My "evolution" cannot be described succinctly, and I'm not going to talk about it extensively. Suffice it to say that none of the standard pigeonholes fit me, and never really have.

What I will say is that it has been more of a matter of refinement than of change. As I've come to better understand the system, the theories put forward by various people and groups, politics itself, I've made progressive (not in that sense) tweaks to my opinions.

An example of one of those tweaks is that I used to think that gay marriage should be accepted, and that this is how discrimination should end...

Now I think that government should get out of "marriage", and instead simply have a registration of relationship system, which would apply to any couple who are legally able to consent/sign. This means that children can't marry, that animals can't marry, and that inanimate objects can't marry. Note that it would allow polygamy... but I'd include the limitation that relationships must be exclusive, and all members of a relationship must be signatories to that relationship - meaning, you can't be in a relationship with X and Y unless both X and Y know about it and consent to it.

There are, of course, further conditions. But this isn't the place to describe all of them. They're mostly about preventing abuse of the system, such as restricting the impact on financial status, etc.

As for "marriage", leave that under the control of churches, synagogues, mosques, casinos, wedding chapels, etc. The ceremony and its related meanings are not relevant to the government. Essentially, if religious leaders are so upset at the idea of the "traditional idea of marriage" being destroyed, then let's revert it to what it originally was, and have government just recognise the relationships, not the "marriage". And if someone wants to be "married", but not have their relationship be registered, that's fine, too.

Anyway, that describes just one example. There are many more.

Haha, well, I'm still a bit weak on my debating ability regarding such areas of ancap philosophy, simply because I haven't read enough about it to be able to cover counterpoints as effectively as I'd eventually like to. So, rather than me weakly describing it to you, I'd rather just hit you up with a talk which argues the "reader's digest" case quite well, and you can take it further from there, if you so wish.

It's about an hour long, but it's good. Plus, the guy is one of the top economists out there, at the moment. Arguably the Austrian School's Paul Krugman.

Well, I'll watch it anyway.

Hahaha, I knew that was a terrible analogy when I posted it... what I really mean is that he's a professional economist who people respect (yes, some loons out there do respect Krugman), and not some punk kid talking shit on youtube.

Started off as a Conservative because my family had a lot of money -- at least for where I live -- which even though for most of my life I thought I would inherit a bit of it; however, that didn't pan out after about 25 years of being led to believe it would. When that didn't pan out and some of the schemes that I came up with to try to live on the same level that I had earlier in my life didn't work out so well either, I had to get jobs where I had to work my way up from the bottom.

And, I discovered that trying to work one's way up from the bottom is tainted with quite a bit of favoritism in the work place determining who moves up the ladder the quickest and that with the current minimum wage if you're on the bottom and your bosses don't have any intentions of moving you up very quickly, then you're doomed to stay there.

So I will be voting for Obama again over the religious cult member; however, increasing the minimum wage to a living wage for all Americans that work 40 hours a week so that they would be payed $17,500 if their bosses are going to pay for them to have a good insurance policy or $22,500 if one's bosses aren't going to pay for their insurance plan would work about as well as some of the plans Obama should have shoved through when he had a chance and be a nice place to start.

Yes, that's a good position on marriage. Of course, the next step (in my mind) would be, why have a registration system at all for relationships? What purpose does it serve? Let "marriage" (or, whatever you want to call it) just be completely between the individuals involved. Whether that's just a term of phrase that they intend to use, a personal contract, or some kind of "spiritual" contract (for use of a better term) with their church/God. Why does the state, at all, need to get involved in this process?

But, I like your stance. And if the State must be involved in the relationship business, then it should be via the means that you described.

You do realize that his GIF is in response to the fact you said that Krugman was Austrian School, right?

He is the antithesis of the Austrian School.

Heh, yeah, I got what you meant. It just seems like the worst thing you can possibly say about a person. "This guy is the Paul Krugman of nuclear safety" means, "Oh shit."

Nah, he said that Murphy was the Austrian School's Paul Krugman. I just had a visceral repulsion to such a comparison, for obvious reasons.

No, I said that Bob Murphy can be described to be of the Austrian School as what Paul Krugman can be described to be of the Keynesian School.

It was still a terrible analogy.