Not the wisest decision to debate politics with your father-in-law in his house. According to my partner, he would have kicked me out if I wasn’t family.
Basically - very stubborn white man in his 60s. Travelled a lot in the Asia-Pacific for work most of his life.
I’m an Australian-born Chinese and I know NOW that nothing that comes out of my mouth will ever change his mind. I mean, he HAS said before that “China can never be trusted” so I have no idea why I thought I could have a sensible discussion with him.
He believes in the Tibet and HK crap. He believes NATO is a defensive alliance. He believes NATO is not led by the USA.
He believes the USA is not out to get Russia or China. He believes that Russia had no reason to invade Ukraine but that the USA was justified in being upset over Russian weapons in Cuba.
He believes that the USA, with their 800 military bases around the world, is merely “being prepared”, while China is stepping WAY out of line in the South China Sea.
He believes that the 2 main aggressors in the world are Russia and China. He believes the Australian mainstream media is telling the full truth and that independent journalists are crazy conspiracy theorists.
And because I challenged him on all the above, I’m apparently heading down a ‘dangerous’ path. You know the guy who shot tons of Muslims in New Zealand mosques a few years back? He actually used that as warning of how extreme I could become.
I give up. He can continue thinking that the white man is the noble saviour of the world. I’ll bet he strutted around Thailand, Indonesia and PNG feeling real good about himself.
I’ve learned that too many people just don’t have any room in their heads for a differing point of view or fact. They don’t WANT proof of this or that. Their truth gives them comfort. To challenge it would be to question their entire identity and would cause an existential crisis.
That’s why, to these people, the West MUST be the good guys.
The racism is deep-rooted. That’s at the bottom of it all.
focus on reframing. shows their hybris…
“well if you are so fond of capitalism, why do you complain about rising prices when deregulation favours monopolisation and thus price gouging and corrupt lobbying…”
“Did You know that Jesus said that a camel will pass through the eye of a needle before a rich man is allowed to enter heavens gates?”
“Did You know about all the american dynasties who funded the nazis in order to profit over cheap labour after they couldn’t openly enslave people anymore and infused them with their eugenicist racist ideas they had established to justify slavery? have you ever looked up their family names? why not? you rant about soros&the gays, but you don’t know the people who profited over a genocide, corrupt our politics since 1955 and still hide among us as rich donor class? Do you like wearing horseshades?”
“How is this a meritocracy if 90% of all wealth exchange hands by heritage? Do you think rich kids are the more competent economists, seeing how they have never worked a day of hard labour in their lives or planted and cared for a single fucking apple tree in their whole lives? do you think the coked out brats of some Paperclip nazi oligarch who pretends to be the citizen kane is the better arbiter of our economy?”
“I know taxes are bad, even the homeless drunk meth head on the street corner in his tent thinks that taxes are bad, i mean some of them actually think they will be billionaires someday and then they would have to care for the sore losers living in tents because there is no money for social housing. I wonder how the tourism economy has profited off of all the tents on hollywood boulevard…. maybe some free housing could have saved these fucks millions, not that they deserve it… At least white america will get a taste of the police brutality they have hid behind so much. maybe that will help with abolition…”