Seeing the person being picked on has always inspired my fight reflexes. I've long been a supporter of the underdog.

My efforts have on occasion resulted in getting bitten by the underdog, but for the most part they have not.

Mental Reflexive Actions - not always a good thing

I find myself wondering how many of you have similar buttons that can cause reactions. I am aware of them so I try not to let them control me, but they do still impact me. I've waded into the steemit voting debate many times though I personally have not had a negative impact from it. I would see others impacted and I'd start looking at it as a problem and trying to offer possible (have to test them) solutions. Yet it was purely reacting to what I was witnessing happening to other people.

I liked sports when I was younger. Until around Junior High when I'd see people ganging up and picking on someone playing soccer, flag football, or any sport. The term Jock would be learned by me later to describe the click that most such people were in. That is a stereotype though so there are certainly exceptions. I quickly lost interest in sports not because of how I was treated, but I had a strong distaste for the attitudes and the way other people were treated.

Later on I let my hair grow out and had heavy metal patches all over a black winter coat, or a lighter jean jacket. I didn't do drugs, drink alcohol, I was not satanic, etc Yet, I do look back and see a lot of that as me rebelling against the system. I very much hated stereotypes, and factions ganging up against other factions. I liked it when someone that stereotyped me would talk to me and I'd see their eyes widen as that stereotype was shattered. Looking back I believe this was a huge part of the motivation for why I dressed the way I did. It was a form of rebellion against things in society that were bothering me, but I'd not quite been able to identify the source.

Dumb stupidity

I came from an alcoholic family. I was never suicidal, but I was fearless in that I was not afraid of death or anyone else killing me. This BUTTON of defending others very nearly got me into some really bad binds and I look back at how truly lucky I was. I am going to share one of these now, as I WAS incredibly lucky.

This was way before I understood anarchism, non-aggression principle, or anything of that nature. It was also before my first child was born. Once my first child was born I was no longer fearless and I never engaged in something as stupid as this again.

I'm a long hair walking down the road in college in a town with a lot of cowboys. By my senior year in high school I had no enemies, yet this was after high school. I had two friends that were with me walking that were short haired normal looking guys.

A truck with some guys (mostly cowboys) swerved from the opposite side of the road and almost hit one of my friends intentionally. This got me angry and I think I flipped them off or something. I don't remember if it was just me or my friends as well, all I remember is that the truck did a U-turn and came back. Pulled up beside us. It had 5 cowboys in it.

Passenger: "You got a problem"
Me: "Yeah, you almost hit my friend, and had you done that you'd have a serious problem"
Passenger: "Well maybe we'll get out of the car and see about this problem"
Me: "You get out of the car and I'll break your fucking leg."
Passenger: "I'll rip off your head and shit down your neck." (he did say this)
Me: "If you can limp after me."

The cowboys proceed to pile out of the truck all lining up in front of me. My friends set down the books they were carrying and had nervous looks (they were more clear headed than me).

I remember looking at the cowboys thinking "kick that guy in the leg, hit that one in the throat," etc up until the end and my last instruction to myself was "where is the nearest pay phone?". You see in such a mode I was very methodical and clear headed, and I show absolutely no fear and I guess am/was pretty intense. Odds are I'd never have gotten very far in that list... I did have the sense to know IF I did come out of it that I'd need to get some medical attention onsite. I have always been one who looks at conflicts not as fun, but a situation of survival.

Biggest Cowboy in back: "Deva is that you?" as he steps forward.
Me: "Yes"
Biggest Cowboy: "It's me Travis, sorry man I didn't know it was you, we were out drinking looking for a fight".

I don't remember how it went from there other than telling them I don't fight for fun, just survival. Shaking Travis' hand they all pile into the car and drive off. Some of the younger cowboys with him did not know me and still were glaring my way.

My first son was born after that. I did a complete change, because anytime something might happen to me it was always a fear of what would happen to my new wife, and son. I never had that problem again.

I do still very much rebel against authority. I wish I'd known about the logical fallacy APPEAL TO AUTHORITY when I was much younger, it would have likely dramatically changed a lot of my life. Perhaps that is one of several reasons they do not teach logic and reason in public school. Things start to fall apart and you actually have the tools to help make them fall apart.

I have always been against conformity. I don't like it at all. A big part of what appealed to me about Metallica in the early days was their torn jeans due to being worn so much, and their dislike of "posers". This is also why I stopped being as into them when they flip flopped on some earlier views.

What does this have to do with Anarchy?

I think I was naturally trying to find anarchism before I knew what it was. I'd been conditioned to believe it meant the same thing as chaos, disorder, and the world going to hell.

My path to anarchy occurred due to very specific events.

1. September 11th, 2001 (aka 911)
2. Ron Paul and learning about Libertarianisum
3. Fighting in the trenches of reddit and having someone say "Hey you should come over to r/anarcho_capitalism I think you'd fit right in."

When I was invited to the ancap channel I visited more out of being civil and respectful. I had never heard about anarcho_capitalism. Why would someone think disorder, and chaos sounds like me? So I had a look and that first day learned what it meant, what the non-aggression principle was, etc and it felt like home.

I couldn't fully commit to the idea of NO GOVERNMENT whatsoever, that was a gradual acceptance as I dealt with all of my own "who would build the roads" type questions.

Now I am definitely an Anarchist. I view this concept as having short term goals, and long term goals.

Long term goals. No states world wide, and anarchy. When this happens it will likely be long after I am gone.

Short term goals. While I hate the state it is here, so I can ignore it and protest that way, or I can occasionally try to do things within the system that move it closer towards being able to achieve that long term goal.

Example: Many anarchist will not vote, because it supports a system that should not exist. I agree it should not exist. The problem is that it DOES exist. So if I have a chance to vote for a Libertarian candidate that could push things more in the direction of waking people up to the concept of Anarchism as Ron Paul opened that door for me, is it wrong for me to do so?

I am fine with people not voting. I get it. Yet should I not vote for say Gary Johnson if I want to. I'd rather us be voting for no one, and I do not acknowledge their authority. Yet just like a criminal holding a weapon on me likely would still shoot me if I said "you have not authority over me", this is also true of "the government." So I play parts of their game, because to do so would be foolish, get me killed and reduce my chance of pushing towards the long term goal of NO government.

My question to you

Do any of you have this same button that I do? Where you get really riled up about defending other people? That cowboy incident I described likely wouldn't have ever happened if they had swerved at me. I was outraged because they almost hit my friend.

I don't say this behavior is rational. It is actually pretty stupid, and I just managed to be lucky. :)