How my brother Robert's grandson , Tim Ruhle , evolved " on the Left "

Tim Ruhle My parents are both liberals, and had a very strong emphasis on empathy growing up. I joined the military as a liberal, and during the 2016 election campaigns beginning in June 2015, I learned a lot about Trump, but also learned who Bernie Sanders was when the Dems were deciding who would run against Trump. I learned a bit about clinton, enough to know that she’s pretty typical for women in leadership. Which is to say that she was generally empathetic and fairly well spoken. But Sanders introduced the idea of socialism, and I compared it to my life in the military. The way socialism is described is exactly how life was in the military, and I loved the way we lived, even if I was merely conflicted with our actions overseas at the time. I heard the way Trump supporters around me would talk. Disgusting, ignorant behavior from who I thought were respectable men, and even women, who ostracized me when I confessed (after significant pushing) that I would not vote for Trump, not even that I liked Hillary, which I didn’t. Anyways, I ended up being physically threatened by my msgt (over an allegation I was being racist, which I can see how someone thought it was but that’s not how it was blah blah), who locked me in a room with a “witness”, threatened my life and joked with the “witness” joking that he didn’t see anything, and on top of already struggling with run times, I was ready to get out. Then we were brought into a theater to watch some recon footage (I worked supply with recon planes) to inspire us for our efforts, but it was just a bunch of violent bombings accusing of everyone with a cell phone of being a terrorist, basically, and everyone laughed and cheered and I was the only one mortified. I looked into the US and its occupations around the world, and paired with my new knowledge of capitalism, it became very clear who was in charge, and how they keep their power. Then I looked into historical communism, the good the bad and the ugly, and found it appalling that revolutionary violence is so easily deemed terrorism, but state violence is worshipped in the US. That was when I decided to get out, so I could get away from all that. The thing that always gets me is how effective writing things and claiming they’re true is. People seem to have no desire for evidence so long as whatever they are told fits their worldview. So I studied psychology and acting in college to learn about people, and I learned a lot about why people do the things they do. I was dipping my toes into what I can now call superdeterminism and communism, potentially anarchism though the differences are generally unimportant. I got into leftist spaces for the first time online around that time, and I finally started meeting people who thought like I did; people who were disillusioned from capitalism and nationalism. The contrast between the left and the right is only in where they draw the “mine” line. The right has a circle. It’s theirs. Don’t touch it. They will fight to protect everyone and everything in that circle. The left has no circle. We fight to protect everyone and everything. There is no “mine”, only “ours”. Don’t get me started on the struggle to grasp personal vs private property. It’s very evident that the US has always, and will continue to, prevent educating the masses. Disinformation, defunding schools, defunding teachers, corrupt private schools that yield better jobs by association (extended nepotism, basically). Also the false-dichotomous nature of the two party system creating an obvious oligarchy, and a million other reasons. Now I’m a filthy Red til I’m dead. I try to spend most of my time agitating and disillusioning wherever possible, but it’s still nearly impossible to talk about in public when I live in Trump territory. I’ve had a few conversations with Trumpers about communism, but they just don’t believe anything I say and jump to seeing me as an ignorant child. How did YOU become a leftist? I feel like you were raised in equally reactionary times lol! 1da day ago Reply Ron Ruggieri I am very impressed with your reasoning and language skills, Tim. I will have more to say later. I will share your thoughts here on my Facebook page and blog: 5000 Facebook Friends; 725,000 blog views. Unless you object?