Since last week’s Five Freedom Questions led to such excellent discussion, let’s do that again. And maybe semi-regularly from now on.
A multi-parter for today and this weekend:
A. How old were you when you got your first glimmer of freedomista consciousness and what brought it about?
B. How old were you when you became (or realized you already were) a full-blown, principled freedomista and what brought that about?
That’s a bit too personal to answer. But I will say this: many in the first grade classroom cheered as the teacher informed us Charles made it all the way to the hyway on his way home and out of the co-ed prison.
A. It’s hard to say exactly when because it was a long time ago, but it was in my latter years of elementary school. I was skinny, wore glasses, and read all the time, which made me the designated target for every other person in the school. In that time frame I read Heinlein’s “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress,” and also came to the realization that the best I could hope for from the “authorities” was that they wouldn’t actively participate in persecuting me.
B. Early 20s, when college Internet access led me to Usenet, where I discovered what a libertarian was and the cypherpunks mailing list, and also gave me access to reports on Waco as it was happening, unfiltered by the mainstream media.
I was in my early twenties when I read Free to Choose by Milton Friedman. Then I read Atlas Shrugged. I was still sold on the state; I simply thought it should be shrinking, not growing.
Then I got married and traveled the country and had kids and a career and hardly gave it a another thought…
Until I was in my mid forties and read John Lott’s More Guns Less Crime. Hmm, what do we need police for?
Shortly thereafter was the destruction of the WTC. I asked my friends, “Now that we’ve had our Reichstag fire, when are we going to invade Poland?” They laughed at me. But I kept thinking. And pretty soon, “we” started invading other countries.
Finally (yes, I know I’m a little slow) my ex-wife’s brother sent me a link to an article on LewRockwell.com. Within a year or two–I was probably 49 or 50–I became a full-blown anarchist. But I still had–and have–a lot more to learn.
began at age 12 – read Atlas Shrugged & most of Henlein’s works like Rick
age 34 – started my own business and spent more time fighting gov’t reg’s than helping customers
In grade school, we were told that we would be doing squaredancing as punishment for not doing something the gym teacher wanted us to do. I, being the little political actionist that I was, circulated a petition, that we wouldn’t have to do that. Mind, I was also the Charlie Brown of the school, as many of us were. I was told that as school kids, we HAD no rights, others that signed were punished and at that point , I realised that, if I wanted anyone to stand up for me, I had to give them a hand up to where I was standing.
A. The first time my parents answered my “why?” with “because I said so!” I was probably 3 or 4.
B. By the 6th grade, when I realized that “because I said so!” is the universal authoritarian response to any question of that authority
It was in the third grade. Star Wars Episode I had just come out, and I had gotten some star wars themed pencils. Then when we get to class, the teacher took everybody’s school supplies, and pooled them together, so she would make sure that everybody in class always had access to whatever school supply they needed. Hated government and collectivism ever since.
A:
I always had an independent streak, and my teachers told my parents I had “a different mind”. Mostly I think that meant I didn’t buy what they were selling, knew school was a scam, and didn’t apologize for refusing to do homework or for daydreaming. But the teachers liked me in spite of all that (other than the one time a teacher was wrong, and was telling the class something that was wrong, and got mad that I wouldn’t just go along). I was skeptical of “authority” that was arbitrary and usually wrong. I didn’t really give it any thought, since it didn’t surprise me. It just was what it was.
Most of my early freedom-leaning was due to me preferring to stay out in the woods as much as humanly possible (which included a lot of nights that my parents still don’t know about). I just assumed I would grow up to be a hermit or a caveman, and could never “see” myself in a “regular job”. I kept this information to myself.
When I was in my early teens, and my parents kept trying to convince me that I needed to start trying to find a way to fit in with the civilized world, I told them I didn’t want to. I said all I wanted was to get some land and live on it. It was then my parents explained “property tax” to me, and how I would be required to keep paying- thus I would have to keep making money- or government would take my land and sell it to someone who would pay the “taxes”. I said “That’s not right- you can’t force someone to keep paying for something that they own!” That was probably the first time I actually thought about “government”*, and it wasn’t a nice thought. That was also when my life went off-track: if I couldn’t do the only thing I really wanted to do, why put much effort into something I didn’t want? I am still on that path.
B:
I just went with the flow, staying suspicious of The State for decades. One acquaintance told me I was “conservative” because I hated government. I didn’t bother to look into it because it was just the way I was and I assumed I was a lone oddball. I just was what I was, and that was part of me. The events of Waco made me a bit more vocal… but who was going to hear me?
I wrote an occasional Letter to the Editor, usually in support of some local who had gotten harassed on “gun charges” or something similar.
