this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2024
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It is not possible for a conservative to enter any debate in good faith. Every word uttered by a conservative is deception or manipulation. This has always been true and will remain true until conservatism is extinguished.
As a guy who's absolutely in the far-left camp, and at risk of being exactly what the post is complaining about, I'm sorry but you're being tribalist and delusional. Many conservatives try and argue from what they consider "good faith", it's just that their moral compass has been destroyed by conservative propaganda. Many conservatives actually believe that unborns have souls and are people, and that abortion is murder, even if it's a clearly wrong moral position. Many conservatives do believe that immigration is hurting their countries and they're making their country a better place by opposing it. Many do believe that reducing labour regulations will end up boosting the economy for the benefit of everyone. The fact that they're demonstrably wrong in most of it, doesn't mean that they're necessarily arguing from bad faith.
You make valid points, but when they are confronted with even scientific evidence of their errors, they cast the information aside as if science is their enemy. These same believers you are defending will lie and manipulate in their discussions to create or repeat lies.
Your defense suggests they are innocent because they believe those lies that they infect others with. I argue they are not innocent at all.
You're right that they ignore the science and the facts, that's why they're holding the positions they hold (climate change denialism, prohibition of abortion and gender reassignment, austerity policy, etc.) The problem IMO isn't so much with the individuals as it is with the propaganda apparatus. It's clear that people can be indoctrinated into such things, and much worse actually (see nazism), so instead of focusing on whether the individuals are arguing from bad faith or not, I'd rather blame the propaganda apparatus that turns them into ghoul, and not just blame it but put the focus onto it.
I agree with your points and that solving the propaganda is the real solution here. I still do not absolve the individuals any more than I absolve individual nazi's in 1941. But, the solution matters more than the blame. I hope we can address the propaganda someday soon. This shit is deadly.