One of the first lessons folks in dissident circles learn is to hide their power levels around Left-leaning family and friends. It’s not so much that they fear being disowned or ostracized, though both do happen. In many cases, having fewer cultists to interact with comes as a blessing.
The more common and tiresome scenario often occurs when Leftist associates overhear dissenters stating the friend/enemy political distinction. Pointing out that the practical end of politics is helping one’s friends and rewarding one’s enemies should not be controversial, least of all to the Left. After all, they are currently wielding state power to vindictively crush Trump supporters.
Putting the squeeze on the other side might not be as much of a problem if Conservatives ever reciprocated. Yet, when it’s pointed out to Leftists that their Cult has declared half the country traitors worthy of the firing squad, they take umbrage at calling it enmity.
Perhaps it’s the well-known reaction bullies have against targets who finally stand up for themselves. The Cultists can perhaps be excused for their shock at dissident pushback when Conservatives have spent decades jumping through hoops for their enemies’ favor. When only one side fights, that’s not a culture war. It’s a culture rout.
The most edifying reaction Cultists tend to display when their enmity is highlighted isn’t their oblivious denial. It’s their common accusation that the dissident is somehow judging them. Note that the political friend/enemy distinction is amoral. It just states that political factions are engaged in a game of winner take all; not who’s right or wrong.
Then again, we know that Cultists always seek to claim the moral high ground in every instance. They are Cultists precisely because they suffer from low self-worth and constantly crave moral validation. It’s not enough to hold the elite-approved moral position. The Cultist must be seen to hold approved positions. Every social interaction becomes an occasion to seize the moral upper hand.
That’s why correctly calling a Cultist your enemy will often earn you an accusation of passing judgment on him. It’s a classic DARVO tactic in which personal shame and guilt are projected onto the target. It’s also a tacit admission that the Cultist does in fact want you destroyed.
But he’s right to do so, you see, because you deserve what’s not happening to you.
The best way to avoid the urge to grab a Cultist associate and shake him is to stay incognito. If you do get made by the enemy, an effective response is to ask if he thinks George Floyd’s death is indicative of a widespread attitude among police. Then ask the same question about Ashli Babbitt.
When the Cultist inevitably applies a double standard to these cases, taking him to task for hypocrisy is exactly the wrong response. In war, it’s not hypocritical to help one’s allies and harm one’s enemies. Simply tell that to the Cultist and shrug.
Brian
Here’s my blue screen the NPCs statement
You currently advocate the government has the right to limit bodily autonomy to compel vaccination. That authority applies to abortion too.
So a prolife regime could very well limit body autonomy to outlaw abortions and use the same over the top rhetoric about selfishness, etc
The same logic for vaccine passports and voter ID.
xavier
I have a close relative who went hard into the SJW realm about fifteen or so years go, so I’ve dealt with this thing for a while. At first I just remained as “incognito” as I could (which was limited by the fact that he knew my previous political positions.) But eventually he started turning every conversation into a string of loyalty tests. (Ex. asking “Isn’t it sad that some people that some people think burned buildings are more important than raising awareness of racism?” and continuing to ask variations if I said I wasn’t interested in that conversation or gave a noncommittal response.) Inevitably I’d have to respond in some way which only made him more eager to do this in the future.
Eventually he completely exploded on me in relation to the Sad Puppies 3 affair. To my surprise all I said is something like “I don’t really care about what the World Con regulars want, it’s a fan contest and fans can vote for whoever they please. They’ll try to support their guys and people like me can vote for other people, and whoever is most popular will win.” At the time I was completely unprepared for how pissed off he got; after all in previous scuffles I had more directly attacked leftist sacred cows like open borders or government run health care, but his reaction paled in comparison to this. But in retrospect it makes sense, since in those previous cases I was just disagreeing on policy which made me only misinformed, so that in theory I could be enlightened (and since I was intentionally holding back on many of my views he probably thought he had more of a chance of convincing me than he really did.) But when I said that I liked a different group of authors than he did, it put us firmly in enemy camps, especially as I said that I didn’t care at all what his allies thought.
I’m glad it happened though because it ended up being the right way to handle things. He cut contact with me for a few months, but then we slowly started talking again and notably he now very rarely said anything political when we talked. Occasionally when he gets really worked up about something he’ll still try to get me to agree to some SJW dogma, and now when that happens I just tell him to pound sand which usually shuts down the politics for at least a few months. The resulting situation is much preferable to him constantly low key needling me about things. Since then I’ve laid it all out there with other cultist type acquaintances. My experience has been that 2/3 of the time the relationship isn’t destroyed and doing this purges political discussion, while the remaining 1/3 of the time I do lose all contact. Of course the sample size isn’t terribly big.
I’m not saying to push political discussions or to intentionally get into arguments with people who are in the pop or death cult, but are for the most part agreeable to talk to. But in my experience that’s the way you have to go if they keep bringing it up all the time themselves.
The sad puppy experience was educational on a number of levels. The most important lesson I learned is that the people we are up against are not reasonable and can not be negotiated with. It won’t work because you are dealing with a rather rigid belief system, immune to logic and truth.
The first thing to understand is that it’s always a moral one-upmanship game with those people. Their sole form of validation is adopting a negative identity based wholly on not being one of those regressive Nazis.
What your relative was really up to was moral grandstanding to get dopamine hits. You can easily turn this process around on him.
DEATH CULTIST: I know three people who died of Covid because they didn’t get the vaccine.
YOU: I know half a dozen elderly white people who were killed in racially motivated attacks.
DC: Isn’t it horrible that people care more about property than POCs’ civil rights?
YOU: Isn’t it horrible that the Left cares more about big pharma’s profits than the thousands of working class whites who OD on opioids each year?
DC: I stand with the LGBT movement in getting trans kids the gender-confirming treatment they need.
YOU: Taking children from their parents and castrating them is barbaric. No civilized society allows such evil.
The aim here then is not to “win”, but to mess with his buzz by throwing out anxiety-inducing unpleasantness that DOESN’T permit of a quick bead-rattling to banish the spirits? Diabolically clever, sir.
The aim is to avoid being the first name on the Stasi’s list. Rudolph’s relative won’t be the one who drags Rudolph out of his home at night.
Do you recall that Brian doesn’t associate with cultists in the first place? This allows his guardian angel avoid working overtime.
I have more than one Covidian relation. As soon as warning signs presented that they were contemplating, “Steps may need to be taken … for the good of the children,” I cut off all contact.
Tricking, coercing, and browbeating millions into lying to themselves and others is one thing. It’s the family-wrecking that’s earning our overlords a special place in Hell.
Precisely. There is no winning arguments with fanatics. The optimal outcome is goading them into revealing their fanaticism in front of others. Most of the time, killing their buzz is the best you can do.
You forgot to mention steadfast prayer. When a cultist programs himself into a cultist, only the Holy Spirit can make him human again.