Moridin920 posted:

mazzi Chart Czar posted:

"You see all politicians can't be trusted. That is why we should shrink the government and have a flat tax."

mazzi Chart Czar posted:

I haven't done it because that is too far emotionally but here is something that could happen:

"But god said to help those who help themselves. All those poor people out there don't want to do anything. They just want to be lazy."

The Bible to some extent is useless because it can be used to go back and forth all day until either one person wins by understand the bigger ideas of the bible or who can quote the most scripture.





Edit: Another conversation
Mom "you know they are not allowed to sell any religious items at the fort." (My sister works in store at an army fort, because she is married to an army man. During the primaries she wanted Ted Cruz to win.)

Me, "yeah that makes sense."

Mom, "Makes sense..." (almost talks more)

Me, "Yea, separation of church and state."

My mom then goes silent.


Edit: I want to point out that the reason we have separation of church and state is not because people want to be nice to the Jews, Muslims, Hinduism, Buddhist, Confucist, or Taoist. The reason we have separation of the church and state is because during the 1500's Catholics, Protestants and other Protestants wanted to loving murder each other.
The quintessential texts about that conflict are Hamlet in fiction and the history around Mary Queen of Scots and the wars between Catholic France and Protestant England

Moridin920 posted:

I like to make it personal to them, also, as much as possible. I like to get them thinking specifically about how much profit they generate per hour of work versus what they get paid. Cooks are great for this because depending on the kitchen they can put out hundreds of dollars "worth" of food per hour while getting paid a pittance, and it is very clear and in their face (esp if they handle the food orders and see what the food costs are also). People don't like realizing they generate hundreds of dollars in profits an hour

bird with big dick posted:

this seems like a bad example because even though you may know you cooked up 37 moons over my hammies in the last hour it doesn’t tell you anything about how much of it is profit, and restaurants have very low margins and extremely high failure rates.

quote:

For a long time this question has been handled with anecdote or small spotty datasets. But two economists decided to settle this decisively in 2014 using BLS data that covers 98% of U.S. businesses, the QCEW dataset. They tracked single-establishment restaurants from 1992 to 2011, and the study overall is very careful and well-done.

What they find is that only 17% of restaurants close in the first year, not 90%. This is in fact a lower failure rate than other service providing businesses, where 19% fail in the first year. For comparison, they find that 21% of offices of real estate agents and brokers fail in the first year, and the number is 19% for both landscapers and automotive repair. The failure rate for full-service restaurants is the same as the failure rate for insurance agencies and brokerages.

The data also show that, as with many industries, the death rates of restaurants has fallen over time. This means a less dynamic economy and may not be a healthy sign overall, but it does mean that the high failure rate myth is less true than ever before.

spacetoaster posted:

Instead of diving into all the various books of the bible just refer to the example of jesus. For crying out loud the term christian means someone who's trying to be like christ. I've had success with this on the topic of immigrant families escaping bad situations. Just ask them what they think jesus would do (and honestly ask it, don't be smug).

I'm an army man an they absolutely sell religious stuff on the bases. They just can't do something like refuse to sell one particular religion's stuff while selling some other's.

Also separation of church and state is a really good thing for religious people and you should point that out.

Kobayashi posted:

This is awesome. I was starting to connect the dots at my last job and talk abstractly about unionizing. A surprising number (but by no means all) of my coworkers were encouraging me to do it. Then the company went under and we all got canned. It wouldn't have changed anything but I feel like it was a missed learning opportunity.

mazzi Chart Czar posted:

Jon Joe posted:

This is all true. Further, I think it helps to "amplify" their own way of speaking about things that are wrong with the system. Whenever a friend or family member says something that coincides with what I want them to know, I like to give them the little verbal cookie "You know, you're absolutely right," and then question them in the right direction, like they're the one teaching me, and offering facts in the questions as appropriate. Addressing their grievences where they blame individual actors, with ones that include alternative systems explinations helps too, even if the actor in question is detestible. Actually especially in that case, because you get to go "Yes, and".

Mostly it just comes down to slowly leading them to the right answer and making them think it was mostly their idea. It won't inform anyone quickly but it will inform them convicingly, and you can do it with anyone in your life you have access to that talks about anything they don't like about society or their workplace.

megalodong posted:

Sympathize, don't proselytize. It's as simple as that for people who aren't already completely gone.

Your friend/co-worker's complaining about their boss to you? Your correct response is "you're right, that is unfair. Why do they get to tell you to work late for free when they take all the money?", not "yeah that's capitalism for you, people have known it's poo poo since the 1840s", which offers no solutions and just comes off as patronising "how don't you know this already?" sorta poo poo.

Then you can start getting them to question exactly why things are like they are, and as you say, people hold beliefs they come to themselves much more strongly than stuff they're just told is true. Even if they come to it via a lot of leading questions and trailing-off sentences on your part.

mazzi Chart Czar posted:

Bible stuff: See you're going at this problem forwards. The conclusion is already done, and it's just a matter of twisting Jesus's actions to fit the conclusion. "Jesus would tell them to pray to go for salvation in because this life is meaningless compared to the next one. They should tell all the Drug Dealers and Murders to love thy neighbor."

mazzi Chart Czar posted:

Selling religious stuff: Yeah it doesn't surprise me that some places do sell religious items in government areas. There are those 10 commandments placed in front of government buildings and there are teachers that lead their kids the prayer in public school. There are areas where there is enough homogeneous culture to do that.

