Before you knew about Ron Paul....

[Deborah K]

Where did you lean?

[acptulsa]

Well, this is ancient history, but if you weren't leaning libertarian back then you just didn't hear about Ron Paul at all.

[FrankRep]

Wasn't interested in politics until Ron Paul

[pcosmar]

In the middle. Independent voter. Conservative but libertarian leaning. Largely ignorant.

Got screwed, went searching for my lost rights. Found out about Dr. Paul on that journey.

[Kludge]

I was a neocon before I joined a debate class my freshman year of high school and had to be coherent to pass. Inched from neocon to conservative and then took the plunge to libertarianism.

[ChaosControl]

To the far right.

I've changed in that before I was fine with some war or intervention as long as we benefited, now I just flat out oppose intervention.

I was pretty hardcore social conservative, now I'm pretty much libertarian on those issues when it comes to government involvement.

I don't even remember where I first heard about RP. I don't know if someone mentioned him to me or what, I just know it was around the beginning of '07.

[johnrocks]

I've always been pretty much where I'm at although he has made me think more and shift my economic views from a more Monetarist (Friedman) view to a more Austrian view.

ETA..I came into this world with a "Goldwater 64" bumper sticker on my ass so I was already pretty close I suppose,lol.

[TonySutton]

I have always been a socially moderate, fiscal conservative. Meaning I did not care too much how others lived their lives but I felt the government should be small and frugal. Since joining the r3VOLution I have come to a much fuller understanding of where I feel our country should be.

I think I was walking in the right direction but I had my eyes closed.

[Golding]

I was registered Democrat, but with no real reason why.

[SouthGeorgia61]

Socialist, with no reason why other than "everyone deserved health care"

[LibertyEagle]

Well, this is ancient history, but if you weren't leaning libertarian back then you just didn't hear about Ron Paul at all.

I heard about him from the John Birch Society and my parents. My parents were Republicans.

[akihabro]

Wasn't too interested. The housing bust and Nov 08 election brought me into it. Ron's ideas only confirmed my previous beliefs about the gov't.

[RevolutionSD]

None of the above. I was a big-L Libertarian. (not right or left).

After the campaign, I figured out the fallacy that is politics and became an anarcho-capitalist. :)

[anaconda]

I was always shaking my head at how government and politicians could pull the stuff they were doing. I had imagined a government with a Ron Paul - like platform. I was surprised to learn about Ron Paul because I didn't think anyone with a platform like that could ever get elected to Congress. So, before Ron Paul, I was mostly following leads on all of the dirty shennanigans and thinking about becoming an activist in some of these areas. Was thinking of Judicial Watch, for example. Was quite taken with the 9-11 inside job ramifications and evidence, and what this could imply about our government infrastructure. Now I am seeing the Federal Reserve system as the Achilles Heel of the system, and 9-11 as a rather obvious symptom. Stop the Fed and stop budget deficits and we will likely stop false flags. Along with a lot of other bad stuff. We have to make sure the voting process is secure and free from fraud.

[jmdrake]

To the left. I started researching Bush to get back at the people posting the "Clinton death lists" kind of as a joke. I found out Bush was scary, then looked back and the Clinton information again and realized there might be something to that too. I learned about the inconsistencies of 9/11 as well as the 1993 WTC bombing, saw 9/11 the road to tyranny and my whole political world view was shook up. The same friend who turned me on to 9/11 issues told me about Ron Paul.

[CoreyBowen999]

umm before the campaign i was.. just turning 15. I did not care about politics until him. Luckily I never voted for republican or democrat scum.

[torchbearer]

I lean up.
Been libertarian all my life.

[orafi]

always been wise of our foreign policy since i was a young teenager. never liked the idea of taxes and spreading the wealth. i have changed my views on social issues a little, but i've figured i've always had these convictions. so i guess i've always been a libertarian like torchbearer. ron paul just injected me with a new fervor and real hope to be more outspoken

[surGeon]

Interesting question. Being Norwegian I probably had a different perspective than you Americans. I think I fell somewhere in the between the left and the middle, just because that's where the Norwegian government falls and I thought (and I was right, albeit for different reasons, in thinking) it was a pretty great place to live. It was all I knew basically, and if different socialist ideas ever came up for debate, all that was ever argued was whether it was fair or not. Growing up, I never heard an argument pertaining to socialism's effect on society and the economy. It's weird, I never really thought about it in that way. Admittedly I didn't care or think about it deeply back then.

