General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsI Was A Hardcore Conservative: What Changed My Mind
Lots of good stuff here, and none of it requires you to personally reach out to people who endorse your oppression if you don't want to.
http://www.cracked.com/blog/what-helped-convince-me-to-stop-being-hardcore-republican/
I still remember the time I heard a very respected church couple say, "You can be a good Christian and vote Democrat." I think I had to sit down. My head was spinning. Up was down. Down was up.
I knew this couple was "good" on every part of the Good Christian checklist -- they would have been anti-gay-marriage at the time, among other things. And for me (remember, up was down), this meant they were cool on every point except the crazy thing they just said about DEMONcrats (or DemoRATS).
It turns out that I, and most people, are more likely to take seriously "otherwise good people" with "one crazy idea" than someone who is different from me in every way and wants me to change everything.
(snip)
Non- or less-religious people may say, "But I use Bible quotes all the time to tell religious people they are wrong and it doesn't work." Of course it doesn't. I never listened to that kind of argument from someone who didn't actually believe in the Bible, because what is this, some kind of game to you? You think you found some loophole in my Dungeons And Dragons rule book? You don't believe the quote you are throwing at me, but you think I am dumb enough to fall for it because I am dumb enough to do whatever my magic book says. This is not a good setup for a cooperative response.
RadiationTherapy
(5,818 posts)I was certain that assigning permanent labels of inferiority was a sure-fire way to alter an ideology.
ms liberty
(8,577 posts)I am not one of those.
LanternWaste
(37,748 posts)Seems to work as well (or as poorly) as speaking rationally and kindly to them.
RedWedge
(618 posts)Which, granted, is n=1, but if some people are interested in having these conversations, this article seemed like a good start.
RedWedge
(618 posts)vlyons
(10,252 posts)no matter from where it comes or who speaks it. Did it ever occur to you that someone can love the teachings and parables of Jesus and not believe in a creator God or the illogical nonsense of a trinity God-head? Just because someone isn't a 100% true believer in some "ism" doesn't preclude him/her from finding value in the tenets that ring true for him/her.
I'm a Buddhist, and I love the teachings of Jesus. What's not to like about the Golden Rule?
butdiduvote
(284 posts)And yeah, I agree that the debate style where you try to find loopholes in the person's logic is counterproductive. It's counterproductive in both directions. I know conservatives who will try to come up with new arguments to convince liberals abortion is murder until they're blue in the face. They think if they just come up with the right clever metaphor, liberals will see the light, and then it just turns into a contest to see who can outwit the other person where neither person is really open to having their reasoning challenged.