I'm teaching the about Libya's system and he's definitely surprised and confused; he keeps asking about how people can take Gaddafi's position if they wanted it and I had to keep explaining that his position was without political power, that the country was run by the people and policies chosen by the people, but he kept harping on about Gaddafi because he can't wrap his around wanting to believe the guy was a brutal, authoritarian dictator who silenced dissent and journalists, and people having the political power to alter how the country functions.

This is the main problem with people who trust the media unconditionally as "authorities" that wouldn't ever lie or mislead them. You give truthful structural information to people who's brains are filled with by the media and they reject it because it doesn't fit with the narrative they have already chosen to believe. Now you're coming up against a barrier of "one of these people are lying and I don't want to believe it's the media" wall.

@SeventyTwoTrillion@hexbear.net is probably also tapping for information on this as I think they've been actively reading into Gaddafi recently, I've read some in the past but it's not really fresh in my mind. Comrades just out of fresh reading tend to have extra info and extra criticisms to add.