It wasn't before I started following Ron Paul in the debates and interviews that I got interested, and began really understanding human action and how government policies affect them. I've often heard Ron Paul calling the people in Washington "pragmatists". Well, I'm a pragmatist and I want the government to do whatever will be most beneficial to the most amount of people. The only difference is that I now believe freedom and liberty is the way to go about doing that.

I'm very grateful to Dr. Paul for opening my eyes. I can see and understand the world much more clearly now.

[RoyalShock]

I was a fiscally and socially conservative rank-and-file registered Republican who was in favor of interventionism.

I was introduced to Ron Paul in the off-topic section of a sports message board in Nov. '07 and have been recreating my political and social views ever since.

[kaleidoscope eyes]

Before RP, couldn't have cared less. Saw RP in a debate in '07, Blammo, found someone who perfectly articulated what'd been in my heart about this country and I was all in!
He's still my President darn it! :)

[specsaregood]

Started listening to Limbaugh at 13. Always voted independent/3rd party first then republican if no 3rd party option, although I agreed with the conservative viewpoints as espoused by Limbaugh.

Ron Paul won me over the first time I heard him talking about The Federal Reserve around Feb 2007 (as I already knew about those b*stards but had never heard a politician call them out). Once I knew he was for real (see federal reserve comment again) it was much easier to look at his statements/positions with an open mind and recognize the truthfulness of his logic.
I spent about 2 days reading all his editorials/letters on his congressional page and *woke up*.

[Objectivist]

I've been homeless since Barry Goldwater left us.

[BuddyRey]

I didn't just lean to the left...I was veering over the guard-rail!

[Objectivist]

And by the way your poll should have a set of defined terms seeing that right and left are so far away from the Constitution these days.

[satchelmcqueen]

i guess still the same as today, just didnt have a real hero to put a face on it until ron paul in 2007. before that the only guy i had respect for was ross perot. i liked him in 92 and voted for the first time in 96 and he was the guy i gave my vote to. i could see even back then, at age 21, how the system was stacked against anything that made sense. the internet and paul really drove that point home and ive been on fire for truth and freedom ever since.

[Mini-Me]

I was born and raised a neocon, with a few positive and negative exceptions. On the positive side, I pretty much always understood the folly of yearly budget deficits and the Social Security system. On the negative side, I was raised to fear guns and oppose gun rights. As I grew up I developed social libertarian views and an opposition to draconian copyright and patent laws. Around the end of high school and beginning of college I briefly flirted with watered down libertarianism (without understanding it) before my concerns about corporatism, the wealth gap, etc. drove me strongly to the left. By the time I learned about Ron Paul I had become a full-blown leftist, and I supported socialized healthcare, socialized education, etc. (I still had social libertarian views though, concern for budget deficits, and concern for the insolvency of Social Security though).

I voted that I leaned to the left, because that's how I was when I learned about Ron Paul. Still, I've pretty much danced across the entire political spectrum except for outright totalitarianism.

[Austin]

At 14 years old, I was a neocon. At 15 I was apathetic and skeptic. At 16 I got into Ron Paul.

[Number19]

None of the above. Always been libertarian. Tagged as libertarian in 1979, but, even though I wasn't aware of it, have been libertarian since the 1st grade in 1955.

[AbolishTheGovt]

Used to be a practically-theocratic neoconservative.

Now I'm an atheistic anarchocapitalist. Ha.

[Imperial]

Raised in a hardcore conservative family. Looked at Trotskyism but rejected it. Began leaning right-centrist with some libertarian leanings until I read The Case For Gold, A Foreign Policy of Freedom and went to a Ron Paul rally. It took me 6 months to jump on the bandwagon.

[2young2vote]

I was young (still am i guess) and wasn't interested in politics but when I did discuss politics I was basically a Neo-con , anti drug, pro-war and all that other stuff.

[anaconda]

I was born and raised a neocon, with a few positive and negative exceptions. On the positive side, I pretty much always understood the folly of yearly budget deficits and the Social Security system. On the negative side, I was raised to fear guns and oppose gun rights. As I grew up I developed social libertarian views and an opposition to draconian copyright and patent laws. Around the end of high school and beginning of college I briefly flirted with watered down libertarianism (without understanding it) before my concerns about corporatism, the wealth gap, etc. drove me strongly to the left. By the time I learned about Ron Paul I had become a full-blown leftist, and I supported socialized healthcare, socialized education, etc. (I still had social libertarian views though, concern for budget deficits, and concern for the insolvency of Social Security though).

