I was a pathetic kid growing up. Neurotic mother, no friends, played video games before it became the cool thing to do. All the people that made fun of me in school for it now have 1up tattoos and stuff, it's crazy.
I went to a Catholic school growing up, which, of course, means I became an atheist. Something got in me at a very young age a skepticism towards government, and I'm not sure what. Something got into me where I became pretty absolute in my convictions about free speech. I don't remember what I was exposed to, but I was a voracious little reader then.
I've always been completely alone. I never got along with my twin brother, ever, and while I wouldn't say I was harshly bullied, I was constantly ridiculed and made fun of. I was a weird shy kid and never fit in at all. It stunted my social development. All the other kids played sports. I played video games. I didn't fit in and was awkward. Not really bitching or complaining, I'm a different person now and I've seen an interesting part of life.
I learned fast how style trumps substance, how authority figures will not help you or be there for you when you need them, or even really care no matter how much they kid themselves that they do, how everything is who you are and not what you know, how a joke was funny depending not on the joke itself but who told it.
The more I read and learned-conscious of my own biases, and trying to ignore the emotions in me that told me to look away when other arguments are presented, really has made me open minded. I constantly discovered how I knew absolutely nothing, and how the world really is basically a nihilistic place, a Lovecraftian sort of universe where so much is unknowable and devoid of cosmic purpose.
As I got older I got onto message boards and got involved in a lot of crazy stupid little drama. I learned that good/fair/consistent moderation didn't exist, especially on political boards where one person's central belief is another person's ban-worthy heresy (just look at Something Awful), that rules (extending to laws in the real world) are more guidelines and will be disregarded when convenient. Also I became mostly immune to being disgusted or shocked by things people so. I think gay pornography on billboards should be A-OK, if you can't handle it, you're weak.
Just, over time I saw just how much any group or system will become corrupt. Causes are stupid. The freedom fighters will be lynching people in the street next week. There are no good guys. The people that obsess about being the good guys will be the first ones to pick up rifles and join the firing squads. The librarians will start to burn books, artists will scream out and demand censorship, you're seeing all these things. Nobody will save you. Institutions fail.
Eventually, I became sort of vaguely anarchic, not truly believing in no political theory, perhaps explicitly believing in No Theory due my skepticism on humanity and of morality itself. I sympathize with libertarians, and that is where my dispositions lie, but being that there is no such thing as a moral truth I suppose it's largely a personal preference about life. But never, ever, ever, ever will I bow down to collective consensus or mob rule the way progressives do, fellating the notion of the everyman or Leviathan. You think people are irrational based on their decisions in the marketplace? Just wait until they get to the polls! I'm not a fan of little regulations and rules of behavior, and when it comes to economics, the left seems to operate on a zero-sum notion where there's a fixed size of pie and the rich are gobbling up most of it when the size of the pie is constantly growing and many or most millionaires work hard and long hours and create more and more wealth and new things. I'm not impressed with "rich getting richer" rhetoric since, yeah, that's the nature of the exponential grown of investments. We all hate the nature of big corporations, but I've not felt like my life is any for the worse that some CEO is making a million dollars to work 7 days a week. That said, I don't buy, and am always skeptical of, the a priori arguments where one's moral ideology is also the most economically prosperous alternative. Speaking in a lofty metaphor so you understand my perspective, maybe there are things in life like dark Blood Gods that demand sacrifices so the sun will rise each day--I don't believe in taxes, or that I have a moral duty to the government or society to pay them, but that doesn't mean I think a society without these things is necessarily more prosperous or "better," very likely it could be worse. One thing I definitely don't believe in, as I've said, is the power of the people. No way will I ever worship the common man.
At the end of the day I'm a space cowboy traversing an empty void, I guess. And my father was a refugee from a communist country, that probably helped.
Sorry for the rambling, it's getting late.
