Derailed stand-up career.

[Moriartis]

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.

[Guest NateC]

Dude, I'd consider both Hicks and Stanhope to be complete success stories.  Whatever you do, best of luck.  I enjoyed reading your wall of text, but sorry about your father.

[Moriartis]

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.

[Randsrazor]

I love this story. Your communication skills make for an easy and enjoyable read, do not worry about the volume of information. The people here are thinkers after all(I think).

Do not worry about the appearant lack of market for libertarianish entertainment, it does exist. Think South Park. Serve the humor first and your customer will follow. You may have to do a kind of lite version of your idiology if you want mass appeal though. I think that there is an entire generation ripe and ready for libertarianish philosophy. You have almost the entire youth of the republican party as a potential fan base for example, just ask Ron Paul. 

[Ruppert9]

Thanks for sharing. Sharing ancap ideas using comedy would be a valuable contribution to the world.

[Moriartis]

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.

[STer]

Have you ever seen Red Eye late at night on Fox? There is a Libertarian streak on there. Especially from "TV's Andy Levy." The host, Greg Gutfeld also has a bit of a Libertarian streak at times. I'm not even that aligned with the ideology myself, but the comedy is often rather clever and some of the people on the show are very witty so I'll sometimes watch it. Of course, these guys aren't completely anti-state by any stretch. But it's the best example I could think of where I see some Libertarianism seeping into the comedy mainstream (if a show at 3 am EST can be considered mainstream)

[Ruppert9]

 

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

 

I hear you. Ya, give it time. But that's the genius if you could turn it into comedy.

 

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'm not sure these comedians were philosophical ancapists, more like Ron Paul-ites in my view - but I could be wrong. If they were, they would have conveyed ancap ideas to their audience more effectively/clearly.

 

 

 

 

[Moriartis]

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.

[Ruppert9]

Good points.

I believe that's where your opportunity lies. These comedians haven't been able to present their views in sufficiently proselytizing manner. Maybe you'll manage to create routines that push the thought process, not just the conclusions, of ancapism.

If I had more time, I'd love to work on this myself as I've been thinking of doing standup to this same end for a few months.

[Randsrazor]

It seems like you could be able to get people to agree with you on certain points using comedy then put it together at the end "tricking" them into agreeing with an overall philosophy. It would at least open the audience's eyes.

[Moriartis]

Yeah, breaking down the philosophy into basic points and then bringing them together is a common tactic comics use to get points across, so I definitely think there's potential there. I think I need to do some spreadsheet/brainstorming to think of how I would go about doing that. I'll start a thread on it.

[Randsrazor]

Way to get motivated, RAWR!

[SuperAdventurer]

I actually think being a libertarian / ancap is ideal for a comedian! Not so much from a business standpoint; most comedians and people in the entertainment business in general are lefties, so you'd definitely fit in better and have more networking opportunities if you rejoined the blue team. But from an artistic standpoint I think it's ideal. As a libertarian / ancap comic, when it comes to politics, you have no sacred cows. You get to expose the absurd political circus for what it is. A lot of great comedy comes from simply telling the unvarnished truth (with style), and loyal Democrats / Republicans don't get to do that. They have to pull their punches where their side is concerned. You don't have a side. Fire at will!

[ribuck]

You may find the discussion at the following page interesting:

"Why the dearth of conservative comedians?"

The discussion brings out some specific reasons for the dominance of left-wing comedians. Obviously you're not interested in being a "conservative" comedian, but there are some points discussed which you may be able to turn to your advantage as an ancap comedian.

[MysterionMuffles]

Damn, that is some serious story you got there. I thought you were raised well being free to figure things out on your own, and I resonated when you said you couldn't believe people could really believe in Christianity, or try to. I think all my life that's all I did, I TRIED to believe in it, but my BS radar could never stop going off any time I went to church.

But yeah I was caught off guard when you started talking about your dad abusing your sister and leaving your family, that's kinda messed up...did you still manage to have a relationship with him despite of that? How did that even work out? I'm guessing you had it going before you found out about everything, then again I might have read it all wrong, so correct me if I did.

What I am curious about though is what your comedy act consisted of. Was it politically driven like Colbert and Stewart?

[Moriartis]

@Super Adventurer. Yeah, it is a rather freeing feeling knowing I can bash whatever and I don't have to try to defend the indefensible. The problem is, you have to connect with the audience in order for it to work. So, in addition to attacking their sacred cows you have to do it in a way that they won't react to with anger and resentment while still making them uncomfortable. It's a difficult balance to find, for sure.

@Ribuck. Thanks so much for the link. I'm definitely going to read up on that. I don't know if I would consider my new form of comedy to be "conservative", but perhaps that's because my mindset on liberal vs. conservative is still Democrat vs. Republican, and as we all know, Republicans aren't really conservative.

@Morse Code Stutters. Yeah, I had issues with Chrisitianity as soon as I encountered it, so it was never a danger to me. I regard this as proof that if you raise a child without indoctrination, they won't gravitate towards dangerous cults. Tragically, this was not the case with statism, but I'm now free of that mentality as well.

As far as my father goes, I've never really had a good relationship with him. There was always tension between us because he tried really hard to push ideas of "manliness" on me when I was young and after he left he became guilt ridden over abandoning me. In everything that happened with my family, I was the one person who you absolutely could not pin any blame on, what with my being 9 years old at the time. He still blames my mother and my sister for what went down. He thinks my mother turned me against him, which is the exact opposite of the truth. My mother and sister went through great lengths to try to get me to talk to him more often and take more time to get to know him. I've had quite a few arguments with my sister about it. She didn't think that it was right that I didn't really talk to him and I never understood why she gave him the time of day. I never really had much desire to get to know him. I came to the conclusion that he was a broken man years ago.

He apparently had quite a tramautizing childhood that he's never really dealt with. He lost both of his parents to alcoholism and had to deal with the dysfunction in the family that persisted up until then and the abandonment that came after. He never talks about his childhood and I think his kids were a chance for him to control things and make them less chaotic than his childhood was. Because of this he was obsessed with controlling my sister and when my sister became her own person and he didn't have control over her anymore, he kind of lost his mind about it. Similarly, with me, when I first contradicted him about something I knew about that he didn't(Weird Al Yankovic music, of all things), his automatic response was to sucker punch me in the chest. I could tell it was an automated response. The idea of my having my own opinion and coming to my own conclusions was too much for him. This, combined with his "relationship" with my sister and my sisters two kids has shown me that he doesn't deal well with children who can form their own opinions. He has control issues. All of the free thinking that came about from my family was a direct result of the person my mother is.

I've never really felt that blood is thicker than water and hearing Stef talk about defooing was just an affirmation of what I already knew to be true. I essentially defooed from my father a long time ago. I don't feel any loss for not having him in my life. There is a saying that goes "hurt people hurt people". Meaning people who are hurt will hurt others. My dad is the perfect example of that. Having him in my life wouldn't be a positive thing. My sister is now largely of the same opinion. The difference with her is that she wanted her two sons to have an adult male in their lives to look up to(both of the fathers were scumbags). Because of that she has gone through great lengths to patch things up with him and tries to include him in their lives. Naturally, it largely fails. My father, being the intellectual coward that he is, is unable to form genuine attachments with anyone. His relationships, so far as I can tell, are largely social mystiques and acquiantances that he only knows through his new wife, who ironically and predictably has complete control over him. He is kind of my own fascinating case study is psychological dysfunction.

[Duderio]

goodbye