property is theft

Maybe you heard someone say this somewhere, but it isn't something we consider to be true. At least Marxists. The "property is theft" thing afaik is from Proudhon and not a lot of people claim that it is in contemporary socialist culture. Marxists don't seek to abolish property, only it's private form which is in effect an exclusion of the necessities of life for the purpose of extorting profit out of the consumer.

The owner of a business has risked capital (and capital = money = time = a portion of their life) in order to provide services to others

It's important here to recognize that the idea that a business owner "provides services to others" is liberal ideology. A business owner merely monopolizes a part of the necessities of life on this planet and by the protection of the state extorts consumers who are dependent on it for profit. If you want my bread then pay up or starve, or get beat up by police officers if you attempt to change any of that. That's the essence of private property.

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I think that finally, my last contention with socialism is its idealistic assumption of human nature.

Socialism hasn't been idealist for 200 years. If anything, it is liberals who have an idealist assumption of human nature. Liberalism is pretty much founded on the idealist assumption that if personal liberties are provided then society will rearrange in utilitarian order naturally. Socialism doesn't disagree with the need for personal liberties, just that the material conditions which determine said liberties are inherently more important than what is written on a piece of paper or legislation in the foundation of a society.

It assumes that if we revolt, assume a temporary dictatorship, then we will be willing to let go of the reigns of power for the good of our common man.

I assume you already know that the term "dictatorship" is used differently in socialism than it is in common language. In socialist terminology all class societies are dictatorships.

There is no "letting go of the reigns of power", this is inherently a misunderstanding stemming from your misinterpretation of the word dictatorship. A classless society is a project constructed, to be built. Not given away. It is the natural development of society in the stage where it has physically constructed away class antagonisms to the point of absolute removal.

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This is all coming from someone who once identified as a socialist, but became disillusioned.

Maybe identified as a socialist, but we get a lot of people who self-identify as socialists thinking it has something to do with free healthcare, welfare, or state proprietorships. After they get bored with that idea they think socialism is trash, when in fact they haven't even been socialists to begin with. In Scandinavia for example we have plenty of people who call themselves socialists but their idea of it is social-democratic welfare capitalism. That isn't socialism and has never been, it is merely a deviation of socialist thought that is called revisionism.

I want to know why you value what you value, and what morals or beliefs have lead you to be socialist.

In my opinion it doesn't have much more to do with morals than it does self-interest. Throughout my life it has been made obvious that reading a lot about history, and historical societies, we are not past the phase of human exploitation - and the improvements liberalism brought to end feudalism was merely political rights. The problem is that political rights wasn't the main issue of feudalism, and the idea that it was is extremely naive. The main problem with feudalism is the same as with every class society - material (labour) exploitation.

However I didn't become a socialist just because of this realization, it took me many years before I came to understand the nature of capitalism. After experiencing a few elections in capitalist society it became clear that the political process was inherently flawed from my perspective, however probably perfect from the perspective of a wealthy landowner. So it wasn't long after that before it became clear that my self-interest lie in the empowerment of my social class in the eventual overthrow of the bourgeoisie and the establishment of a proletarian dictatorship.

I never fell for the scapegoating that the ruling classes have always used against immigrants, minorities, etc. Part of it is because I've read so much history as a child and I knew for a fact that this has been used to defend rulers from the public for millennia. And I would never blame someone powerless for societal issues, in fact it makes me absolutely disgusted and enraged to the core to witness people engaging in scapegoating.

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