Why I'm a Libertarian.

So, since about 1st grade i've been aware of politics. I say 1st grade because that was the year Clinton was running for re-election against... eh, i don't remember his name anymore. I remember liking Clinton much better than the other guy, and in our little class poll, voting for him.

In growing older, I came to learn more about politics. Seeing as I was in middle school and I grew up in a particularly liberal town, I was an ardent democrat, though for no other reason than it was what everyone was, including my parents. I remember the 2000 election, and being so angry that more people wanted Al Gore to be president, but because of the electoral college, Bush (whom I should state now I still don't like and don't think should have ever been given the power we gave him) won.

I remember talking with my friend about how the electoral college should be demolished in favor of the popular vote. Despite learning about how the popular vote is just a 51% majority ruling over the other 49%. All this going into the 2004 election year, wait and hoping and praying that Kerry would finally take the idiot out of office, and was sorely disappointed when nothing if the sort.

All this leading up to the year of 2008. This was my senior year in high school. That year I took an ethics class with a teacher named Bill James. Bill James himself was a Libertarian, and during our seemingly endless class discussions, he would question all of us as to what we thought was right. While I can't say at the time I agreed with everything he said, it got me thinking.

So, from then on I did a lot of thinking, particularly about political things. I also did some reading, mostly online columns and some books. I really began to look at what the government was doing and how it was effecting the people who lived under it. I began to notice just how much control it had over the individuals life, and how, most of the time, it just tended to fuck things up.

As the year passed on, I began to realize more and more that the government had no place in my personal life, and that it really needed to stop taking away the money I was working so hard for (well, alright, i'll admit at the time my job as a receptionist was anything but difficult, but I still wanted all the money I was supposed to be paid). It also didn't help that I began to attend college at Columbia College Chicago, an arts school in the heart of Chicago that was so very Liberal it's borderline Socialist (and there is a thriving socialist community in the school).

These factors lead me to where I am now. I think that the federal government needs to get it's ass out of almost everything. whether it's gay rights or guns, abortion or religion, the federal government just shouldn't be there. It's all about freedom. I have the freedom to own a gun. I have the freedom to be gay. I have the freedom to open up any business I want, get as big as I want, and make as much money as I want, and the government should sit down, shut up and let me do what I'm going to do, because in all reality, it's probably better for the country than any damn regulation that those assholes can come up with.

So yes, I'm a Libertarian. I believe in freedom, period. As long as you don't physically hurt anyone else, you can do whatever the hell you want.

To put it in perspective, I believe in very Conservative economic practices, that the government needs to deregulate the entire economy, because regulations only cause more harm than the situations they are meant to help. I also believe in a very Liberal social practice, that the government needs to butt out about who I want to marry, what religion I want to be, and what I want to do to my own body. It sounds greedy and selfish, and maybe it is, but it's the way i think it should be, because I'm not going to get on anyone else for doing things to themselves, as long as they don't get on me.

I guess it all comes down to freedom. I believe in it. People are stupid, and that sucks, but people are much stupider in big groups that get to control other people. I'm sorry, but I don't want anyone controlling my life but me, and yes, sometimes I make mistakes, on occasion big ones, but I'm held responsible, only me.

That's another part of it, I suppose, personal responsibility, me being responsible for me, and no one else. But, that might be for another day.

Anyway, that is how and why I am a Libertarian, and whether you agree or disagree, you're allowed, because you have the freedom to.