I used to be a statist libertarian. Back in those days I foolishly believed that all of the major ills we face in American society could be fixed if the federal government would simply follow the Constitution. Unbeknownst to me, it was. But I was stuck in the little statist cage that I was thrown in by the public education system. I escaped that cage and now enjoy the free life of an anarchist. But the transition wasn’t instant, it took me almost three decades to arrive at this point. Joseph S. Diedrich explains the five stages of becoming an anarchist, which is a fairly accurate list for how my transition went. The stages Joseph lists are:
- Denial
- Anger
- Bargaining
- Depression
- Acceptance
I managed to skip stages two and four. Anger was never a problem for me because, back in my statist days, I believed that anarchists were still fellow liberty lovers who simply misunderstood the facts of life. Depression never affected me because I wasn’t heavily vested in statism, I was merely under the misguided belief that the state was necessary because it was pounded into my head by the public education system.