Once upon a time I was a social democrat.  I believed in making programs to help the less fortunate because I believed the "system" in place inherently kept them down.  This system was a collection of private corporations and greedy individuals who did not care for those below them.  I believed that drugs were a harmful evil inflicted on society and should be stopped.  I believe a whole lot of things in which I believed there was moral backing for them, but these beliefs were founded entirely on emotional response and I had no real educational backing behind them but I fundamentally felt that it was the duty of the strong to protect the weak and the duty of the wealthy to protect the poor.

I began to get into debates with a friend of mine on facebook who is quite forcefully Anarchist-Capitalist and at the same time Ron Paul began to get a bit of press during the 2008 republican primaries.  I read a book called Economics in One lesson.  From then I began to see that the government caused more problems than it solved and while I still believe it is the duty of the strong to protect the weak the question is now should they be FORCED to do it against their will?

I now answer emphatically NO.

I now self-identify as a libertarian.  I believe a free market in all goods is the best way to ensure prosperity because of my academic study on the matter, not because of some emotional reaction.  I read works by Friedman, Von Mises, Hazlitt, Hayek and Ron Paul.  I even read the arguments by Keyenes and his ilk and found I disagreed with it.  And that leads me where I am today, a lone libertarian in California, where most people only think there are two schools of political thought:  Democrat and Republican.