This question is difficult to answer. I’m a nineteen year old. I’ve got a nice family and study politics and philosophy at university. I like to read, write, play video games, and socialize in smaller settings.
More importantly, I am an individual who is constantly thinking philosophically; searching for wisdom. Thus, my mind is constantly in conflict and I remain on the fence in ideology. I am not a Marxist, a Libertarian, a socialist, or anything else you can name. I am simply an individual whom is unhappy with the current state of society who finds the world to complex to pin to a particular ideology.
Despite this I consider myself to have an abundance of Marxist critiques on our current society as well as strong support for many aspects of libertarianism. I tend to have more support for smaller government over big, a conservative trait, while I am more liberal in my regards towards my fellow humans. However, as I am lost on the spectrum my beliefs are susceptible to change, and do change. While I was once strongly Marxist, I discovered I do agree with its critiques on capitalism, but disagree with its implementation of socialism. A main issue for me in search of belief has been how to balance the common good with the liberty of the individual.
I have been called a conspiracy theorist; I believe 9/11 was an inside job, have a strong belief in the New World Order, and believe America is crumbling into a state of fascism. However, I do not like the title quite a lot due to the negative connotation it has been given. Instead, call me a revisionist and a studier of the alternative.
I am an individual whom wishes to fight for change, namely in America. Many aspects of society worry me; the limiting of our rights and freedoms, the strengthening of the police state, the War on Terror, and globalization. Monnies are being sapped from the American economy and if action is not taken America will experience brutal hardships and a more totalitarian government.
I love real hip-hop; its a form of art to me. Its passion and life experience poured out onto a suiting beat (when its in its true artistic form, which is rare). I am saddened the industry has been taken over by greedy capitalists. Hip-hop began as a movement to fight an unjust system, but now its MCs are part of that unjust system.
I believe strongly in marijuana legalization. It was made illegal due to flawed studies as well as racism and prejudice. Millions already enjoy the substance, and keeping it illegal simply fuels the endless and flawed war on terror, punishes individuals choosing to use one of the safest recreational drugs, and represents the Government overstepping what its boundaries should be.
I’ve covered a lot, but there is much more that needs to be. Much of the topics in this post will be expanded upon later.
Thanks for reading,
AL
discoveringmybeliefs 
cassiemcblane
May 27, 2011 at 9:50 am
It is interesting that you confess that you think 9/11 was an inside job; I recently watched “Loose Change” – a documentary on the 9/11 conspiracy theory of it being conducted by the U.S government. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend that you do, because it completely changed my whole perspective around of the tragedy. I am now not sure what to think anymore.
I see that this is your first post, so, welcome to the blogging world!
Good luck!
discoveringmybeliefs
May 27, 2011 at 10:06 am
Yeah, I was debating whether or not to admit I’m somewhat a conspiracy theorist, but decided to go through with it. I’ve actually already seen Loose Change, and felt it indeed provided some great evidence and points.
And thanks for the nice welcome!
Vidd
May 27, 2011 at 3:23 pm
Hi,
thanks for your reply on my blog! Last night I went through Oliver Stone’s «JFK» DVD again, and it’s really spooky. For real.
It seems to me that the powers that be used the same blueprints as those you can see when you watch the 1991 «JFK» investigation/movie, when they carried out their new Black Op – 9/11 itself.
There are just SO many similarities and shared dirty tricks: Destruction of evidence, sitting on tapes for five years, in short: Making an investigation impossible. Ridicule of the investigators, the media dropping the ball on day 1.
You will be sick, but it might be worth watching just the same.
Good luck with finding out who you are! If it’s any comfort, this is what we’re all doing all the time.. 🙂
discoveringmybeliefs
May 27, 2011 at 8:55 pm
Thank you for the comment.
I’ll look into that video; being sick I feel is exactly what it should do.
The investigation for 9/11 has indeed been made impossible, and people who wish to use revisionism are often criticized and labelled as nutcases.
rogerhollander
May 29, 2011 at 6:56 pm
Greetings, AL,
I received notification that you had subscribed to my blog, so I went to yours to see what you are about. I must say that I found your blog most interesting and impressive for a nineteen year old. I live in Ecuador and the speed of my Internet service is unstable when it comes to videos, but I was able to listen to the Ron Paul speech (and I will comment on him later).
I want to say that you are searching in the right direction, and I am entirely in accord with your views on the US imperial wars. I also share with you (and Ron Paul) your distress at the state of government in the US (not to mention our beloved Canada), and its impact on the rest of the world. I have seven grandchildren (the oldest is your age), and I am both fearful and angry at the world that they (and you) will have to live in for the rest of their lives.
Just so you have an idea of my personal history: I studied political science at UC Berkeley, graduated in 1962; I went through several phases (Burkean conservatism, evangelical Christianity, J.S. Mill liberalism, Liberal Democrat, anarchist) before I arrived, about 45 years ago, at Marxist Humanism. MH is not an ideology but a living organic philosophic journey following Marx’s dictum that philosophers had heretofore analyzed the world, the point is to change it. It is anti-vanguardist, and it is just as critical of the state capitalist regimes, such as the former Soviet Union and China, which call themselves socialist or communist as it is of the capitalist so-called democracies. It is also takes a critical view of what it refers to as “post-Marx Marxists, beginning with Engels.”
