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View Full Version : Your Political/Philosophical Awakening: How did it occur?




Philip Dru: Agorist
08-16-2011, 07:08 PM
This is a rather long introductory post, but I hope it will stir up some good discussion:

Until 2001, I was an unquestioning, full-fledged statist who wondered aloud whether or not communism was a preferable system to live under in the United States. No doubt about it. I was 100% for the state and state power. I had numerous conversations with people about this subject and recall being an unabashed moral relativist. I believed with every fiber of my being the mythology of U.S. history.

- Then came 9/11. I remember sitting there watching throughout the entire day in total shock, never once questioning the narrative unfolding on my TV fed to me by the corporate media. I was despondent watching repeated replays of the two main buildings collapsing over and over from various angles. I really believed everything I was being told about the attacks. That is until I watched World Trade Center 7 come straight down into its own footprint with absolutely no resistance whatsoever. I knew it hadn't been hit by a plane. I knew the fires inside hadn't turned into a full-building conflagration and instead were relatively small internal fires. Immediately I sensed something quite wrong with that collapse. You see, in years past I had been a skyscraper enthusiast and had done considerable research on their construction and composition, marveling at their size, rigidity, and redundant structural protections against disasters. Deep down in my gut I just knew that that collapse, in that particular manner, couldn't possibly have happened without something "helping" it along.

That said, I went along with the War on Terror anyway and just convinced myself that what I saw could be easily explained. It's probably more accurate to say I deluded myself because I was uncomfortable with having to face the far-reaching implications of an "inside job". I'd say that on that day, I woke up about what was going on in this country about 20% of the way. At the very least my mind was at least a little bit opened to thinking in conspiratorial ways I had never been interested in before.

- Then came the second war on Iraq and how it never ended along with the failed search for WMDs. Throughout the years from 2003 to 2005, I began to realize that the whole thing was a bit of an inexplicable sham, based on what we had been told previously. I asked myself many questions about that war and didn't like any of the answers I came up with. Why didn't we leave at the end of the hostilities? Why weren't we able to suppress the insurgency? Why was there an insurgency at all if the people in Iraq were so oppressed and desirous of democracy? I woke up another 10% of the way.

- All the while that the Iraq debacle was taking place, I was watching the housing bubble form and growing very suspicious about how it was being allowed to happen through questionable monetary polices, relaxed regulation, and irrational exuberance, much of that fed through the complicit media. I didn't understand economics very well, but I knew something shady on a monumental scale was taking place. I woke up another 10% of the way watching that train wreck unfold.

- The 2008 financial crisis and the bailouts. I was already very suspicious by this time about how the American economy was seemingly being set up to fail on purpose. There was no way in my mind that it was all just incompetence or accident. Without understanding the whole economic picture, I knew I was watching a backstreet shakedown occur between the banks and our government. I woke up another 30% of the way and knew we weren't in Kansas anymore. I was finally awake and trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together. This was the big event that pushed me over the edge for sure.

- The 2009 inauguration of Obama was for me very important. Not that I was a Democrat or a liberal or anything, but I was very interested to see how he would turn things around after eight years of Bush. After all, he campaigned on a platform of being the anti-Bush and in part I sort of believed he meant it. I knew the political system was corrupt. But there was just this tiny part of me hoping, at the very least, that he would shake things up enough to change the trajectory the country was on.

Well, it didn't take long to figure out that Obama was put in place to essentially continue the Bush presidency, and he was put in place by what had to be some very, very powerful people. This realization blew my mind and woke me up another 20% of the way.

- Since then, the final 10% of the way toward my awakening was helped along by reading Griffin, Lobaczewski, Gary Allen, Gurudas, Orwell, Woolfolk, Servando Gonzalez, Bertram Gross, Quigley, Smedley Butler, Brzezinski, Sutton, and Huxley, among others. I am fully awake now and see what is happening, even if I don't fully understand all the angles and potential conduits of disinformation (Freemasonry, Lucifer, the Vatican, Zionism, City of London, etc...).

How did your awakening occur? Was it one event or an accumulation of events like mine?

Warrior_of_Freedom
08-16-2011, 07:28 PM
Saw Ron Paul on the first debate in 2007/8 whatever and was like "WHO IS THIS GUY" so awesome.

TheBlackPeterSchiff
08-16-2011, 07:43 PM
Kinda hard to say the moment. It was sort of gradual. Beleive it or not, I was a Bill O'reilly.com premium member and have purchased and read most of his books :facepalm

But even back then, i thought the wars were a bit much, but I usually chalked it up to "Im sure they know more than me, so I trust them to do the right thing" ....but reading more and more I started to see the truth. I saw this doc called "Why We Fight" ...it feature Ron Paul and some others, and they talked about the real reason we go to war, and it introduced me to the military industrial complex. It just made sense.

I had heard of Ron Paul, but like most people, I was made to believe he was a nutcase. I read his website, and although his views seemed extreme to me at the time, they were intriguing. Still...I closed my mind. Then the 08 housing bust came. I wondered what the hell went wrong! The media kept telling me bailouts were necessary and govt needs to expand in the time of recession. They told me know one could have seen this coming.

