Hey friends.
I argue a lot on Facebook. It’s a bit of a bad habit and I’ve been trying to limit my time spent seeking these violent delights. However, I do find that it helps me do two things that have been pretty important to this little On One project.
On rare occasions, debating conservatives on social media forces me to think through my positions. Even if it’s as simple as looking up a source for a half-remembered fact or anecdote before I destroy my enemies in glorious digital text combat. Even rarer, these conversations help me solidify my political positions. It's not enough to believe something is logistically possible, it's good to understand why you think a thing ought to be done.
Conservatism is many things and almost all of it is interesting on some level. You debate enough independent-thinking MAGA patriots or libertarian neo monarchists and you start to see some patterns emerge. I think it’s worth it to understand why conservatives believe what they believe. Maybe in the end, it won’t lead to some foolproof strategy for defeating conservatism and living our best Starfleet lives. At the same time screaming facts in their faces isn’t doing much either.
Building on that second point, I just want to share something that I’ve noticed about principles. Most of the left/liberal discourse sees the rampant hypocrisy from conservative politicians and public figures as proof that conservatism is largely free of principle. They believe that conservatives don’t believe in anything but protecting their own privilege or prejudices.
And they’re not wrong. It’s just a bit more complicated than that. It’s not that conservatives don’t have principles, it's that all they have is principles.
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