I voted that I leaned to the left, because that's how I was when I learned about Ron Paul. Still, I've pretty much danced across the entire political spectrum except for outright totalitarianism.

Just curious since it sounds like you're a converted socialist...

Are you still a believer in social programs that have rigid oversight? Or, do you now tend to believe that the free market (truly free.. free of government intervention) can best address the social welfare needs of the most people, including the middle and lower classes? I am asking because I think our greatest potential for winning this fight is for many leftists to begin to understand libertarian conservatism, and it's enormous potential. So I would find it interesting and useful to have some insight as to how this process may have transpired for you. I think many libs simply want to be counter cultural with respect to the establishment. What few of them seem to understand is that the RP platform is the most counter cultural, anti-establishment platform out there. I think a lot of libs want to feel "hip" also. But the RP program is definitely the new "hip."

[evilfunnystuff]

i wasnt politicly active but still had mostly the same fiscal conservative and socialy liberal beliefs there was some tweaking on certain issues but for the most part they didnt change

what changed is i now believe we have a chance to turn things around

[t0rnado]

I've always been a libertarian. I didn't even hear about Ron Paul until there was a YouTube of him on Digg back in early 2007.

[revolutionisnow]

Independent/Apolitical

Perot and Nader were the only other politicians I was interested in.

[zach]

didn't know, didn't care.

[GunnyFreedom]

I can't answer the poll. I was a Constitutionalist before I heard of Ron Paul. For a long time I thought I was the only one.

[Pauls' Revere]

On the streetpost at the corner, just right of center.

[priest_of_syrinx]

Neoconservative to the core. Now I'm anarcho-capitalist.

[torchbearer]

Neoconservative to the core. Now I'm anarcho-capitalist.

how far does the rabbit hole go? will you ever find the end?

[Bradley in DC]

I had always thought of myself as a classical liberal/old Taft Republican. I agreed with conservatives and Republicans on some issues, modern American liberals and Democrats and others. Then I found Dr. Paul, then a Congressman, my sophomore year of high school (1981 maybe?) and everything fell into place. :)

[BenIsForRon]

I was a cautious liberal. I didn't mind heavy taxes, but I wanted them to be spent conservatively, if that makes any sense. Then I realized the world straight up can't be controlled like that, so now I'm more libertarian with some green thrown in.

[Kords21]

I used to consider myself Republican and was even caught up in the Neocon world afther 9/11 even deployed when OIF started. Thought I was doing my part for a safer world. I'm in medical so I helped out soldiers and iraqi civilians alike. Once I went to the Burn Unit and stated to see these young kids all burned and mangled I had to ask myself for what reason have these young people given up their life? That was my big wake up call. Then I discovered Ron Paul and he cured my political apathy.

I admit I don't like Obama. I don't like him because of his policies and his actions. I honestly think it's going to take some kind of visual cue, some kind of senslesss suffering for people to challenge some of their perceptions about this world and really challenge their core beliefs. I do feel ashamed about having falling for the neocon propaganda and such, I can take some solace that my role enabled me to help allievate some suffering caused by them.

[Fozz]

I leaned left. I was very anti-war and I passionately hated the neocons, and those views have hardly changed. I was very liberal on environmental issues and believed the government should intervene to stop pollution and GW. I was fairly conservative on social issues like abortion and gay marriage and especially drugs, but on economic issues I wasn't sure if high taxes or low taxes are better, and I knew next to nothing about health care until 1.5 years ago. I thought labor unions were good and monopolies are evil usurers who need to be stopped by the government. I also thought the New Deal worked pretty well and that Hoover was too timid to sway from his rigid beliefs in the face of an unexpected crisis. Although my views were mixed, I liked the Democrats better because I really hated Bush and I thought the Dems would stop Bush's worst policies.

I didn't pay much attention to politics in 2007, so I didn't hear about Ron Paul until a year ago. I liked his views on foreign policy and health care at first, but I didn't understand why he wanted to abolish the Federal Reserve or pull us out of NAFTA and the UN. I then checked some youtubes of him, including debates, and I was very impressed by him. I first thought he was just like Pat Buchanan (on foreign policy Buchanan sounds a lot like Paul), but then I started to figure out what a libertarian is as opposed to a protectionist paleoconservative. It still took me several months for me to be fully convinced of Paul's views, but it was really shocking how much my views changed.