A few times I did question myself very hard- saying that if “everyone” thought gun ownership was so terrible, could I be wrong? I would think it through for as long as it took, and when things sorted themselves out I always found that the anti-liberty bigots were just dead wrong. And evil. And not just on guns, but on anything that violated another person’s liberty. I wish I had had access to some of the things I can go to now. Because I did stay on the wrong side of the War on Politically Incorrect Drugs and on “laws” against homosexuality far longer than I should have- and I am ashamed of that now. If I had been exposed to things that would have made me actually think I would have seen my inconsistencies a lot sooner.
I guess it wasn’t until I got internet when I was 37 (?) that I discovered that there were others who thought the same as I did. About that same time I got a copy of L. Neil Smith’s book “Lever Action” and found out there was a name for my philosophy: “libertarian”. I started reading lots of different libertarian newsletters and going to different libertarian sites and it was very exciting to realize I wasn’t the only one. I began to be aware of the inconsistencies and they began dropping away as I read more and started actually considering what liberty meant.
But, sometimes, I still feel the desire to walk away from it all and find a nice cave somewhere, and never again think about the world beyond my vision.
*However, my dad worked as a lobbyist in Austin TX and took me along a few times in my pre-teen years. I spent the time wandering (alone) the state capitol and had my photo taken with a TX LawGiver who I later learned ended up in prison for some reason or another.
A. I echo just waiting’s response. I was always asking Why? and getting Because I Said So.
I always knew I was not part of the mainstream, recognized hypocrisy and injustice in family, society, and religion very early on, and sort of oozed into B over several teen years and early 20’s.
B. I picked up “For The New Intellectual” by Ayn Rand when 26 y/o and was floored by it. All I could think was, “Hey, somebody understands – and has dared to put it down on paper.”
Born this way, as best I can tell, which makes it awfully tough to explain it to others. Didn’t know that it had a NAME until college, though, but “don’t hurt other people and don’t take their stuff” was my theory of life for as long as I can remember.
Haven’t always – especially when a child – managed to live UP to the principles, but always knew when the dust settled that I’d pooched it….
A. When I was in my early teens. A strange combination of my mother’s admonitions to “never believe what the government tells you,” and my hippie friends philosophical ramblings.
B. Late to the game, in my forties. Spend a good part of my adulthood chasing silly materialistic dreams and didn’t give much thought to the freedom philosophy for years. What made me change was going down rabbit trails on the internet and finding the truth once again.
A. As the policeman fastened the handcuffs as he arrested me on trumped-up armed robbery charges when I was 17, I began to suspect that something was amiss with the State.
I was in 6th grade when it finally occurred to me that I had a problem with authority (in the form of Irish nuns – used to sit in the back of class and make snide remarks all the time). I have no idea where that came from because I got on pretty well with my parents. I did read a lot of Heinlein though. About that same time I started questioning Catholicism and was a non-believer within a couple of years.
I became anti-war after 4 years in the Marine Corps during Viet Nam (thank heaven I never got sent there).
For a very long time I had a conflicting mish-mash of opinions – some about freedom, others about leftish-leaning things. Kinda sorta joined a commune at one point – which cured me of socialist ideas pretty well, and made me appreciate private property. Every leftist should give it a try to really discover what they are advocating.
At about 40 I bailed on the D party and joined the L’s as a minarchist. Spent enough time in the party “leadership” to become disillusioned. What a joke!
About my last fling with conventional politics was the Wyoming Liberty Index. When that went nowhere I passed it to the Wyoming Liberty Group and became a full-blown anarchist.
It took me many, many years to finally figure things out (assuming I have done that) so I tend not to sneer at people who aren’t quite there yet. A slow learner I suppose. The most important books for me were Heinlein’s “Moon is a Harsh Mistress”, Gatto’s “Underground History”, Levin’s “This Perfect Day”, and Ross’ “Unintended Consequences”, and various readings of Rothbard and L. Neil Smith and Boston T. Party.
I was in my mid-twenties when NYS passed its first seatbelt law. I was livid because when I was pregnant the year before, I had decided on my own to start wearing a seatbelt because I was riding for two. They stole my motivation and my sense of satisfaction for doing the right thing.
A couple years later, the local public school was going to institute a left-wing “family education” program, so I decided to homeschool my 5yo. In the course of my research (remember, this was way before the internet) I came across the Freedom for Economic Education (FEE), who were very helpful in providing information. I subsequently ordered a pile of books including Human Action by von Mises – which I read, cover to cover.
I’ve never looked back.
