I suppose my political ideologies really got there start before I had ever really consider what an ideology really was. It wasn't until near my 8th year in the public education system, that I had finally declared myself a Democrat. My friends were the same. My parents were as well. The state of Washington in which I live, is a very Blue too. At this time, Clinton was president and I had spent all my time watching him on the "Kid's Choice Awards" on Nickleodeon. He was true blue in my eyes, was the first president to actually get involved with something that truly asked for the opinions of those not yet old enough to vote. Even then I knew it didn't really count, but it felt nice to at least pretend like we youths counted.
I took that to heart and even when Clinton was accused and tried for adultry, I still defended him in any conversations that came up about it. Even though I didn't know a thing about him, all I had to do was talk to my dad, who would speak highly of Clinton any chance he got. "He lowered the deficit." he would say, "At least he's not a republican" he would say at other times.
Growing up in Seattle, I gained a healthy dislike for anything Republican. I can't explain why or how I even gained this, as even with my dad's retoric, there wasn't any factual basis as to why I should dislike republicans, I just did. It was the way things were and you didn't mess with that.
As life continued on, I found myself more enamored with the world directly around me, then anything going on in the Washington across the nation. I always found it interesting that I lived in Washington State, while Washington D.C. nearly on the other side of the world. As I would learn later there would be much significance in that, but until my 23rd year of age, I really didn't take much stock in politics. In fact, many of those who knew me even a little bit, knew me more as an "anti-politician" than anything else. I felt the news was a horrible thing to watch, as they never reported on anything other than bad news. Occasionally you might see something wonderful on there and it was usually pretty big when it did make it, but it wasn't the norm. Bad news was apparently just more entertaining.
So, for 8 or 9 years, I purposefully ignored politics, the news, anything that gave off a bad vibe. Now that I think about it, this was probably the smartest opinion I could have ever taken in the political field. But as the saying goes, "all good things come to end" (though all bad things do as well).
By the time I turned 18, I found that political itch had started to sway my attention. In fact, I found myself way more interested in the political scene than I had ever imagined being.
It was the debates between John Kerry and George W that caught my fancy I think. From an outside perspective, it was probably fairly insignificant, but it holds purpose in my story. I had never really been into anything political, but being that I am a Capricorn Sun and have a Gemini Rising sign, I have always loved debate. From a youthful age I had always been very good about stating my case and challenging the status quo. So when I walked into the kitchen one dull afternoon, in search for something to fulfill my pregnancy cravings and saw a debate going on between Bush and Kerry, I stopped to watch. Under normal circumstances, I would have changed the channel immediately, but something just seemed different about this match.
With the previous four years of bush having brought us the beginning of the eastern wars with Saddam and the other terrorist "bad guys", I was hoping Kerry would displace Bush and at least give us some sort of a break. I had always considered myself a rather peaceful person and war was not something I subscribed too. I was happy, I suppose you could say, when we went in and took out the terrible tyrant Saddam, but I thought that meant we would be calling our troops back home. I think a lot of people were under this same delusion.
I kept an eye on the debates that continued on between Kerry and Bush. Even found myself searching for new debates between the two of them leading up to the election for president in 2004. I wasn't keen on voting, as I had many conversations with my father and others about how Al Gore had officially won the election in 2000 when Bush was first brought into the white house. My train of thought was "What good is it to vote, when they can just change the vote to whatever they want it to be anyways?"
Again, there are many people with this opinion and to some extent I think it still holds true. What I didn't realize, was that it had been a sign, one I should have headed in 2000, but being 14 at the time, I didn't see any reason to give a damn about it.
So I watched the elections unfold in 2004. I thought John Kerry was a for sure vote. It seemed like it would be impossible for the American people to vote for Bush again. Especially after he signed us up for a 3 trillion dollar war bill. Not to mention he portrayed himself as a complete idiot and it was apparent even to my young mind that we needed someone who at very least had some sort of common sense. Kerry didn't seem like the sharpest knife in the drawer, but anything seemed better than more Bush and in my mind, Kerry being a Democrat qualified as at leastbetter then a republican. What did I know?