I will confess that I committed the Greatest Sin of All Time by reluctantly voting for Obama. I really liked Obama at first, thinking he was a true liberal that wanted to end the Iraq war and perhaps the war on terror, and be a major change from Bush. Then, in the summer, I got frustrated by Obama's vehemently pro-Israel views, and became much more skeptical of him. I then reluctantly supported him as the lesser of two evils, believing that another neocon is the worst thing we can get. I still had the "Anybody But Bush" mentality and thought Obama would do a couple of good things even though he wasn't excellent, and I thought people screaming "SOCIALIST" were overreacting. However, I starting getting more frustrated by Obama over the weeks after his victory, and by December 2008 I finally realized that Obama is a hack and a fraud who does not deserve any of my support, and now I am truly disgusted by him. Also by then, I read Ron Paul's Revolution book, which really amazed me and rapidly changed my views on a lot of issues, particularly economic matters, and educated me on what is at stake. I saw "Money, Banking, and the Federal Reserve" on youtube and that documentary really amazed me at how well they described the Federal Reserve. It was after seeing that video that I finally understood that the Fed needs to go and we need sound money.

[muzzled dogg]

voted (d)

[Standing Like A Rock]

I used to be a neocon, but wanted zero taxes (most neocons still want taxes). Then my dad told me that he liked this guy named Ron Paul for president and I looked him up and now I am a Ron Paul Republican.

[hugolp]

As someone pointed before, being an european changes things. Here, even the right-wing is very socialist.

My family are leftist and I was basically a lefty. I though I knew somethings about politics but I was just driven by the propaganda. I voted just once, when I was 19 to the ex-comunist/green party because I though the moderate left was very corrupt. The ex-comunist/green party showed themselves as very corrupt too. That put me off, and did not voted again for no one.

Then when I was 28 in Youtube I saw a video of this guy named Ron Paul. I was very surprise. Its weird because I allways been given the image of those crazy americans that love guns and Jesus... But this guy talked against the wars, and it made sense. That breaked the prejudism I had.

But what really did it was monetary policy. Because of Ron Paul I started studying economics (mainly austrian and monetary policy) and that completely changed my mind. It was difficult to change my views on some social issues and realizing goverment is dangerous, but I consider myself now a libertarian. I see now that I am more tolerant with other peple views (specially on religion) than I was before. Its amazing how socialist propaganda can convince you that forcing other people to do a bunch of stuff is ok, because its "obvious that you are right". Discovering Ron Paul has changed my life.

[youngbuck]

Its weird because I allways been given the image of those crazy americans that love guns and Jesus...

Don't be so quick to judge. I love guns and Jesus too! :cool:

[hugolp]

Don't be so quick to judge. I love guns and Jesus too! :cool:

I know a lot of people does. What I wanted to say is that I dont see that as weird or crazy anymore, like I had been taught to believe.

[hotbrownsauce]

A bit before Paul I was taking an interest in our Constitution. I bought "The making of America" and "The 5000 Year Leap". I was headed on the right track for liberty. Before Paul I hadn't enough experience to know who and what I supported except the Constitution. (I was young and still am) Since then I've found out I'm much more Republican than Democrat and more Libertarian than Republican. I also found Peter Schiff and Austrian Economics. The stuff I've learn and read since 2007..... I hope all of you are still reading more than websites and blogs. I've spent hours and hours and hours and hours reading, watching, and listening and I feel I'm just getting to have a decent understanding of liberty and economics. It is NEVER to late to start learning. Please read one liberty related book for me. For the liberty minded, reading a liberty related book is just as enjoyable for us as it is for people who read fantasy books.

[talkingpointes]

I was left leaning in the last election '04 and right in 00'. I honestly thought Kerry would of brought the troops home. I was a single issue proponent type and wanted my brother to come home so bad I would of accepted the rest of the platform. I registered as a democrat but never voted thank goodness.

[nelsonwinters]

Its amazing how socialist propaganda can convince you that forcing other people to do a bunch of stuff is ok, because its "obvious that you are right".

Well stated! This is the root of the problem regardless whether your talking about health care, war on terror, war on drugs, education or even the federal reserve.

[FreeTraveler]

Left or Right? Nolan Chart (http://www.theadvocates.org/quizp/index.html), people! I'm at the top, no left or right for me. I can handle my own life, TYVM.

[Deborah K]

Bump

[StudentForPaul08]

I was all about Kerry in '04. I was anti-war to the core so that led me to the left at first. until I discovered Ron Paul. THen I became small-government and read about the founding fathers etc.

