this post was submitted on 03 Jul 2025
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I'm at such an intersection of privilege that I don't think I considered politics in any meaningful way until my early 20s when I got hit with the libertarian propaganda and realized that maybe the police and army are political actually.

I always hear of people doing such great work and being so political in their teenage years ago I wonder if it's more common for someone to not engage in politics until adulthood line myself or if it's truly just my position in life that allowed me to be ignorant for so long.

I remember buying a shirt with "fuck politics I just want to burn shit down" when I was around 17 and honestly edginess was I think my entire ideology at the time

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[–] PaulSmackage@hexbear.net 15 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Grew up in a household that always had the news on. Just watched us drop bomb after bomb on cities, as the reporters would stand there in glee as soldiers marched through streets. I was taught "this was normal" by everyone except my family, who deeply distrusted anything the government said. So i grew up anti-war just on principle. Later got super into union history, as i saw people with the same jobs my family had fight against people doing wrong to the. And also ww2, where i questioned why we hated the Soviet Union so much if we fought alongside them during the war.

Finally, in high school, my history teacher brought out a hat full of names so we can do a deep dive into a historical figure and write out a detailed report on who they are and what they did.

I pulled out my ticket: Vladimir Lenin.

[–] Acute_Engles@hexbear.net 10 points 3 days ago (1 children)

"I've got a golden tiickeetttt"

[–] PaulSmackage@hexbear.net 7 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Yeah, not to do a big "i wuz a commie b4 u" thing, because i did not take that assignment as seriously as i should have. I was still a dumb teenager that couldn't care less about school. But, it did force me to actually read theory. Before that i was like "Castro is cool because he has a beard, smokes cigars, and Cuba is cool". Afterwards, i still went lib, but at least i was a "Castro and Lenin are cool, but Stalin and Mao are bad guys" lib. Eventually i also had to self-reflect on why i held those opinions, because as far as i know, i never actually bothered to look up what they did, just repeated what everyone else said.

[–] Acute_Engles@hexbear.net 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Yeah growing up I always wondered why people would say "you know mao killed more people than hitler" but still hitler was the one held up as uniquely evil.

Typing that out I can see the path i didn't take and I'm grateful

[–] PaulSmackage@hexbear.net 5 points 3 days ago

I remember being in college and seeing this bad boy

[–] Acute_Engles@hexbear.net 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I wore one of those 'che guevara hats' (I don't know the real name) with the red star and everything but just because it drew attention

[–] PaulSmackage@hexbear.net 4 points 3 days ago

A beret?

Yeah, i usually just wear trucker hats with whatever emblem i feel like having. Been rocking a hat with the palestinian flag for a while.