As I watched the election unfolding, with the blue states and red states lighting up the map on the television. The Blue states were building quickly and I was hopeful, until it was clear that the quick build up of democratic states was clearly going to fizzle down just as quick as they had built up. Slowly but surely, the red republican states started to dominate the board as the blue states stayed but stopped building. In the end, as you know, the red republican states over took the map and to my amazement (along with the rest of the nation), Bush won his second term.
Even after all the stupid and insensitive things he said in the debates. Even after Kerry surely proved that he at least had more of an idea what the American people really wanted. Even after 9/11 and the other hype pushed by Bush. The closing of schools and large war debt, Bush was still re-elected. I didn't understand it then and I only partially understand it now. It still amazes me. I remember asking everyone I talked to, even those who ignored the poli-scene, "did you vote for bush?" I'd ask, "No", they'd usually reply. Either they didn't vote at all or they voted for Kerry, which was expectant in this blue state. I talked to many people online as well, since it's harder to reach outside opinions without using the internet and it was crazy. Every seemed as upset and baffled as I did. Even other republicans were confused as they had either voted for Ron Paul, or they had voted blue just to get Bush out. It seemed odd to me that so many citizens had voted against Bush a nd he had still won.
After that I had gone back to my original opinion, that it just wasn't worthy paying attention to. I took the same stance on it that I took with the Seattle Seahawks. I wanted to be loyal to my hometown and the views of those in it. Since the Seahawks hadn't won any significant games in nearly 8 years (at the time), I found it better to support them if I didn't know they had continued the losing streak, or rather, if I didn't watch them lose. I held the same with the political scene. I would much rather not know and hold steadfast to my blind loyalty, then to get involved and frustrated at what was really going on.
Things went strangely forward for the next 4 years. I was rather busy with trying to catch up with the real world. I have always been a dreamer and so had spent most of my later adolescent years doing what late teens are best at, experiencing life. At 19 I had my son then went through a depression while I tried to get over letting his father go. Then I built up my courage and left for the city of Lynnwood. Through the next couple of years I spent going through one wrong relationship after another. Got injured pretty badly while working as a CNA, then went on a prescription drug binge brought to you by the modern medicinal community and came back out on the other end with many new perspectives. I had been to every corner of the state of Washington and then some.
When the adventure seemed at an end, it was time for the hunt for a career. I knew I didn't want to work a job that sent you home crying at night, that didn't pay enough, that took all your time away from being with the kids and trapped you in. Instead I did what I enjoyed, I started a Music Production business and ignored the limitations being set up by the legislation and the beginnings of the recession. I continued on in my own world.
In the mid summer of my 21st year, my grandfather had his second stroke and after my father found him lost in a room of his own house, it became clear that he needed to be with a care staff that could watch him 24/7. Having previously been a CNA in an elder home, I knew the signs of Dementia I saw in him. I helped get him set up in a nursing home that was at least half way decent. A place that wasn't in the middle of the city, that had care professionals that actually gave a crap about their charges.
Once he was situated, I took a leap and asked if my small haphazard family could move into his home. To take care of it incase grandpa got better, which was more the hopes of his daughters, (my mother and two aunts) then my own. I had learned the stroke had been caused by a prescription of rat poison (Warfarin) prescribed by his doctors and he had taken one pill too many one day when he forgot he had already taken the needed dose for the day, and my intuition told me he wasn't going to "come back" from this.
After helping get grandpa set up to be decently cared for in his final days, dealing with emotional family drama and helping to keep things together, I started to get a little more comfortable in the old house and to add some of my own touches to it.
The rest of the year went by in quiet a blur. Moving into and getting comfortable in my grandparents old home, dealing with the end of my loves bad drinking habit and coming to terms with my inability to work for others. I still had my producing business going, but it had faded out when many of the home studio programs for personal computers had become cheap enough for the mainstream to buy. So in hopes of still supporting my family and fitting in with the "norm", I had attended a women's construction school and been working my way through it while working various fast food jobs and construction jobs. The only thing that had seemed to last, was the Mobile Mechanics business that I had started just a year earlier when we were still in the apartment. Sadly though, as the mechanics business seemed only seasonally profitable, I still had to fill the gaps with 9 to 5 type work.