[Captain Bryan]

Socialist, with no reason why other than "everyone deserved health care"

Ditto.

[pinkmandy]

I was a good little Democrat in my younger years, voted for Clinton and helped 'rock the vote' thanks to the propaganda campaign on MTV. Grew up a bit and saw the lies of Clinton then turned right thinking they must be better. And along came Bush and I realized that both parties were a joke. I felt so disenchanted, so angry, so 'powerless'.

Then in the beginning of the primary season I ran across a youtube of a cute little man named Ron Paul who was testing the waters to see if a run was viable. I agreed with everything he was saying and started learning about the Federal Reserve, the history of foreign interventions, and the gradual erosion of rights that has led us to where we are. I've homeschooled for years and have been anti-mandatory vaccination for a long time. I never thought I'd hear a politician supporting my views on that!

[tmosley]

I became a libertarian a few years before I heard about Ron Paul, though I was a liberal before that. I always thought it was inconsistent that liberals wanted to ban guns, which is an issue of personal freedom. That was the issue that broke apart the logic that had led me to that camp.

[Feenix566]

I voted for Badnarik in 2004. (the Libertarian candidate)

[Mini-Me]

Just curious since it sounds like you're a converted socialist...

Are you still a believer in social programs that have rigid oversight? Or, do you now tend to believe that the free market (truly free.. free of government intervention) can best address the social welfare needs of the most people, including the middle and lower classes? I am asking because I think our greatest potential for winning this fight is for many leftists to begin to understand libertarian conservatism, and it's enormous potential. So I would find it interesting and useful to have some insight as to how this process may have transpired for you. I think many libs simply want to be counter cultural with respect to the establishment. What few of them seem to understand is that the RP platform is the most counter cultural, anti-establishment platform out there. I think a lot of libs want to feel "hip" also. But the RP program is definitely the new "hip."

I think there's a lot of value to your question - and this thread in general - so I'll do my best to elaborate with as much detail as possible. Time for my tl;dr du jour! Still, I get the feeling that my mindset wasn't very typical for a liberal, so it would help if some more "ex-liberals" gave some detailed accounts too.

It took me a little while to come around, but I've become a firm supporter of the free market. I agree with you that well-intentioned but naive young leftists are probably our best hope. Unlike the neocons, the more independent-thinking liberals are at least able to recognize some serious problems with the wealth gap and the economic status quo. They're just buying into all the wrong solutions.

If my experience is anything to go by, I think the biggest problem is the misconception that what we have today is the "free market." We have liberal talking heads referring to our recent history as the "second gilded age," and I'm sure just about all of us here know how completely absurd that title sounds. Come to think of it, the complete bastardization of the truth makes me second-guess just how "laissez-faire" the first Gilded Age was. We're propagandized so heavily to think this rigged corporatist system is the same thing as the free market, and that corruption of our language has destroyed most people's understanding of what a free market is and how it works.

Unfortunately, I think I was probably wayyyy easier to convert than most liberals, even though I still think they're more receptive than most neocons. I kind of had a leg up, since I had drifted away from being a neocon only a few years earlier, and I only reluctantly turned to government solutions for lack of visible alternatives instead of whole-heartedly embracing them. Plus, I have a strong inclination for abstract thinking, and that includes thinking about economics. One thing I realized earlier than most liberals was that even if we have a huge wealth gap, the distribution of income is a much smaller problem than the total amount of wealth circulating in the first place. Even if we redistributed income for 100% income equality, that would do little more than give everyone an "equally mediocre" income, and that would come at the cost of destroying every incentive for productivity. In other words, I recognized that besides economic inequality, there was something inherent about our current productive capacity that was holding us back from widespread prosperity. I tried to work this conundrum out for myself, and I decided at the time that the two biggest factors were:
The inefficiency of oligopoly-controlled industries, combined with high entry barriers for upstart competition and entrepreneurs. Little did I know the real reason why the entry barriers were so high...
Structural unemployment and the effective inability of the poorest and most uneducated Americans to participate in the economy. Due to outsourcing of manufacturing jobs and our crappy education system, we simply have too many unspecialized workers competing for the same jobs. (Of course, it took waking up to find the right solution.)