Jon Joe posted:

The biggest problem I face though is whenever someone who eventually comes around to "things need to change" asks "how?" and it's really hard to give a good answer. It's complicated and they always seem to then want some grand vision of transformation AND method to get there, but then if you give those they'll reject it 100% of the time because it doesn't fit their own theories and you've just re-enacted leftist splits on the personal scale, except in this case they realize you're a commie while they go back to being a liberal, but sadder. Mostly I've just tried being honest that it's complicated and we can only hold onto the truth and share it, making changes where we can, which doesn't satisify them but at least keeps them along.

mazzi Chart Czar posted:

My father voted for Trump. He's Mexican.

Moridin920 posted:

Ruzihm posted:

There was a pretty good thing I read that said something like "Look around, there is much work to be done, but capital fights to have it left undone exactly for as long as it is more profitable to forbid people from working on them, keeping willing and able workers & materials idle than letting them make the improvements that need to be made."

I don't know if that was from a Eugene Debs pamphlet or something, but I have some success getting people to consider anti-capital work programs by criticizing the situations around Flint, Puerto Rico, etc. along those lines.

Jon Joe posted:

The biggest problem I face though is whenever someone who eventually comes around to "things need to change" asks "how?" and it's really hard to give a good answer. It's complicated and they always seem to then want some grand vision of transformation AND method to get there, but then if you give those they'll reject it 100% of the time because it doesn't fit their own theories and you've just re-enacted leftist splits on the personal scale, except in this case they realize you're a commie while they go back to being a liberal, but sadder. Mostly I've just tried being honest that it's complicated and we can only hold onto the truth and share it, making changes where we can, which doesn't satisify them but at least keeps them along.

Moridin920 posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYdg4SXAK8g

Ocean Book posted:

give them smaller visions like medicare for all

mazzi Chart Czar posted:

" Obama Phone, oh you mean the free phone thing that started in the 80's?"

spacetoaster posted:

Medicare for all doesn't involve the government telling you who your doctor is, does it? It's just the government using taxes to cover your bill?

Also, it's paid for by taxes, not some kind of extra fee?

I'm slowly making headway on a couple of people, but they keep throwing talk radio talking points at me.

Solid Poopsnake posted:

If that doctor takes Medicare now, they'll take Medicare under M4A. Not all providers accept Medicare (though I don't know the mechanics for that - my shrink only takes Aetna for some drat reason). But most do. The government isn't telling you which doctor you have to go to.

Both plans currently in Congress use taxes, to my knowledge. You don't "buy in" to Medicare as it exists. One thing to note: there have been attempts to water down M4A with things like "Medicare Extra" or some bullshit where you do buy into it. But that's not M4A which is, simply, everyone being qualified for Medicare. So that could be where the people you're talking to are hearing about fees or whatever.

It's also worth mentioning that Medicare currently doesn't cover everything and there's still co-pays and etc. While I'd like to see that change, there's no indication of that in the current bills.

quote:

Here's what Jayapal's legislation would do:

• It would create a single-payer, government-funded health-care program within two years, eliminating the age 65 threshold for Medicare eligibility.
  
• It would not charge beneficiaries copays, premiums or deductibles.
  
• The plan would cover prescription drugs, vision, dental, mental health, substance abuse and maternal care. It would also provide universal coverage for long-term care for people with disabilities.
  

HiHo ChiRho posted:

Uh

Solid Poopsnake posted:

If that doctor takes Medicare now, they'll take Medicare under M4A.

Solid Poopsnake posted:

It's also worth mentioning that Medicare currently doesn't cover everything and there's still co-pays and etc. While I'd like to see that change, there's no indication of that in the current bills.

Shear Modulus posted:

medicare as it currently exists does charge you fees like premiums and copays but they are of course much less than private insurance

Solid Poopsnake posted:

It's also worth mentioning that Medicare currently doesn't cover everything and there's still co-pays and etc. While I'd like to see that change, there's no indication of that in the current bills.

mllaneza posted:

Call them Nixon Phones. He signed the Lifeline Act to get discounted phone service for the poor and the elderly. It got extended to mobiles in the 80 and nowadays it's the cheapest Android the government can get. Point out that someone too broke for even the cheapest phone no longer has a phone number and access to their email, and therefor cannot get a job.

spacetoaster posted:

* You would/could pay a larger co-pay, and your taxes might be higher, but it would be much less than the $2,500 you're paying every month for heath insurance now.

spacetoaster posted:

* Employers could pay you more because they wouldn't be paying for your health benefits.

drjuggalo posted:

My grandfather was a communist war hero and my mom was named october in respect to the communist take over of Somalia.

If anything my mom would be the ultimate c-spam poster with the poo poo she taught me growing up