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View Full Version : What was your first contact with the liberty movement?




Chieftain1776
07-13-2009, 09:05 AM
Just curious about what's effective. Mine was through a professor in college. He made a statement about "organ markets" and I was appalled and googled his name and found it on Cato's website and then Lew Rockwell's website. Though I got most of my information from the internet my first exposure was in the classroom.

Feel free to add "other". I just thought of work collegue, mark that in the "family or friend" option. Oh just thought of another, fellow student, mark that under teacher/professor for now.

ClayTrainor
07-13-2009, 09:15 AM
I saw Ron paul interviewed on CNN, before the debates started and I immediately felt like i had an epiphany. He said everything i've been wanting to say for years, but couldn't find the words :)

MRoCkEd
07-13-2009, 09:16 AM
R o n P a u l !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

jdmyprez_deo_vindice
07-13-2009, 09:21 AM
I originally heard about the Ron Paul campaign in 2007 online. So I checked it out to see what this was all about and why the few (at the time) were so dedicated to this man's campaign and lo and behold I became one of the dedicated within mere days of not only digesting the message but checking to make sure the guy was the real deal. It started with Ron Paul (after time served as a neocon) and has branched out personally in many directions all dedicated to bringing about true liberty.

Anti Federalist
07-13-2009, 09:53 AM
First contact?

Pro gun rights movements and JBS back in the 80s.

Kraig
07-13-2009, 09:55 AM
I was out of town on a business trip and my co-worker showed me Russo's "America: Freedom to Fascism".

MsDoodahs
07-13-2009, 09:58 AM
1994 started reading a copy of The Freeman - Ideas on Liberty from The Foundation for Economic Education.

:)

LibertyEagle
07-13-2009, 10:29 AM
I was raised by parents who were very pro-liberty and they started encouraging us to read related stuff when we were little kids. But, I probably didn't pay that much attention until the '70s.

krazy kaju
07-13-2009, 10:48 AM
Ron Paul. I was an anti-war leftist but I was intrigued by his support of free markets.

pcosmar
07-13-2009, 10:56 AM
2nd amendment violation.
I went looking for my lost rights, and where they went.
Research led me to Ron Paul.

from there to here.:cool:

RedLightning
07-13-2009, 11:02 AM
The internet when I first got into guns. Then I read the novel Unintended Consequences, which in some ways showed me the extent of the damage to our rights. I read some more books and read on the internet, then I found out about Ron Paul online.

Dreamofunity
07-13-2009, 01:43 PM
Youtube of the presidential debates, just kind of randomly clicked on it, saw Paul and got hooked on liberty.

libertarian4321
07-13-2009, 01:59 PM
I'd always been a small government fiscal conservative, but the first major event that made me realize that there was an alternative to the big government crap being shoveled by BOTH the Dems and Reps was:

Harry Browne, CSPAN, July 4, 1996, Accepting Libertarian Party Nomination for President.

Kludge
07-13-2009, 02:00 PM
Always was sympathetic to libertarianism. Stossel was the first person I really identified with, but I didn't know there was any type of "movement" until I came here.

Golding
07-13-2009, 02:05 PM
A guy I worked for IM'ed me a youtube of Rudy Guiliani's ignorant rebuttal to Ron Paul talking about blowback.

Mini-Me
07-13-2009, 02:10 PM
I had been briefly exposed to the existence of a political position called "libertarianism" in the past that I thought was in between the "left" and the "right," and I briefly flirted with it between my neocon and leftist days...but it wasn't until the Ron Paul campaign that I really started paying attention and it finally "clicked."

CCTelander
07-13-2009, 02:15 PM
I was basically raised in the "Liberty Movement." My dad was a chapter leader for JBS back in the 60s (I was a kid then, but do remember some of the meetings), and I was literally taught about a lot of this stuff for as far back as I can remember.

Later on, I took it upon myself to study Constitutional Law and History, and even later than that I took up Philosophy.

More recently I've begun to learn a bit about economics beyond what I was already taught while growing up.

Kotin
07-13-2009, 02:30 PM
youtube.. I saw "A New Hope" and I was a new man.

pahs1994
07-13-2009, 02:34 PM
I saw the first Debate.
I was a registerd democrat, never really payed attention to politics, and i never heard a politician ever speak and i agreed with 99% of what they said. I decided to turn on the republican debate to see what the neocons were up to and was blown away by Ron Paul.

shocker315
07-13-2009, 02:37 PM
Read the "Creature from Jekyll Island" back in the early 90's. Ron Paul's endorsement was on the back cover. When I saw he was running for President...I lost my apathy. ;)

Mahkato
07-13-2009, 02:47 PM
Saw an illegally-placed RP2008 sign in Bozeman, MT, summer of 2007. Thought nothing of it other than, "wow, they start earlier every year!" Happened to read Schiff's Crash Proof later in the summer. In early October my wife showed me some YouTube of an RP speech.

