Mine wouldn't understand them if I did tell them, though I may try to convert my dad. Can never say a word about my atheism though. Hopefully there'll eventually be a respectable enough movement one day that revealing our political beliefs won't be the equivalent of confessing to a crime.
My parents still don't know the extent of my views. I don't think that I'll tell them for years. It wouldn't have a positive outcome I think.
And it doesn't stop either. I'm still in high school and just the other day my mom told me that I could "take my left wing stuff to a small island somewhere but America is about free enterprise" ... I asked her if she understood a word of what she just said and things have been tense ever since. It goes to show how far reaching anti-communist propaganda is. My mom is actually mostly apolitical and never votes but when she said that I could have mistaken her for Ron Paul
That's the same propaganda that was fed to me, exactly the same.
I couldn't agree more with that last statement. Haha and no need t be embarrassed about your authoritarian Republicanism. The religious phase I mentioned would fall under the same category. I also was fascinated with socialism as a kid. But death tolls and "it's great in theory but can't work in reality" kept me away from socialism for quite some time.
I had always had a fascination with the USSR when I was a kid and thought that Jesus wanted a form of communism. I grew out of that into being an authoritarian theocratic conservative Republican. Needless to say, I was messed up. When I got to college, I began to cut away at inconsistencies in my reason and found myself questioning private property and authoritarian means. These changes, both subtle and profound, were paramount to my arriving at marxism. This drive for the Truth and Ethics are what guide me to this day. Science and Humanity are what matters and Marxism is how we may epitomize both for their own, inherent sakes.
How about you? I remember you saying that you were morally inspired to become a Marxist? Do you have any stories as fascinating as my own?
Well after rejecting Christianity, I became a humanist. As a humanist I began to read up on the ideas of the enlightenment philosophes. In them I found their solution to the monarchical oppression of their day; Capitalism. At first this excited me, for I could proudly claim to be living in man's greatest project. But that was the problem. I knew that it wasn't. The world around me was anything but a Utopia, and I was horrified by the idea that this was all their was. That people would continue to hate and kill and starve and that was just life. And at this time I began to explore he evil of evils; communism. Once I started to read up on it though, I found myself reluctantly agreeing with it. Suddenly ownership didn't really make sense to me and the dehumanized social environment that surrounds us made sense. Though an important thing to note is that my communist beliefs are first and foremost grounded in my humanist values not in my economic interests.
So what brought you to socialism again? I can't recall if you posted your reasons. Cheers!
