties and share some of my thoughts. Who knows, maybe it'll help someone.

Thank you for the compliments. No worries about my Dad. I made peace with the type of person he is a long time ago. It took me a long time to convince my sister that he isn't worth the trouble, but we've all effectively defooed him. Yeah, I should clarify about my thoughts on Hicks and Stanhope. They are definitely successes. I do believe, however, that there is a glass ceiling for anyone that isn't a Bill Maher or a Jon Stewart. The level of mainstream success you can acheive in such an environment is incredibly limited(which is to be expected in a statist society that gets offended by critical thinking on certain topics). When I was first getting into stand-up I wanted to be the next George Carlin/Bill Maher/Jon Stewart. I would have been thrilled to even become a daily show correspondent. Now I shudder at the very thought of that, because I'm pretty positive it would be a very hostile work environment seeing as how those shows regularly trash talk libertarianism. That's not saying that I can't find success at it, but it's definitely discouraging in an environment in which acheiving success is already daunting. Perhaps I'll start writing some libertarian comedy and bugging Stef with amateur videos until he invites me to perform at all his Freedom festivals, or gets a restraining order, whichever comes first.

Yeah, I would like to think that is true, but having been one a couple years ago it took me finding out about a lot of criminal behavior in the government(CIA, FBI and virtually every other agency) that was backed by a LOT of hard evidence before I would even consider questioning my own beliefs. Even then, it took a couple years worth of researching a few hours a day in order to really dissolve those false beliefs. The problem with lefties is that they are indoctrinated into an ideology that is very emotionally loaded with Marxist rhetoric(rich vs. poor, etc.) and then told a bunch of lies as to how anyone who disagrees with them is a racist, sexist, hates the poor, etc. which is backed by cherry-picked quotes from ignorant Republicans that don't even really believe what they are saying. I wish I shared your optimism. For me, the way to get through to me and show me I was in the Matrix was to show me how warlike and corporate the Democrats were. When I was really confronted with that evidence it made it hard to justify my politics. So perhaps it's easier to get through to the left than it feels like. I lost a "friendship" with a lefty because of my conversion. He compared me to "puppy killing grunts" because I was in the Coast Guard while simultaneously calling me an ignorant racist because I had a problem with Obama's "wise, ethical and legal" drone strikes. I think that experience may have made me rather negative to the idea of converting people. But to be fair, I have converted a friend who was a lefty since then, so perhaps I am being irrational.

Hey everybody, My name is Jeremy and I've recently converted from Socialism(read: Democrat). I've posted an incredibly long-winded story about my conversion experience in the appropriate forum if anyone wants to know more about me. It's good to be here.