Then my coworker forwarded me the Peter Schiff was Right video. I was freakin floored!! This guy was right all along. I googled Peter Schiff and saw he advised Ron Paul's presidential campain. Schiff lead me to Austrian economics and that was it from there.

trey4sports
08-16-2011, 07:44 PM
mine came about after seeing the money nov. 5 moneybomb and spending some time in this forum. First time i saw Dr. Paul on Bill'O I though he was a quack.

muzzled dogg
08-16-2011, 07:44 PM
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1156/1419433321_82a893a11c_z.jpg

(thats not me btw)

trey4sports
08-16-2011, 07:44 PM
Kinda hard to say the moment. It was sort of gradual. Beleive it or not, I was a Bill O'reilly.com premium member and have purchased and read most of his books :facepalm

But even back then, i thought the wars were a bit much, but I usually chalked it up to "Im sure they know more than me, so I trust them to do the right thing" ....but reading more and more I started to see the truth. I saw this doc called "Why We Fight" ...it feature Ron Paul and some others, and they talked about the real reason we go to war, and it introduced me to the military industrial complex. It just made sense.

I had heard of Ron Paul, but like most people, I was made to believe he was a nutcase. I read his website, and although his views seemed extreme to me at the time, they were intriguing. Still...I closed my mind. Then the 08 housing bust came. I wondered what the hell went wrong! The media kept telling me bailouts were necessary and govt needs to expand in the time of recession. They told me know one could have seen this coming.

Then my coworker forwarded me the Peter Schiff was Right video. I was freakin floored!! This guy was right all along. I googled Peter Schiff and saw he advised Ron Paul's presidential campain. Schiff lead me to Austrian economics and that was it from there.

i can sympathize.

TheBlackPeterSchiff
08-16-2011, 07:46 PM
i can sympathize.

Its sad man, I actually even have a signed copy of Culture Warriors in here somewhere I won when I called his radio show once, and was the call of the day. smfh

ronpaulfollower999
08-16-2011, 07:55 PM
Always supported Democrats from 2000 up to the 2006 election. When the new Democratic Congress (after 2006 election) didn't end the wars and were pretty much ineffective I guess I became apathetic toward the Dem candidates in 2008. I went on to research the Republican candidates stumbled upon the anti-war Ron Paul and became a supporter. I watched videos about him and immediately realized he's making complete sense even though I would've never supported his economic policies just weeks earlier. I became an avid follower after the success of the November 5th money bomb which caught me completely off guard. Not wanting to be left out of the loop I found this site and have been learning about Austrian economics and liberty ever since.

Son of Detroit
08-16-2011, 08:02 PM
I was 15 years old, just following my parents' neo-con views. I was really into politics but never did any thinking of my own, just parroted the Republican view points. I liked Mitt Romney at first and then Fred Thompson. I was watching a debate, I forgot which one, and I saw Ron and decided to look him up online. It took me a while to come around on the foreign policy, because I had been brainwashed my whole life, but eventually I became a supporter and it grew from there.

Now 3 years later, I'm fully into this. Best thing is, both of my parents are Ron Paul supporters as well. My dad used to be in favor of a gung-ho military as a force for good, but now he's pretty much fully non-interventionist. I'm proud of the fact that a teenager like me could totally influence my parents' politics of which they had followed for their whole lives. My dad comes to ME now wanting to talk about Ron Paul. Before I had to really work to get his attention. The latest media blackout has really ticked him off.

My grandpa, and two of my Aunts will also be voting for Ron Paul in 2012.

Eryxis
08-16-2011, 08:08 PM
I Stumble Upon'd into a youtube video of Ron one night (I was already a LP member) and watched everything I could find until the early morning hours. I found these forums shortly after where I was slowly converted to an-cap.

AGRP
08-16-2011, 08:22 PM
It was sort of gradual. Beleive it or not, I was a Bill O'reilly.com premium member and have purchased and read most of his books :facepalm


First time i saw Dr. Paul on Bill'O I though he was a quack.


Its sad man, I actually even have a signed copy of Culture Warriors in here somewhere I won when I called his radio show once, and was the call of the day. smfh


Tell me about it. I was actually jealous of people who got to read his premium stuff.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mncVCcYkzqg

Philip Dru: Agorist
08-16-2011, 08:23 PM
My experience is probably the opposite of most everyone else here. I didn't really learn anything about Ron Paul until some time in 2009 after I had cracked my brainwashing and was already awake. By that time I was on a quest to find and identify all the people who were seeing the same things, like the NWO, for instance, I was seeing.

I understand now why (political expediency) Ron Paul doesn't talk about certain subjects like Larry MacDonald did.

fisharmor
08-16-2011, 08:25 PM
Always voted for Republicans because the "sponsored by the letter R" Sesame Street episode wasn't quite as transparently ridiculous on its surface as the "sponsored by the letter D" episode.
The R muppets were also generally not as openly insulting of my intelligence as the D muppets.
The lesser of two evils argument, basically.

My friend had a bumper sticker in the early 2000s that said "Voldemort for Congress: why vote for the lesser of two evils".
It was a joke, but I think that planted the seed of truth in my head: I was always voting for evil, just less of it.

Then it became apparent the wars weren't ending.
Then it became apparent that they weren't justified in the first place.

Then I saw photos a friend brought home from Iraq.
Photos of dead people.
Not dead soldiers. Dead people.
Dead in the street, with pieces of their heads or chests missing.
The kind of stuff you don't see in movies or on CSI.
The real stuff.

I became anti war. I didn't know it yet. I thought I was just anti THIS war.

Then I was on a gun forum one day, and someone mentioned Ron Paul.
I was already in the habit of doing research on candidates before voting.
So I did some googling, despite never having seen a "google Ron Paul" sign.

Pandora's box was cracked, and every. single. thing. that came out of it was like when you've been searching for that one piece of a jigsaw puzzle for it seems like days and you finally watch it glide effortlessly into place.

About a year later I had the "holy shit, economics isn't some boring old tripe, it's actually pretty fascinating" epiphany.
Another year went by and I started entertaining insane ideas like stateless societies.

Here I am, almost 5 years later.