For me a genuine philosophical investigation needs to start with basics. What does it mean to be a human being and part of the species? What is essential? It seems obvious to me that the most basic human needs are food, shelter and clothing, and, since they do not fall from the sky, we must produce them. I am currently re-reading for the umpteenth time Marx’s “Early Writings,” and I was struck by this in the Introduction (to the Bottomore edition) by Erich Fromm: “… man can never transcend the realm of necessity, which is that of material production. But he can achieve an optimum of freedom even in this realm of necessity by the fact that [citing Marx] ‘the associated producers regulate their interchange with Nature rationally, bring it under their common control, instead of being ruled by it as if by some blind power’”
He further cites Marx: “Just as the savage must wrestle with Nature to maintain and reproduce his life, so also must civilized man, and he must do it in all forms of society and under any possible mode of production.” To me this is Basic. The mode of production that is universal in today’s world in capitalism, the “blind power” that enslaves us.
So, while political democracy is vitally important (but under capitalist productive relations can never be genuine) as is culture (art, music, literature, education, recreation etc), human beings cannot achieve genuine freedom and enjoyment without transcending the inherently unequal and alienating relationship between those who own and control massive amounts of capital (which Marx defines as dead labour) and the rest of us who work to produce (in today’s world, services as well as goods).
Now, back to Ron Paul. I agree with 99 percent of what he said in his speech. But if he believes all this, how can he belong to the Republican Party (or, the Democratic Party, for that matter), which is lock, stock and barrel married to the military industrial complex? I guarantee you that, should he be elected president, he would no more be able to, for example, take the US out of Iraq, Afghanistan (Libya, Sudan, etc. etc.) than the false prophet Obama. But it is his Ayn Randian individualism (which raises individual selfishness to the highest philosophical category), his notion of “freedom,” that I find appalling. He universalizes his experience as a private physician in the US and crybabies about government interference, while ignoring all the hidden government subsidies that went into his medical education and the controlled monopoly on health care he shares via the enormous lobbying power of the AMA to limit competition. Oh, how I sympathize with the poor enslaved entrepreneurial American doctors who order unnecessary lab tests that are referred to the laboratories they themselves own and have to sacrifice a few hundred thousand dollars in malpractice insurance out of the millions they make (and I am not going to get here into the health insurance or pharmaceutical industry embedded rip offs).
Don’t be seduced by his correct rhetoric about the wars and military spending about which he has no effective strategy to change. His notion of freedom that ignores the fact that we are social animals, that we cannot survive without one another, and that this reality needs to be incorporated into our economic as well as our political systems, is a limiting and corrupt notion. His notions of “individual responsibility” are a cruel joke (tell the third generation welfare recipient to be more responsible, or the poor sucker who was bamboozled with outright lies into taking out a subprime mortgage, or the African child living in a hell hole and suffering with AIDS, or the undereducated and impoverished Black or Latino youth who gets busted for dope and begins his career of lifetime incarceration leading to an early death).
I will end my rant at this point. But I want to suggest that you check out Marxist Humanism. You can go to the web site at http://www.newsandletters.org. My recommendation would be that you order from them a copy of Raya Dunayevskaya’s “Marxism and Freedom.” It is a good way to be introduced to the philosophy.
All the Best,
Roger Hollander, rogerholla@aol.com
Vidd
May 30, 2011 at 1:09 am
Hello Roger,
nice to get to know you! And it’s funny that you say what you say about the point being to change the world, not just analyze it. I came by this same imperative from a different angle, namely one of our local philosophers – Arne Næss – and his Ecosophy. He presents Eight Points for his brand of Ecosophy, named Ecosophy T after his mountain cabin at Tvergastein in Norway. And his eighth and final point says «Those who subscribe to the foregoing points have an obligation to directly or indirectly try to implement the necessary changes.»
Source
I don’t know if you’re familiar with Deep Ecology, but the notion of having to change the world (and not just study it) rings very true in my ears. Philosophy should never be about endless talking or writing with no aim in sight…
In that spirit I shall end my rant right here, LOL.
discoveringmybeliefs
May 30, 2011 at 1:43 am
Wow Roger, thanks for the very detailed response!
I’m going to look very seriously into Marxist humanism; what you have provided me with is very interesting and insightful, and I must admit it seems a step above the usual strands of Marxism.
I also am not the biggest fan of Ron Paul running in the republican party, but I feel he has absolutely no chance as an independent, and represents a form of the small-government conservative.
However, I must admit; you have made me question Ron Paul, which very few have done. I don’t know enough about what you have posted, so I definitely need to do some more research, but I see I perhaps was to taken in by his views on the empire.
Again, thanks for the thoughtful response; that post will require some more discovering for me!
And Vidd, I have decided to keep wordpress as my home. Blogger seems a bit better for traffic, but the community here seems much more interesting, and working under google unnerves me slightly.
*Edit
And thank you so much for caring about the younger generations as much as you obviously do!