Alex Peak

Biography

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My name is Alexander Steven Peak.  I am a libertarian anarchist from Baltimore.

Born in March of 1985, I was raised by my grandparents, Kitty and Stan Peak.  The most important lesson I learned as a child was that, “if you are the one to take the toys out of the box, then you are the one who is to put them back when you are done.”  I never forgot that, and to this day, I consider it a valuable life lesson.

I attended Fullerton Elementary School, Parkville Middle School, and Eastern Technical High School.  I graduated from high school in 2003 in the top five percent of my class.

Being interested at the time in filmmaking, I applied to only a single college: Towson University.  I ultimately opted to switch majors, however, to political science, and in May of 2010, graduated from Towson University with my bachelor’s degree in that field.

In 2005, I took over the College Libertarians of Towson (CLT), founded by Amy Triplett in 2002.  Although the organisation had become defunct, I reactivated it, making it one of the most active College Libertarian organisations in America by 2007.

I probably spent more time keeping the CLT active than I spent focusing on my course work, but looking back, I am honestly glad I did.  The opportunity cost was worth it.

While I experienced a great deal of intellectual growth during my college years, I attribute very little of this growth to the university itself.  I learned far more from philosophical discussions with friends and intellectual reading unrelated to the classes I took than I ever learned in the classes themselves.  In a very real sense, I believe college is a pointless and futile endeavour.

Nevertheless, it was during my college years that I discovered Austrian economics and became a radical libertarian.  When I first started to get interested in politics back in middle school, the two issues that fueled my interest were my opposition to racism and to censorship.  By high school, I had come up with a novel thought:  “Why are homosexuals prohibited from marrying?  Why is marriage even regulated?”  The sexual inequality repulsed me greatly.  Ultimately, I discovered libertarianism, and by 2004, I was a libertarian.  I was particularly attracted to its emphasis on individual human rights, rights that not even a government has any legitimate authority to alienate from the individual.  Finally, after a great deal of reflection and internal debate, I became in July of 2007 an individualist anarchist.  Still, I find myself constantly reanalysing my views—almost daily.