chapotraphouse

I definitely attribute my leftism to my upbringing. My mom worked three jobs at times raising me and my siblings. The meager gov assistance we got helped us eat as kids. We still got our heat shut off in the winter, luckily we still had electricity, so all four of us slept in one bed in the room with a space heater.

When my wife and I were young and we were just starting out WIC and EITC let me finish school instead of working more than one full time job while going to school.

I worked so hard to make our lives better, but I have been lucky enough to have someone willing to help me in situations that could have been catastrophic.

So many people don't have that and that first catastrophe derails everything for them. It shouldn't have to boil down to luck. It hurts my heart to think of all the suffering we could avoid and all the good we're not getting because we let luck decide more than effort and innate ability.

Nobody asked to be born. Dignity, food, shelter, water, freedom, are all human rights.

I think it really is the empathy from that that makes us leftists. Or maybe that being leftists gives us the empathy in that situation. Either way it's all tied together. Then there are folks who come out of it and think "well nobody helped me and i survived so fuck you" and become ~~fascists~~libs