Growing up my parents were strict authoritarian religious liberals. They never questioned their beliefs, and I never had any framework for doing so either. Your typical “raised under a rock” type.

In college my roommate was a Texas Republican. I’m from New England. He had a lot of ideas I’d never heard before, but he had solid arguments to defend them. That was the first time I realized I only believed what I believed because everyone around me had always believed the same stuff.

A few years later I saw the zeitgeist movie, and that really opened things up for me.

Edit: also many years later I worked for Bernie’s campaign, which really opened my eyes to just how truly corrupt the establishment Dems are