I was a communist

Just like some of you I used to be a silly little communist. I thought I’d write up a post explaining how I came to be a communist, how I got out of it, and why I think it’s silly.<br><br>I was a Christian in my youth and through high school. As I got older I lost belief in God and started looking at the world in a more secular way. I saw all the problems with society (poverty, inequality, homelessness, crime, etc.), but I couldn’t really understand what caused them. I remember my parents blaming it on the government, but I didn’t want to be like my parents. I also saw how Christians blamed everything on sin, but I couldn’t believe that anymore. Then I found socialism. It made sense. All the worlds problems could be blamed on capitalism. As I learned more I read Marx, Lenin, Mao, Che, and other communists from history. Communism seemed like the answer, the way forward to a bright future where everyone had access to everything, where there was no more inequality, crime, or poverty. On paper it looked great. I even went so far as to join a Trotskyist group and go to their meetings for a while. As many of you know, once you’re in, it can be hard to get out. Many of us have been doxxed for not being loyal enough, and many of us have been called traitors for our lack of faith in the coming revolution.<br><br>But the more I learned the more I started to question. I had always been skeptical, but as I learned more about history and economics, I started to notice all the problems with communism. I remember reading the part in the manifesto where Marx talks about how we should band together and overthrow capitalism. That’s it. That’s the entire plan. I started to learn about places like the Soviet Union, China, and Cambodia where communism had been implemented. I saw the mass starvation and murder that occurred in all these places. I learned that communism had been tried in many different places and in many different ways, but it had always failed. Marx didn’t write down a blueprint for how to create a functioning communist society, but he didn’t need to. All he needed to do was write down the state of nature for men and say “this is what we should work towards.” Then people like Lenin and Mao came along and implemented communism based on Marx’s manifesto. They used force to overthrow Capitalism, then they created a dictatorship with a five year plan. Everything was controlled by the state and private property was abolished. They were shining examples of Marxist theory in practice, and they all ended in disaster.<br><br>I found my way out by looking at history and learning with an open mind. I read books from every perspective and I talked to people from all political ideologies. I learned about how communism had been used to justify some of the worst atrocities of the 20th century. I learned how mass starvation and genocide had occurred whenever communism was implemented. I learned how many of the problems I saw in modern society weren’t caused by capitalism, but by human nature. I learned that while capitalism certainly isn’t perfect, it’s far better than communism.