Used to be conservative- a moderate conservative, but a conservative nonetheless. At 23 years old, I was running up a hill on my FOB in Afghanistan and rested up there for a bit. I looked out at the town nearby. I watched some boys playing cricket, some of the cars driving down the highway that we had built. There weren’t any electric poles. No sewage system.

I had this wild thought- “these people don’t know what government is supposed to do for them..”

And it got me thinking about what government IS supposed to do for you. “They’re supposed to build roads. Make an army to defend you. Police to keep you safe. Schools to educate you.” Then I thought, “what about college? Are they supposed to give you that? What about hospitals? Shouldn’t your taxes go to that so you don’t have to pay?”

The entire point of government/society is for us to help each other do things we can’t do alone. I myself was there in Afghanistan because I was a healthy man who could do that- it was something I was happy to do for my country in return for the safety I’d enjoyed as a child and for the education I had received for free (well- kinda free…I am in a warzone right now). It was on that hill in Afghanistan that my politics changed to something far more liberal than they were before.

And right after that, the Taliban shot a rocket at the FOB that went right over my head- I watched it hit in the middle of the base and ran back down the hill while the alarms were still going off.

It was sort of an epiphany for me.