Getting Teenagers Involved in The Liberty Movement

Hello, for those of you who can’t figure it out based on my user name, I am a teenager, a 17 year old teenager to be precise. I’m going to assume I’m speaking to an adult, since unfortunately, there are very few libertarians around my age…or at least very few consistent libertarians, however this also will apply to teenagers who want to bring their friends over to anarchism. Now to the main point of this article, Getting various teenagers you know, converted from either politically apathetic layabouts, or ardent statist schills, to firm libertarian anarchists.

    To start off, before you have even a hope of bringing the teenager in question, over to anarchism, you must first have a strong understanding of how their mind works. For example, I recently brought a friend of mine over to anarchism from neo-conservatism, by going for his weak point in any debate…his strong Catholicism. I simply went and deconstructed the idea, that any good Catholic should support the state, and showed him, how the state, and it’s actions are not aligned with the teachings of Jesus. Similarly, you must find what your teenager’s weakness is, and use it. Don’t be afraid to go for the jugular in your debates, and don’t worry about what is “proper”

Most teenagers tend to be apathetic about politics, since they don’t see why it is important, and worst case scenario, see it simply as a bunch of old geezers complaining about various things. For these teenagers, you need to show them WHY political theory, is important to them. You need to convince them that what happens with the government is very important to everyone except those who go out in the middle of nowhere to live as a hermit. To do this, you need to think about the things that are important to them, make a list of those things even, and with each one, think of how it can be used to not only show them why they should care about politics, but show them that the state and all of it’s tentacles are evil, and worst of all, illogical. Now admittedly you will have trouble with this, since most likely the teenager(s) you’re talking to have been indoctrinated through the government schooling system, which has many negative effects on their mental processes, including, impairment of critical thinking skills, a crushed sense of curiosity, and an inability to direct their own life. Thus you may have to first heal the damage the state has done to their minds, THEN make them politically aware, and finally bring them over to free-market anarchism.

In addition to the “politically apathetic layabouts” there are those teenagers who are good little servants of the state, those who gleefully throw both morality, and even worse, logic out the window, and worship the state. These will be the hardest to persuade, partly because of the fact that they are set in their ways, and like most people, will probably have a hard time changing their viewpoint, but also in part, because they will most likely not be used to questioning authority and thinking for themselves. With these, you must find a pet issue that they have, whether it is gun rights/gun control, abortion, the War on Drugs, or the enviroment, and show them how government actually hurts their cause, or in some cases, such as gun control advocates, you must first convince them of the fact that they are wrong, and even if they weren’t using the government to accomplish their goals is both immoral, illogical, and inefficient. You must slowly deconstruct their view of the good, and just state, and show them it’s true nature. Now many of them will have questions such as “But who will build the roads?” or, “Who will protect us from enemy nations?” and you must patiently answer these the  best you can.
    In closing, the road to convert a teenager to anarchism, who has not been raised to be a free-thinker, will be a hard road, and you will fail occasionally. However even in times of failure, keep moving on and try and help the teenagers in your life to understand freedom.