My conversion experience is a unique one(I'm assuming). I have always been an Atheist. My father used to be a conservative Christian, but my mother is a Deist and never cared for religion. I was raised learning about Dinosaurs and evolution and the topic of God never being brought up at all at home. When I was around 7 or so I had friends that wanted me to go with them to Sunday School. Not having any clue what that was, and wondering why anyone would want to go to school on a Sunday, I asked my parents for permission and they were fine with it. I realized that Sunday that I didn't believe in what other people believed. The whole environment at church seemed very fake, which was a common experience I've had with a lot of Christians since then. I found myself in awe that they seemed to genuinely believe, or at least genuinely were trying to convince themselves that they believed in things that were obviously not true. People living to 900 years old, etc. I never asked my parents about their beliefs on that, at least not until several years later. My parents were bigs fans of letting me figure life out on my own, so I never felt that I needed their opinion. When I was about 9 my father had a mid-life crisis brought about by unresolved childhood issues(i know, shocking). He cheated on my mother, tried to sexually abuse my sister and then left. I didn't find out about the sexual abuse until some time later. My mother was forced due to financial reasons to move back home with her mother. From that point on I was being rasied by my grandmother, my mother and my sister. My sister was 9 years older than me, so she ended up having a larger role in raising me than is normally the case with siblings. This female dominated hierarchy resulted in growing up hearing a lot bad talking about men in general(although not often directed at my father, surprisingly). This environment caused me to develop a rather fanatical devotion to the idea of chivalry and treating women with respect. It also caused me to have rather low self-esteem and have no clue whatsoever how to talk to women. When I became a teenager I was always in "the friend zone" and became desperately attached to anyone who would show me the slightest affection. The "back home" that my mother moved to was Colorado Springs, Colorado, which is incredibly Christian Conservative. My Atheism started to cause issues with some of the people that I had encountered. My constant moving after my family broke up caused me to give up athletics for the sake of intellectual pursuits. I found I had a passion for philosophy and acting. My source of strength became my intellect and my ability to debate. I had always had a fairly razor sharp wit and I started investing myself heavily into stand-up comedy, particularly George Carlin, Chris Rock, Bill Maher. I became a very outspoken Atheist and was quickly imagining myself as a champion of the left-wing as an actor. This was fueled by a passion for liberal ideology in regards to social issues(which remains to this day, it's the one thing the lefties got right). I graduated high school and went to a community college for acting, which wasn't the best of ideas. I've never been comfortable with schooling. At some point I always give up on it when I realize the kind of rubbish that passes for education. I dropped out after two quarters. At this point I didn't know what to do with myself and I started to panic, feeling directionless. I started considering the military. My father and grandfather were both in the Air Force, so I started talking with my father about what I should do. He had mentioned that he wished he had joined the Coast Guard instead. I had never even considered the Coast Guard as a possibility, and was immediately taken with the idea. I never considered combat to be anything virtuous or heroic, but search and rescue defintely was. It appealed to my overacting sense of chivalry. I started talking to a recruiter and had set a date to ship out. Then 9/11 happened. I briefly considered joining the marines, because the events of 9/11 had incensed me greatly. But I realized that I really was a pacifist at heart and joined the Coast Guard as planned. My time in the "military" was difficult. Due to my upbringing, I had grown a passionate hatred for alpha males and people who attempt to dominate or put others down. Due to my political ideology, I also had a passionate hatred for right-wingers and war mongers. These people comprise of about 99% of all enlisted people in the military. After one tour I decided it was an acidic environment for my self-esteem and was no place for me. I ended my tour of "duty" in Seattle. I got a crap retail job selling toy soldiers, which greatly increased my self-esteem and sense of worth. After a couple years I was fired. I could only really sell well when I believed in what I was doing. When I started to see the Corporate structure of the company I was too turned off to it to continue being good at the job. I had never been fired before. I was terrified, but luckily managed to find a job through a friend's reference. At this point I realized that I wanted to do stand-up comedy. I had been watching The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, Real Time with Bill Maher and Michael Moore documentaries religiously(irony?). I started doing open mics and realized that I was really, really good at it. After my first performance I was approached by a couple telling me how amazing I was and that they wanted to see me on HBO and Comedy Central. My ego rocketed into the upper atmosphere. I never gave up my day job while pursuing stand-up. This made it virtually impossible to get anywhere with it, due to an oppressive schedule, but I kept telling myself that I would find a job with a 9-5 schedule so that I would have time for it. And then truth hit me... I was at home one day and watched a documentary called "The War on Democracy", which I thought was going to be a documentary about how evil Bush was. The documentary was instead about the war crimes committed by my own government, political assassinations and overthrows, etc. It even had interviews with members of the CIA outright admitting the crimes. Unbeknownst at the time, a seed had been planted in my head that said "the world as you have been taught it is a lie. You do not actually know what is real." A while later Netflix recommended I watch "Speaking Freely", a series of documentaries interviewing members with inside knowledge of the military industrail complex. I watched Chalmers Johnson tell me about the installation of the Shah and Saddam Hussein. Ray McGovern talk about the corruption and political usage of the CIA. John Perkins talk about the corruption and truth behind the IMF and the World Bank. This documentary changed my life. I could hardly believe what I was hearing. I had always considered myself an empiricist, so I decided to look up how true these stories were. To my surprise, none of this was being hidden from the public at all. The CIA's own Freedom of Information Act website had pages and pages of documents detailing everything that these people were speaking of. I hadn't encountered a conspiracy theory, I had encountered a conspiracy. I had a hard time understanding why none of this was in the news. I started to research it and found that to my surprise, the only politician with the balls to mention Iran 1953 or any of these other crimes was a Republican; Ron Paul. At the time I had no exposure to Libertarianism. I saw the world through the lens of Left vs. Right. I was still sruggling with believing it, due to it not having any media exposure. This lead me to the works of Noam Chomsky, which lead me to the notion of Anarchism and an understanding of how "free" media outlets become mouthpieces of the state. Up until that point, I had the same ideas about Anarchism that most Americans do: some violent douche with a mowhawk lobbing a molotov through a Starbucks window. Now Anarchism had a philosophical underpinning. One of the things that Noam Chomsky points out is COINTELPRO, which was a program run by the FBI from 1956-1971 which in all likelyhood is still being done today, just not "officially". The program is exactly the type of thing you'd expect from the Nazi Gestapo. Raids, assassinations, violently oppressing dissent and rigging elections. You name it, the FBI did it all to stop anyone from being a challenge to the Republican or Democratic parties. This prevented my cognitive dissonance from keeping "Democrats" and "corruption" into two different knowledge compartments. It also destroyed any illusion I had that there was actually a difference between the two parties. This, along with understanding the difference between Corporatism and Capitalism is what cured me of being a Democrat. It also sent me down a crazy spiral for several months researching every conspiarcy theory I could get my hands on. I had always been a fan of religious debates, and love to watch Atheists hand Theists their hats. I listened to The Atheist Experience and The Reasonable Doubts podcasts. It started to grate on my nerves to watch people who are incredibly economically left wing try to go on all day about how important it is to use reason and evidence when determining belief systems so I started to look for a libertarian atheist podcast, which is what lead me here. I now consider myself an Anarcho-Capitalist(which has lost me a lot of "friends", thanks Stef) and more importantly, I'm a voluntarist who will not be spanking his children or intiating force against anyone. I now have a 9-5 job, which would allow me to pursue stand-up. Tragically, that's far less appealing due to the ideological bias in hollywood and the glass ceiling that anyone that isn't left wing inevitably encounters(Bill Hicks, Doug Stanhope, etc.) Sorry for that wall of text that is basically my life story, but I feel it would incomplete without those elements.