It was when I had finally stopped fighting the urge to not work McJob's any longer, that I finally started putting my natural talents to work as a writer. I had been writing little insignificant pieces for years, but much of it had been lost when my first laptop crashed from a virus and I had never really thought to do much with it until the "paid to write articles" sites starting appearing online. Between my enchantment with this form of at home work and my addiction to World of Warcraft with long time friends, I found myself consumed with time online.
First I wrote mostly about what I knew, the experiences that had consumed the last 10 years of my life. Education, Attaining McJobs, Starting a Business, Mechanics, Music, Parenting and Love. Those were subjects I knew well and I wrote and wrote about them non stop. I poured my heart into building a portfolio of articles on many different sites. As I gained momentum, I also started to run out of topics to write about. This was when I really started to reach out into the world around me.
I had always loved the study of psychology, paganism, NLP and Cannabis. They had been passions for me for some time, but I had never really done anything with the information I regularly dug up, until I realized they would be great topics to write about. It only seemed natural to go in that direction anyways. So I did.
To keep this story from getting to overly long, lets just say that after hundreds of other topics, making myself a Jane of all trades, I found myself delving into the political scene. The poli-scene had caught my attention again with the race between Obama, Clinton and McCain. Still considering myself a democrat, and not a complete idiot, I had hoped for anyone accept McCain. I wasn't sure who I liked more, between Obama and Clinton, they both had many pro's and contras.
It was after a few interviews that Obama had been a part of, where in he had portrayed himself as "not against" cannabis, that I think he really won over mainstream America. The drug war had been a bust since long before this, but the legalization movement had really made some large strides in the right direction by then and many American's were hopeful that the near future would hold a president who might agree. Through his senatorship, Obama had made it clear he thought the drug war was a bust and a waste of money and freedom, so when he seemingly confirmed this in his pre-presidential interviews, he seemed to control the last few votes.
I hadn't heard anything from Hilary Clinton's views on the drug war or cannabis, whether good or bad, it seemed that she was avoiding the whole topic for whatever reason, which I am fairly sure is part of why she wasn't elected to presidency. She had the needed political experience, had been through office before as a first lady and seemed to have her head on straight, but Obama was knew, was diverse and to the public, it seemed like he was pro cannabis and against wasting money and freedom. ("Seemed" being the key word here)
Being that I still held my opinion of finding it worthless to vote on presidential elections until they repaired the system, I didn't vote for anyone when the time came. I simply watched, as I had with the election between Bush and Kerry. Just an observer in the background. Asking everyone their opinions of the race, who should win, why the "other guy" shouldn't win, what seemed 'amiss' about the whole race. Being that it had been that fall season going into the winter, I had been building up my career as a Musicians Liaison and Booking Agent, as I had done the previous year when the Mechanic work slowed down dramatically out of season, I found myself in a Bar that was new to me, trying to book a few bands for a show, when the TV's and radio's celebrated the win of the presidential election by Barrack Obama.
As the end of 2008 neared, I spent a fair bit of time observing Obama's and the start of his presidency. I liked him. He seemed to have a good use of NLP, a strong sense of humor and as many others had thought, I had hoped he would bring a positive change to our nation. I wrote about how he would end the war in the east, about how we could get cannabis legal and why he couldn't "just do it". I felt I was showing my patriotic support through writing in his favor. I watched youtube video's about his actions, observed how he seemed to like to do things almost exactly how Abe Lincoln did and generally supported him being that he was a Democrat.
During this time I was still highly entrenched with my Myspace page and gathering page views, finding new bands and booking killer shows throughout Seattle, while spending my down time writing online.
When things started to take a turn for the weird I really started to get more involved. Namely, when Obama signed on to continue the war over seas and not bring our troops back right away. I had already begun my start on facebook, namely for my business, but I had also found myself drawn towards those who had interest in the political scene. I wanted to see what others thought about these things taking place. I started to keep track of google news and other forms of "news".