RevolutionSD
07-13-2009, 02:49 PM
Read Harry Browne's Great Libertarian Offer in 1996 after voting for him in the 96 election (not knowing much about libertarianism at the time). Joined the LP, saw how ridiculous the whole political system was in 04, and thought RP was our only hope in 07.

Now I'm certain that playing politics not only doesn't help the liberty movement, but it actually sets us backwards, as we are conceding that we need these so-called authorities in our lives.

Brian4Liberty
07-13-2009, 03:33 PM
Harry Browne - How I found Freedom in an Unfree World

rajibo
07-13-2009, 03:40 PM
I read Peter McWilliams "Ain't Nobody's Business if You Do" when I was a freshman in college in 1993 and it all made perfect sense.

I'm pretty sure I was born libertarian, but that's when it all started to come together.

Chieftain1776
07-13-2009, 04:46 PM
Now I'm certain that playing politics not only doesn't help the liberty movement, but it actually sets us backwards, as we are conceding that we need these so-called authorities in our lives.

As I've said elsewhere (http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?p=1963934#post1963934)a number of times....I'm not really hopeful about the prospects of short term political success but I don't think it's counter-productive to run a campaign for educational purposes. Actually that's why I put up this poll...thus far it confirms my theory that campaigns aren't a bad way to reach people with the message of liberty. A number of people here become more "radical" (I'd say more "consistent") when they're exposed to the full range of ideas.

Chieftain1776
07-13-2009, 04:47 PM
I read Peter McWilliams "Ain't Nobody's Business if You Do" when I was a freshman in college in 1993 and it all made perfect sense.

I'm pretty sure I was born libertarian, but that's when it all started to come together.

Wow just read this review (http://www.amazon.com/review/R12YI9YL3TA0MJ/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm) on Amazon. Disgusting, outrageous and just sad :(

libertarian4321
07-13-2009, 05:27 PM
Read Harry Browne's Great Libertarian Offer in 1996 after voting for him in the 96 election (not knowing much about libertarianism at the time).



Yup, Harry Browne's books in '96 and 2000 helped solidify my beliefs and drive me further from the FRAUD THAT IS THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.

Unfortunately, I lent my Harry Browne books out and never got them back. I hope someone is still benefiting from them.

Standing Like A Rock
07-13-2009, 07:23 PM
My dad.

gls
07-13-2009, 07:27 PM
I don't exactly remember but I'm pretty sure it involved the second Harry Browne campaign.

UnReconstructed
07-13-2009, 08:13 PM
2nd amendment violation.
I went looking for my lost rights, and where they went.
Research led me to Ron Paul.

from there to here.:cool:

wow dude

ron paul stole your rights and stored them on rpf? unreal

Natalie
07-13-2009, 08:30 PM
My dad also.

USAFCapt
07-13-2009, 08:39 PM
...Harry Browne, CSPAN, July 4, 1996, Accepting Libertarian Party Nomination for President.

Same here, I was 16. Harry Browne was the best speaker for liberty I've ever heard.

RevolutionSD
07-13-2009, 08:51 PM
As I've said elsewhere (http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?p=1963934#post1963934)a number of times....I'm not really hopeful about the prospects of short term political success but I don't think it's counter-productive to run a campaign for educational purposes. Actually that's why I put up this poll...thus far it confirms my theory that campaigns aren't a bad way to reach people with the message of liberty. A number of people here become more "radical" (I'd say more "consistent") when they're exposed to the full range of ideas.

Chieftan,
Interesting, I used to hold this same view and can definitely understand what you're saying. BUT, when RP ran for president, he was essentially conceding to the statists- trying to win at their game.

I still can sympathize with the education aspect of campaigns. But if we keep our focus on politics, we will never win this battle.

40+ years of the LP and now a couple of years of the RP revolution, and gov't just keeps growing and growing. We libertarians haven't even slowed the growth down at all, let alone turned around gov't to the direction of liberty.

I think freedom is an inside job. We all need to let go of the idea that we need other people running our lives and even a tiny bit of violence.

Even if we were to get a majority of Ron Paul republicans in congress, and a libertarian president, it would VERY quickly go right back to a repressive, tyrannical system, because people would fundamentally still believe in statism.