1. My father started me off reading his favorite author, Rudyard Kipling. Sucked me in with Mowgli and Rikki Tikki Tavi, then let me find the grownup stuff.
2. When I was in 3rd or 4th grade we were stationed in Germany, and Mom took us to visit a “DP Camp.” A place where people displaced during WWII (which ended a dozen years before) were still warehoused. That led to a discussion on government stupidity.
3. We moved to Barstow, California (Dad was stationed at Camp Irwin) when I was in the fifth grade. As usual, about our second or third priority was getting a library card. Once that happened I wandered off to look for books. (I was into Thomas Costain and JF Cooper by that time.) The librarian tried a couple of times to herd me back into the Children’s Section, as I wasn’t old enough to read “big people’s books.” Mom caught her, and it was one of the few times I saw my mother truly pissed off. She informed the librarian that I could indeed read adventure stories, my parents would do what monioring was necessary, and the library had best let me check out any book I wanted.
4. Then “They told me if I supported Goldwater we’d end up in Vietnam, and they were right.”
Nothing prepared me for being attacked by the IRS when I was in my late 40’s. Like many folks my age, I read Ayn Rand in my teenage years and developed a distrust of the US government during the Vietnam War. I believed all communist regimes were evil and the US system was less than perfect. One year (long after the tax year started) the rulers decided that their self-employed subjects could no longer deduct their medical insurance premiums. When I tried to “work things out” and pay the additional few hundred dollars tax, the IRS put a lien on my house and summoned me to their office so often that I had a problem earning a living. I wrote a letter to my senator. Many people contacted many rulers and there was action!
The rulers had hearings and passed laws to “rein in” the IRS; I lost my house, almost died and spent many years living in poverty to pay the penalties that accrued while I was unemployed, homeless and very ill. Many years later, thanks to the Internet, I learned that I had plenty of company in my freedomista consciousness initiation experience:
http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/the-irs-now-and-forever#axzz2NfB7gfEq
The IRS agents were receiving bonuses and promotions for exploiting taxpayers. They were targeting low-income subjects.
I was around 60 when the little mole in The Freedom Outlaw’s Handbook made me feel welcome to visit freedomista-land. I have not found a way to survive there.
I was born questioning authority, but it came to me in spades after having the shit beat out of me by two N.J. State Police, for questioning their “authority”. I was 19 at that time.
Subsequently, I read; The Road To Serfdom, Plato The Republic and other works, especially Socrates “apology”. Voltaire’s –Candide. Thomas More’s — Utopia….and on and on.
Do these asshole authoritarians truly think they can snuff out free-thinking men and women? Such folly. It lives among us and will never die no matter how many of us they attempt kill.
I was brainwashed along with all the other lambs. State good, even if I heard bitching about it at home or school. The first seed was probably planted when I was 16. A friend was getting sprung, aka getting her GED and heading off to CC. Of course I needed “permission” to follow. It pissed me off that I was forced (I didn’t know any better) to finish high school.
She had emancipated herself, but I was too much of a good little boy (read ‘moron’). She didn’t tell me until later she was a libertarian. Even then I still fell for the liberal bullshit. What do you expect from 13 years government education?
Of course I bristled against authority. Mean, stupid, and arrogant thugs (cops), laws telling me what I could not or must do.
Thank you L. Neil Smith, Robert Heinlein, etc. for laying the foundation.
A- In my early twenties I ran across Jack Kerouac, John Prine and Robert Heinlein in rapid succession.
Like many before me here I had always had a “problem with authority” and I think that started in the state indoctrination centers. [public school]
B- In my early fifties I ran across [I keep running into things … I might need new brakes?] the freedomista “movement” when I started cruising the interwebs.
You Ms Wolfe were my final step into the actual reality of Freedom and its hidden location. [inside me] -wink-
“101 Things to Do ‘Til the Revolution” was the book that brought you to my attention.
Since then I have gone from minarchist to anarchist and from a middle class serf [most of my “income” was going to Leviathan] to a liberated semi-hermit.
This thread sort-of seems like reading the mind of a slave who escaped the plantation. [Oh, I forgot the grip the film, Roots, had on me.]
I’m half-inclined to hand out brochures to the young adults walking out of the coed-prisons in the same way the old timers give out mini-bibles. [Wholey crap, coed-prisons is in Spell check! Wow.]
I was amazed reading this thread, thank you all.
I feel compelled to add, the number one contributor to my freedomista journey was my high school English teacher along with the ideals of Henry David Thoreau.
Strike The Root!
I imagine Henry David Thoreau has been banned from public thought, or maybe public thought is that which has been banned (strike that)… eradicated?