At the time, my liberal mind landed on antitrust regulations and such as a partial solution to stagnant oligopolies. I jumped on the "health care is a right" bandwagon due to the high costs of healthcare and the fact that it's practically impossible to get insurance if you have any significant preexisting conditions (unless you're educated or lucky enough to get a job with such benefits). I reluctantly decided that the best solution to the education problem was socialized education, including college...but I had a healthy distrust of bureaucracy too. After all, our own local school board repeatedly threatened to put school buses out to pasture unless we continually voted in favor of incessant tax levies (and they did it once too). All the while, some completely superfluous administrative jobs were paying in the six figures! Basically, they kept giving themselves raises with tax money while letting the schools go to hell. :rolleyes:

I first heard about Ron Paul in May of 2007 on some blog that made a quip about him looking a bit like Gandalf the Grey. The author himself had just heard about Ron Paul and his support for commodity money, and he thought Paul was pretty interesting, even if he wasn't sure whether he agreed with him or not. I went and did a bit of searching, and I ended up landing on the "Liberalism FAQ" that Steve Kangas set up years back, particularly his page blasting the gold standard (http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-gold.htm). That page satisfied my curiosity for a while, but I still recognized that no matter how "correct" Keynesian monetary theory might be, it was extremely obvious that the people in charge of monetary policy were way too irresponsible (or corrupt) to follow it...and that it was probably foolish to expect anyone with that much power and discretion to actually follow the theory diligently (instead of constantly expanding the money supply in both good times and bad).

I decided at the time that Ron Paul was mostly wrong on monetary policy, and that maybe his "kooky" reputation had some merit. Still, I didn't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, because I could tell that Ron Paul's obvious honesty, resistance to lobbyism, and personal integrity put him above the pack. Plus, he was the only Republican I knew of who took an uncompromising stance against the Patriot Act, the war, and illegal wiretapping, so I knew he was something special, economics aside. Foolishly, I decided that I was going to learn enough about economics to send him a polite letter asking him to reconsider a few positions. :o A few months later, I was reading up a bit on Keynesian economics, the monetarist stance, the gold standard, etc., and I started writing up an essay about why commodity-backed money was completely unfeasible.

Of course, there was just one problem: I was wrong...and I kept finding huge inconsistencies and logical errors in my arguments. Digging deeper, I couldn't help but find logical errors with the arguments on the huppi site as well. In the end, I gave up trying to argue that commodity-backed money was untenable. I still didn't know if I agreed with Ron Paul, but I knew at that point that he was NOT crazy, and so I decided to give him another hearing. I remember thinking to myself, "If I'm wrong on this point, and if Ron Paul might be right...could it be possible that he's right about some of the other things I disagree with him on too?"

I started reading some of his Congressional speeches, found these forums and started learning from other posters (and their links), and continued reading other things. I was already pretty receptive when I started it, but I think The Law by Frédéric Bastiat played a large role in my conversion to libertarianism. As a side note, I know Ron Paul's The Revolution had a strong impact on one of my conservative uncles.

Anyway, it was definitely a gradual transformation. I doubt very many liberals would be interested enough in convincing Ron Paul he's wrong on monetary policy to follow the same conversion path. ;) However, reflecting on this whole post, I think the underlying "key" is in the paragraph where I mentioned,

One thing I realized earlier than most liberals was that even if we have a huge wealth gap, the distribution of income is a much smaller problem than the total amount of wealth circulating in the first place...
If we can get more liberals to understand this point, I think they might start approaching economic issues with an open enough mind to recognize the right answer when they see it.

[Liberty Rebellion]

When I could first vote, I voted for Ralph Nader because I could tell that the others were just BS. At the time I guess I was more in favor of big government w/o really knowing/understanding everything that goes along with it.

After 9/11, I was all about interventionism and the War on Terror. Almost joined the military myself, but I didn't because I have a problem with authority and taking orders w/o question. I remained very close to the neo-conservative view point until 2005. I came across info regarding 9/11 other than the official story. The timing of that could not have been more perfect in terms of allowing me to research; I had just been fired from my job but a HR error left me on payroll for three months. All I did was research, research, research. That awakened me from the hypnosis I had been under since 9/11. I was then a member of the Green Party until '07. Once I really researched what Ron Paul was talking about (I heard of him before, don't remeber where) I became an ardent defender of the Constitution and participated heavily locally for his Presidential campaign (and that was a lot of fun!).

Finally, after doing more and more research, I'm now an anarcho-capitalist:D

[VIDEODROME]

Another voter for Ralph Nader. Mostly to protest the excessive corporate lobby influence in D.C.. I also respect him on foreign policy such as on the Iraq War mess.

I still voted for Ralph in 2008.