I have a Conservative friend who thinks that Margaret Thatcher is the best thing since sliced bread and thinks that Communism is as evil as Nazism and represents the same totalitarianism, genocide, dictatorship, etc.
Trying to explain to him that Communism is not the same as Stalinism or Maoism, that Communism wants to abolish the state (it will eventually wither away), etc is like talking to a brick wall. Similarly, when I point out the good things that happened during the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, etc, he calls me an “apologist”, but the same person will defend Thatcher till pigs start flying despite all of what happened in Britain during the 1980s; he actually thinks that this country is in a much better place today because of her.
He also repeats the same old cliches such as Conservatism being more ‘natural’ because people are ‘naturally greedy and selfish’. When I asked him to prove that an innate human nature exists he stumbles and changed the subject.
He hasn’t even read any of the basic socialist or communist books so god knows where he gets his ideas from about left-wing ideas. Perhaps the Daily Mail.
He’s such an oddball when I compare him to some other friends who are Conservative voters. He’s the type of person who wants everyone to know his political beliefs and doesn’t like any form of criticism, even if it is constructive criticism. He even sometimes wears political t-shirts when he goes to pubs! Needless to say that things have got heated in the past.
What do you think?
Trying to explain to him that Communism is not the same as Stalinism or Maoism, that Communism wants to abolish the state (it will eventually wither away), etc is like talking to a brick wall. Similarly, when I point out the good things that happened during the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, etc, he calls me an “apologist”, but the same person will defend Thatcher till pigs start flying despite all of what happened in Britain during the 1980s; he actually thinks that this country is in a much better place today because of her.
He also repeats the same old cliches such as Conservatism being more ‘natural’ because people are ‘naturally greedy and selfish’. When I asked him to prove that an innate human nature exists he stumbles and changed the subject.
He hasn’t even read any of the basic socialist or communist books so god knows where he gets his ideas from about left-wing ideas. Perhaps the Daily Mail.
He’s such an oddball when I compare him to some other friends who are Conservative voters. He’s the type of person who wants everyone to know his political beliefs and doesn’t like any form of criticism, even if it is constructive criticism. He even sometimes wears political t-shirts when he goes to pubs! Needless to say that things have got heated in the past.
What do you think?
No matter how many times I have tried explaining to him that they persecuted, killed socialists and banned trade unions. In fact, in 1933 shortly after coming to power the Nazis targeted political opponents straightaway.