Sometime after joining Hempfest, I found myself in the middle of an online nation of truth seekers. The news of 9/11 having been a set up and the many conspiracies that were gaining momentum in the nation. I had made a few friends in my home town and few online that seemed to be able to connect the pieces in the middle that I couldn't find anywhere. I learned the lesson that "It's not what they let you see that you have to worry about, it's what you don't see/hear that you have to worry about..."
I've always been a person to challenge the status quo, but I haven't ever really been into 'conspiracies' in my life. Being Wiccan I have always known that there were plenty of occult things in this world to be wary of, but the last place I had pictured them manifesting was in the white house, or in America.
The reality of the world hit me in a whirl wind. Talks of civil unrest, evil elite plots, and namely, the Swine Flu Epidemic scam, took hold of my wind pipe and squeezed tightly. I had been writing in favor of getting the swine flu jab before and had kept up on it's progress since they had changed the bulb to orange and moderately dangerous. Once I started to see the irony in it all and found myself agreeing with those that felt it was way too similar to the "accident" in the 60's with the first swine flu epidemic and later on with the Gardicil tragedy, I started to look more into things. The spraying of Agent Orange in foreign nations and in our own nation, by our own government. The start of HIV through the transfer of SIV in the simian polio vaccine in Africa. There was just to much admitted evidence by our own government for me to deny the possibility that one day they might turn against the people.
At this point, history really started to take hold of my interest. The civil war, the first economic bubble in 1660, the start and continued history of the British empire, the American Revolution, the Opium wars, the missing puzzle pieces to the cannabis prohibition, the temperance societies in history, fascism, hilter, the Mayans and Mesopetamians, the ancient Gauls, the founding fathers, conspiracies and prophecies and much more. It seemed like some cosmic funnel was feeding me the riddles and with each one solved, the more of the big picture I saw.
In the middle of it all, I found myself clearly at a dislike for either Democrats or Republicans. They were both disgusting parties and as I noted at the time, there seemed not to be a single republican or democrat who either knew what their own parties motto's were, nor gave a crap about the constitution. This is about when I started to look into the gaining talks of secession and separating from the United States. I had also learned about how America died and became the "United States", no longer the home of the free and the brave, we became the Corporation of America, sometime before my parents were born.
With the crazy rumors growing around the world about the recession being planned, the elitest plans for eugenics, fema camps and other out of this world thoughts, I knew from the history of our world, that it was and still is entirely possible. It's not a thought that I think anyone truly wants to see manifest, but being a rational person, it seemed only cautious to at least know about the past patterns and to keep an eye out for the signs of it taking place again in the future. I had learned that astrologically speaking, the stars were in nearly exactly the same set up as the were when the American Revolution was beginning.
At this I began to worry. The new crazy videos coming out of YouTube and some of the off the wall things being said by long time conspiracy followers was getting to me. I had never before been a person to panic at all. I had always been the "rock" in my circle of friends, great in a time of emergency and always ready for action. I found myself worried and being Empathic, my intuition told me I couldn't just sit back and ignore things this time. I shouldn't have ignored them when I was younger either, but now was not a time for wallowing in past mistakes.
When the health kill bill began to make it to the mainstream media, I began to take my penchant for searching for my own facts and answers, even more seriously. If you kept track of the things being said and written during the HB debates, I am sure you know what I mean. It was clear that some were just trying to get people riled up, some had know idea what was going on and dutifully praised their democratic leaders, while others were trying to sound the alert call. I became one of the latter. I knew that something was horribly wrong and I found the answer when I made the connection that the health care bill was completely unconstitutional.
All this craziness pushed me to question every belief I had ever had. Spiritually, politically, parentally, patriotically. I had to push my own envelope, because everything I had been taught to believe before, clearly was not right. Through all the history I was learning, it was only a small pivot to get into the theories of ideologies (political parties). I studied the imperials, the whigs, the socialists, the republicans, the democrats. Essentially, I went from the farthest of the far left, to the deepest part of the right. I thought maybe I was a moderate, or a centrist. I knew I was liberal in the sense that I felt each individual ought to be free and allowed to do what they may, so long as they didn't harm any other, yet I didn't feel this nonsense about stealing peoples money and giving it to government regulated charity. I liked the second amendment loyalty from the republican party and many other conservative issues, but I didn't feel comfortable with the religions juedo-christian hold that had taken over the party long ago. Yet even when I read about Centrism or Moderatcy, it still didn't seem to fit me. I had looked into what the governments job was really supposed to be and I wanted to pluck ALL the weeds out, renovate the white house and get a small but effective government back into the white house.
