First is just because I’ve only been in and out of Australia for the past eleven years doesn’t mean I don’t understand the dynamic of politics here, which is basically left wing lite and psychotic commie wannabes

The second is when I pointed out to him that the premise of cutting welfare programs was to stop the whole country from going bankrupt, he got visibly upset and asked me when I got here

Upon which his point was that the moment I got to Australia was when Labor was going through some shit, but it was all because of the Liberals

Cordial except for the "You're an outsider and don't know what you're talking about" part

And I’m like well... but the point is that even before that _both_ of them have been steadily driving us off a financial cliff, and only the Liberals have any sort of plan/have done anything even remotely resembling addressing the problem of spending

Yeah p much

And it expanded to the whole “but you gotta take care of the people who can’t help themselves” schtick

You have to....at gun point

And I’m like yes, but the best way to do that is to cut taxes from the people who already have work

“No but those cuts only benefit the rich”

And at that point I realized it was a lost cause

Isn't it great when people are so deluded that they default to rhetoric even though they can see the evidence for themselves?

I just... I don’t think I’ve had a clearer picture of cognitive dissonance in my personal life before

Please flip Talking Points Cassette to Side B

And the funny thing is, in my uni years, I had a long form discussion with this French guy where he insisted you can tax _only_ the rich and get away with a fuckton of social programs “just like France”

And I’m like yeah but the average tax rate there for _everyone_ is like 70% and it’s still slowly going bankrupt

What idiots. They can’t even do basic math.

French have a nasty habit of constantly citing France

I should know, I've worked with one for 2 years

I worked with one who genuinely believed and claimed that France did nothing wrong in Indo China

I agreed with her that France brought a different level of civilisation to that entire area, but it also pretty much destroyed the culture and oppressed the people

And she was... not very accepting of that fact

Seriously? If they did nothing wrong, then how did they lose? Lol - jk.

But... you know what I mean right?

Like the whole cognitive dissonance thing is evident to people who don’t even recognise it

@Deleted User yeah. It was just a poorly constructed ‘the French suck at the military’ joke

But this elderly customer had a moment where he’s like... “Ah!”

And you can actually see him physically shift gears in his head to try and make sense of what he’s saying

And it was discomforting, for me

In other words, this was a guy who _wasn’t_ an NPC, but fell in line like one when presented with evidence that ran contrary to what he believed

Yeah. That’s sad. I comment on an energy news site and see people like that a lot.

On an off-topic for a quick moment. I have recording working on a Private Server @Deleted User @Salacious Swanky Cat

Really? Did you just make another server?

@SteelandSouls fucking mint mate

Made another server, added a bot. 1, 2, 3

Super easy right? Too bad it took Anita sarkesian 25k to do it. Lol

Didn't spend a penny to do it and it took her 25k to not deliver

Lol.

Ouch

And the most frustrating thing is

We had a discussion a few weeks ago about taxes and all that