In my experience, practicing and having a mentor have made it very possible by reducing the anxiety I get about it. I mask all day anyway. Just gimme a new mask and let me get comfy with it.
how to cold open libs
I’ve straight owned my lib ass kid sister several times in debates, like with fucking actual documentation even. I fucking had my ex gf from a former Soviet state write a short essay to prove her wrong on a point about the USSR. The results, Jack shit, she’s still a liberal hawk who is thrusting for Russian blood rn. There’s nothing you can do for these people, once they’re that :brainworms: they're a lost cause and the best you can hope for them is a merciful gulag sentence.
she's a child? you fr? she's not a "lost cause," she'll likely change her political beliefs wildly a couple more times over the course of her life.
people who call themselves leftists need to abandon the idea that debate creates new leftists. like you can tell a lot of people here are ex-internet-atheists because of the fetish for Facts and Logic. in rare cases you might give someone something to think about if they were already having some doubts about the present order and you address those specifically, but the only way to convince someone that communism is the way is to show it. live your values, nurture and act upon a love of humanity and hatred of authority. Unless your communist values include sanctimony and intellectual elitism in which case just be a trot.
She’s 28. She lives in fucking Texas so she’s seeing material conditions fail all around her but US propaganda has convinced her everywhere outside of the US and Europe is an utter hell hole. I’ve shown her stats about how things in China are going but she doesn’t believe them. She’s gonna be a Hamilton lib till the day the MAGA squad comes to her door.
oh. oh jesus.
i mean still thats your sister, but idk i don't know a single person who is a leftist because someone convinced them China owns bones.
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=own+bones
Most leftists I know came from conservative religious backgrounds and got radicalized pretty quickly, maybe with a brief Bernie Succ phase. The handful of lib to leftists I’ve know were generally on the very very left end of the liberal spectrum, meaning they already had half a foot into leftism to begin with.
Anyone who’s a straight up lanyard wonk, mayo Pete voting, pro-interventionist Twitter dork is a lost fucking cause. Seriously they will die on the dumbest of dumb hill, you can show them dead to rights evidence that they’re wrong and they will cling to their priors. They will die hugging a copy of Harry Potter and a framed picture of Obama as the MAGA death squads raise their rifles and the sadly self satisfied leftist standing next to them says “told you so”.
We don’t have 10 years sadly. My sister is 28z. Anyone who’s not past the Obama left centrism phase by 23, maybe 25 if you’re lucky, is probably fucking doomed to eternal Mayo Pete r/neoliberal liberalism. No hope, just pray they get the gulag rather than join the Anti-Chinese neo-SS death squads.
The handful of lib to leftists I’ve know were generally on the very very left end of the liberal spectrum, meaning they already had half a foot into leftism to begin with.
Basically me taking the leftmost position that seemed available or that I had been exposed to.
If I hadn't made a hobby of debating libertarians online and stumbled across Sam Seder doing the same I'd probably still be a Pod Save lib.
How many times do we have to tell you :think-mark: it's people's material conditions that radicalizes them
Her conditions have been getting worse and it’s had all of 0.000% effect. If anything she’s gotten worse.
"how much american blood are you willing to shed in a foreign land for a vague reason such as "russia bad", how many sons and daughters are you willing to send to their deaths? Are you willing to watch mothers cry over the cold corpses of their children? What are you going to tell them? That they died defending our rights? What rights are those? our right to leave the homeless to suffer and die in the streets of the richest country? Our right to have our children starve as we burn billions in another rich mans war? Right after 20 years and 2 trillion dollars wasted in Afghanistan?" etc. along that train of thought. finishing off that they hate their country and their fellow man if they're willing to send them to die in another rich man's war.
I’ve literally said basically this to her like three times. It doesn’t work bro. Nothing ever will. I’ve accepted when WWIII breaks out we’re gonna be on opposite sides of the Nazi-NATO alliance and the China South American Union front lines.
how to cold open libs
So like talk really fast and transition into the west wing theme song?