Also, I thought of this thread while reading this interview:
Wendy McElroy on the Right to Pornography and The Art of Being Free
Wendy McElroy: It amazes me that people still equate a university education with intellectual curiosity or prowess. I believe the opposite is true. You want to kill an original mind? Put it through the idea-grinder that is modern academia where everything unPC, everything unsanctioned is stamped out.
http://thedailybell.com/28835/Anthony-Wile-Wendy-McElroy-on
A: I always feel wierd talking about it, because most people shrug it off as “revenge fantasy” or me being “hung up” over it. (It was also around the same point where my shaky, back-and-forth feelings on religion shifted severely for the “atheist agnost” side, but that’s not something I could label until my mid-twenties.)
I was always a little “off” – good understanding of the schoolwork, but poor understanding of social situations, willing to play sports but never really coordinated or strong enough to compete. What I had done, until that point, was avoid conflict with any sort of authority figure, assuming that I’d continue to be safe(ish)…only the occasional black eye or having my stuff stolen for not fitting in. In 6th grade, I finally got into a series of fights that crystalized what “authority” is, and witnessed an interesting crumbling of authority and then the replacement petty classroom tyranny.
The first fight started with me just refusing to give up my turn in line, but escalated when I kept getting hit after getting dragged out of line. I finally started fighting back when I realized that I didn’t know how far the beating was going to go. It ended with a broken hand, suspension for me for defending myself, and mediation where I was told I’d “provoked” the beating because I hadn’t kept my mouth shut after getting dragged out of line.
The second fight also was blamed on me not keeping my mouth shut after multiple minor strikes. I’d been preemptively warned not to use the cast as a weapon (they couldn’t figure out what else to do with a kid who’d never taken a swing at someone else before, but now had a “dangerous weapon” attached to his arm), but after taking a shot to the face in the middle of the classroom and realizing that that extra weight was about the only thing that even sort of equalized things, I had a growing appreciation for force equalizers…and a diminishing respect for the authority of the administrators, who decided it’d be a good idea to in-school-suspend both me and the other guy (who outweighted me by close to 100%) in a single room, next to each other, with a principal who left the room repeatedly to take calls. I ended that suspension more bruised than I’d started it, with more blame assigned to me.
The teacher had been having a difficult time controlling my particular class the entire year, but my second major fight was what ended up triggering the administration to remove the teacher, and replace her with two teachers. The “good kids” went from feeling bad about how the rest of the little shits in the class were treating the first teacher, to being collectively punished whenever one of the “bad kids” did something minor.
Looking back, sometime over the following 20 years I’ve not only totally forgiven everyone involved, but I’m thankful it happened. The lack of mobility on one finger is a small price to pay for a nudge from the “wool over the eyes, authority figures need to be obeyed and will protect me” track I was on.
B: This one’s tougher, and not only because I v*te (boo), and can see some very limited cases where taxing is (still immoral but) necessary for society to function (hissss). It’s been a growing, changing thing for me…and every time I slip to fall over that cliff to full-blown, anarchist freedomista, I get dragged by by someone or something.
Eventually I’m not going to be caught.
Columbine-associated persecution, smoking pot (with someone my very anti-drug parents know and respect, but don’t *suspect*) and realizing that DARE was a sham, (::cough:: and watching my DARE officer assault people, drive drunk, and be hired back onto the force after being fired – by the NYS Supreme Court ::cough::), suspicion over being a “hacker,” gay friends being persecuted…
It was a long, slow, 6-year slide from where I was at the answer to question A, to where I found myself on the morning of September 11th – A freshman, sleeping in, and waking to the radio…thinking it was probably just some modern HG Wells’ War of the Worlds. I’d found computers, electronics, phreaking, and other sundries, at various points during the rest of high school, but after watching the 2nd tower come down from the campus center, I had a feeling of imminent doom. Not over the possibility of danger from whoever had just arrange the destruction in NYC, but from the backlash of the governmentwent back to the room and destroyed my stash of tools. I had a feeling I knew what was coming, but I didn’t know the extent.
It was another college student who introduced me to the Libertarian party, probably 6 months post-9/11, and I immediately realized that I’d been immensely closer to that than to the R or D thing that I’d been trying to fit myself into up until that point.
Over the enxt few years, I had the friend swing from an LP member to self-identifying as a “liberal” (with all of the trappings of the modern Massachusetts liberal – redistribution, government control, blah blah blah). I found firearms, concealed carry, Lew Rockwell, Reason, etc. I found the HS Precision scandal, which led to some re-examinations of Waco (which I remembered) and Ruby Ridge (which I didn’t), and on to some uglier, more controversial things (Oklahoma City, and the perpetrator’s reasoning). I found friends who had been happy to stand with me when I was railing against Bush’s civil liberties violations and foreign aggression turn on me when I said exactly the same against the current occupier of the White House.
