* Raised in a home of Democrats. Likely ended up somewhat liberal as a result, or at least liberal-moderate. Believed in government. With Catholic background, ended up anti-abortion, anti-drugs and all the government being busybody stuff.
* GW Bush gets elected. Around 2004, lose job with IBM and do soul searching, and I defended GW Bush regarding Iraq. I battled Fox News dittoheads on Usenet. I saw a ton of "But Clinton" in defense of GW. Also decided to check out Libertarians. I read real conservative stuff from American Conservative magazine, and saw a lot of the issues I had with GW Bush were similar to what Pat Buchanan's magazine had. I also looked at more Libertarianism.
* 2008 comes rolling around, and I get on the Ron Paul grassroots campaign local, running a Meetup. I had the mix of Libertarianism and paleo-conservatism, with dislike of government busybody stuff on personal morality. But I have a Christian grounding in compassion, so not up for just rip up the social-safety net and hope for the best. Still believe society as a whole needs to do more.
* Got involved with Occupy and bypassed Libertarianism to be pretty much anarchist at this point (as far as preference for a perfect world). I have anarcho-capitalistic leanings, in regards to private property, but also have some traditionalist views that I am suspect that markets are magic and will resolve things, and believe there needs to be more values. I believe government is folly to solve problems, but I am not a destructionist. I happen to not believe you can just dismantle government and suddenly things get better. Alternatives need to rise to replace government. But I realize I live in a society with lots of government, so I try to make the best I can here. The destructionist tendencies in Occupy really bothered me. I saw people who had no respect for law there. What I have is an end, not a means. And if government is doing some good things, I am not going to tear it down.
And with this, I am sure some are going, WTF? when they read what I write on here. I hope it makes things a bit clearer, but may be confusing still. And yes, I may be hugely inconsistent. I don't fit into a neat categories and I could contradict myself also. Oh well, so be it. I am not in power now at this point, so it doesn't matter. Does it?
