Hi all: I just found this place today, by a link from Lew Rockwell's site.
I've hated government all my life, but always believed it to be necessary in some form. By the mid '90s I was having serious doubts about even that. I found Lew's site sometime around its inception (1999?) and had been reading similar stuff before that. I've always been a gun lover and belonged to several firearms forums also.
Three key people pushed me into anarchism: Joe Sobran and his essay, "The Reluctant Anarchist"; Lew Rockwell; and Butler Shaffer, who writes for Lew. September 11, 2001, as I look back on it, was probably the single event that had the most influence.
As I watched in amazement as the towers came down, and as the news made clear by mid-late morning that it was caused by "terrorists," the only thing that went through my mind was a morbid fear of WHAT OUR GOVERNMENT'S REACTION was going to be.
Because I didn't jump on the "Kill 'em all, let God sort 'em out!" bandwagon, I was more or less ostracized at one firearms site that I posted on daily. And not much has changed. Today I was trying to explain on a discussion (mostly BS) forum about the decades-long trend of police militarization -- and the dangers it poses to liberty, including pictures of SWAT teams and news stories of brutalization -- but the guy didn't think it was really very important. It makes one want to give up trying.
So here I am, hopefully to yak with people who "get it."
I'm an old male, and live in the Finger Lakes area south of Rochester, NY.