my lib friend condemns existing socialist states because of their state repression of counter-revolutionaries:
he complains about the lack of civil liberties. when I pressed him on whether the emancipation of the poor is more important, he said that he refuses to compromise on giving everyone full civil liberties and due process.
I personally think civil liberties are good, but are a secondary concern to emancipating the poor. and due process can be implemented in time, I'm not against it. Finally, fascists do not deserve civil liberties and I fully condone repression against them.
I usually just focus on our lack of civil liberties despite them being supposedly sacred. You can absolutely string together some tweets that get your door kicked in by the government which is usually the type of thing they're talking about. Nsa spying on the whole planet even allies. And on that note what we do to civil liberties of people in other countries. Millions dead to project our ideology on the world. No regard for democratic elections. Using literal starvation as a tactic of war. Dystopian surveillance, black sites, chemical weapons... you get the idea those things can't exist while respecting civil liberties or human rights.
With that record of outright hostility from the US do the seemingly harsh policies of other countries make sense? Idk sometimes it works. I don't really try to convince them 'china good' or whatever because it's easy to get caught up on some specific example they heard in propaganda and can't be moved on.