Finally I just started searching for lists of the various political parties. It wasn't an easy feat at the time and I am pretty sure the democrats and republicans wanted it that way. The only other mainstream party anyone had really ever heard about was Independents, who were always there, but never won anything and were always portrayed as nut jobs. After searching the lists and learning about the hundreds of different political ideologies that have been around for a long time, I started to take online quizzes and tests to quench my quest for an ideology and to follow my curious hunch that I might have become a Libertarian. After having 2 dozen or so tests all confirm the same thing, I gave in. I knew I was a libertarian and had likely been so for a long time, but my blind loyalty had kept me from ever seeing it. From ever questioning what others told me.
What does it mean to me to be a libertarian?
I believe:
# That the governments only jobs are to Protect our Freedom, Maintain a small army to protect our borders and ports from attack or invasion and to tax the people just enough to complete those first two tasks
# That the constitution is NOT a living document and that it should not have been altered from it's original state, other than to change any parts that say "all men", to "all humans", as to correct any racism, anti-feminism or slavery. (this would have corrected the slavery problem and allowed woman's sufferage much better than then the 12th, 13th or 14th amendments and beyond).
# That we DO need a government, though I believe it should be as small as possible. A small government can be powerful enough to complete the three tasks needed from it and not over step it's bounds. Anarchism is to under structured and chaotic for my capricorn temperment, but BIG government was too suffocating and clearly diabolical. The history I had learned showed clearly why our founding fathers had set to avoid this.
# Each human ought to be as free as one can possibly be. From owning their own land, to putting whatever they desired into their own bodies, to raising their children in the best way they knew how, all the way to being able to opt out of governmental systems, such as the Dollar, Social Security or the majority of Taxes.
# I believe there is no need for war unless we are directly being attacked and that the diplomacy is always the best first approach, that civil disobedience is patriotic so long as it does not harm another or stomp on freedoms and that there is always a need to prepared for self defense but never a reason to get violent in offensiveness. I am still a hippie at heart and peace is always an opinion in my perspective.
# That capitalism in moderate essence is not bad, though I do see it as fading away, the heart of it is not corrupt, only the elite and those who are seduced by the cut throat approach are corrupt.
# That a COMPLETELY free market is essential to the continuation of freedom and liberty. To attain this though, we would have to take the risk of being regulation free, though like everything else in my perspective, comes with it's risks.
# Freedom is not perfect. It isn't always pretty and part of allowing freedom to any human, is allowing them the freedom to mess up. To use it wrong or abuse it. These things cannot be avoided, as we have proved in our non freedom. Security is not essential, Freedom is. It's not perfect, but it's what I desire.
These are the reasons that I find myself a libertarian. What type of libertarian I am not really sure, for those of you whom have taken the time to seriously get to know the ideology, know that there are many different types of libertarians. I am certainly not an Anarcho-libertarian, which I still think is an oxymoron, yet I can't quiet pin myself into being a miniarchist libertarian, nor do I enjoy the theories of the gaining mainstream Libertarian party (with a capital "L").
I am still digging in my quest for what type of libertarian I am, but for now I am comfortable simply agreeing with the classical liberal libertarian view. Have you made it that far in your quest?
I hope some of these thoughts and adventures might help you decide. I certainly know there are a lot of misconceptions about all ideologies and especially libertarianism, which is being turned into a witch hunt by the mainstream parties.
Take the time to question what you think you know and to test the boundaries of what you could know. The main idea of this article isn't to convert you to libertarianism, as you'll find that the least likely activity of most libertarian, but merely to give you some experiences to learn from and an idea of some things to start thinking about and a way to find your own path, your own ideology, your on "belonging" in the political scene. My conviction in the libertarian forethought has certainly gained me a lot more insight then blind loyalty to any party, ever did. I hope this long winded story helps someone, even just one lost soul would be enough.
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