Hello from Seattle

[2bits]

Hi all,

I'm happy to have joined this community and I look forward to contributing.

 

A little about myself in case you are curious:

 

Despite being raised hardcore Pentacostal Christian from birth, I was able to free myself and become an Atheist at 16 years of age. I'm not sure if it was just because I was smart, intellectually honest, or just one of the lucky ones. I hope that doesn't come off as self absorbed. I have plenty of faults, but none of them doomed me to a life of magical thinking.

 

I say this because being an Atheist and going to college explains my previous Marxist bent. It's unfortunate that most intellectuals and Atheists gravitate to the left, and I went with them. Til a few short years ago I could have been easily considered a flaming (non-classical) liberal, though I always felt the cognitive dissonance in the back of my mind. At the time, I just didn't have a basis or framework to resist Marxists arguments. They seemed correct because the alternative arguments I had were dismissible.

 

Recent events saved me from that statist morasse:

- Despite being for gun control, I was a gun enthusiast. In one of the threads on ar15.com, someone mentioned the "Peter Schiff was right" YouTube video.

- After watching that video, I spent weeks absorbing Austrian Economics and Schiff material. At this point, I was a Libertarian, maybe a minarchist.

- Stefan appeared on the Peter Schiff Show in April 2012, and I almost immediately "converted" to the more logically and morally consistent anarchist position.

- I've been listening to Stefan's podcasts and YouTube vids since then.

 

I don't agree with everything Stefan says, maybe 95% as of now, but i think that's a healthy thing. I need time to consider the remaining 5%. Maybe I'll agree eventually, or maybe I'll have valid counter-arguments to contribute. That's one thing I like about Stefan and this community; that kind of independence of thought is encouraged as long as it's sincere and intellectually honest.

 

I have an awesome family: a wonderful wife of 15 years, and two smart and happy girls, 5 and 3.

 

I've gone on long enough for now. Have a good day and thanks for reading!

Steve.

[2bits]

Thanks Chiwoojo!

 

I hesitate to expand much in this thread, considering the purpose of this child forum. An example of the 5% would be the frequent use of "does not exist". In my opinion, if we sufficiently define terms, using the word "exist" and "existence" is perfectly acceptable for concepts and abstractions like "god" and "government". An abstraction can exist, but it's just a abstraction and any attempt to attribute agency to it would be invalid, for example. A common meme in this community is that "exist" is only allowed for things with physical presence. While valid if we acknowledge this definition up front, all too often I see this being overlooked, and conversations digress into semantic arguments.

 

I've also heard it said (not sure if this was Stefan or a guest) that "energy does not exist". Matter is condensed energy, yet we can all agree that matter exists. I could go on, but these are small nits I have to pick. I'm 100% onboard with core principals of logic, empirical evidence, rationality, secular morality and virtue, non-aggression, etc.

 

I was a libertarian/minarchist for about 1.5 years as the things I thought we needed government for were slowly chipped away. The watershed event might have been the realization that the government is a monopoly of force and taxation is theft. Things fall into place very quickly after accepting this.