I finally and vocally start coming out to people as one of those crazy “small ‘l'” libertarians. This was where friends and family decided I had “changed.” ::snrk::
A: Not even totally sure when it really started. Can’t really trace it back to a book or something. Most of my childhood issues always arose from my inability to shut up and accept it when life gets stupid and unfair. I know it really started when I was 5 or 6 and first started getting dragged off to school and church all the time and I knew, even if it didn’t totally understand it at the time besides thinking “this sucks”, that something wasn’t right at all with any of it. It just kinda kept building as I learned more and discovered more of life’s problems.
B: As to when it matured? I’m young, so it still is I guess. If I had to put a date or event on it I’d say around age 15 or 16 when I entirely let go of normal and started discovering the Left Hand Path side of things.
I’ve tried a bunch of different niches throughout adolescence, like everyone else I know. Luckily I managed to make it through that awkward phase where you can’t decide between being an anarchist or a nazi or whatever the heck kind of ‘zine you’re reading that month. At least I think I have anyway.
I remember a few moments from junior high school where I decided that ‘the rules’ felt to lack legitimacy, and when I poked and prodded, found that absolutely the people trying to enforce them were acting without rightful basis. It was a curious thing for a young kid to pull back the curtain and find red-faced baboons all full of steam, but all talk no trousers.
I’ve had a foot in two worlds since then.
Boy, the memories are flooding back now. I know this wasn’t the start, but a turning point was when (in trouble again) my Dad told me not to be agitated or angered, but smile at the aggressors in the school system. He told me to outsmart them, and out live them. His message was to demonstrate that their efforts roll right off me, and by doing that, that I’d won.
I sure had fun with that.
How long does it take a young child to understand that the enclosures are the zoo are impenetrable, and antagonizing the animals is fun? Probably not the very best message, but then it did allow me to live a little of the outlaw life I liked while still ‘meeting the expectations of the system’ and progressing in life.
I was able to cause my Mom to yell at the dean in high school. I had allies in some teachers, and counselors, which permitted me to bend some bigger rules.
Life’s a game. There is NOTHING higher than an individuals mind and free will, unless you subscribe to religion. And I think my understanding of that may have stemmed from carrying a pocket knife in the sixth grade lunch line.
I first read about freedom in Heinlein’s _The Moon is a Harsh Mistress_.
I first realized that we lived in a deeply unfree world when I saw the BATF orchestrate an armed raid on the Branch Davidians that started by machine gunning the nursing mother dog and her pups in a pen, and ended with burning down a church with women and children inside.
I still remember watching the news every day in college, trying to wrap my head around the fact that it does happen here.
I have been from early times things weren’t working the way they were supposed to. The implied social contract in public school (“be good, be obedient, and everything will be OK”) didn’t work so well in my case. I earned a distrust of the powers that be, because those powers did not help me.
Heck if I know. running into Reason magazine in the late ’70, at the library where I worked. This was back when it was interesting. Reading L. Neil Smith (recommended in a review there).
And now, my position is “nuanced”, possibly in ways you would not approve of.
Churchill said that a man who wasn’t a socialist in his 20’s had no heart. And, that a man who was still a socialist in his 40’s had no brain. That pretty much sums it up for me. I was such a good little socialist in my teens and twenties; Marx and Engels, the Little Red Book, Hoffman’s Steal this Book, and others. Voted dem every chance I got, thought Reagan was an idiot who was going to start WW III and that Carter was the best prez in history, thought Clinton was the BOMB, I felt that with just a little more work and a few more elections Utopia could be achieved: Heaven on Earth realized at last. And then… I’m not sure what the catalyst was, but somehow I switched from feeling to thinking during Clinton’s first term. I read biographies of Adams, Jefferson and Franklin. I read the constitution (long after I had sworn to defend it!), I read the Federalist papers. I discovered Voltaire (and loved him since this is the best of all possible worlds!!!) I re-read Heinlein, and got it the second time around. I stumbled across Ms Wolfe because of the title: “Don’t Shoot The Bastards Yet”. Found Loompanics. Found Boston T. Party. Found Ragnar Benson. I came to realize the difference between WANTING the world a certain way (and forcing what I “knew” to be best on the rest of the world because, well, they just didn’t know what they were missing), and being in and of the world. My education was in Philosophy (thank you GI Bill), but it took ten years to percolate to a useable corner of my brain. Listening to a professional politician today is like fingernails on the chalkboard.