Individualism is in the air we breathe.

We watch movies about individual heroes saving the day, read history books in which individual men build empires, and read think pieces about how individuals in poverty make good (or bad) choices. Because this ideology is so universally accepted, it has become “common sense.” Even suggesting that individuals may not be primarily, much less entirely, responsible for their circumstances is mocked and dismissed out of hand. To blame structures, or systems, or society is seen as childish weakness — as an attempt to shield yourself or others from accountability.

The trouble is that individualism is an utterly absurd way of explaining the world. …

This is the second part of an ongoing series on defeating conservative arguments. Read the introduction and Part 2: Argument ad Hypocrisy.

A key part of modern conservatism’s success is the creation and weaponization of “common sense.”

Used by Antonio Gramsci to describe a set of political and ethical values which have become so widespread that they are accepted as fact, “common sense” allows the most powerful ideology to dismiss facts outright if they oppose a widely accepted belief.

Police and prison abolition, for example, are seen by America’s political mainstream as absurd and dangerous ideas with no basis in reality. It is just “common sense” that police should be called to resolve every issue from domestic violence to an elementary school mental health crisis. Even though the overwhelming majority of studies show there are far better alternatives to policing for solving social ills, adopting those policies instead of building more prisons is seen as radical and absurd. …

A few weeks ago, a landlord in Colorado sent his tenants a letter threatening to raise their rent should Trump lose the election, and promising to freeze it if he wins. As shockingly undemocratic as it may seem, a quick Google search tells us that this is not a rare phenomenon. Whether it’s bosses telling their employees to vote Trump in 2016, or threatening layoff if Obama wins re-election in 2012, using ones’ wealth and capital to coerce how other people vote is as old as American democracy.

Some of these tactics are transparently illegal — a number of states have statutes which forbid a boss to tell their workers how to vote — but others are murkier, or even explicitly protected by the constitution. Take the Colorado landlord’s letter, for example. Though the intentions were clear, the letter explicitly said it was not an instruction on how to vote, and phrased the possible raise in rent as an inevitability if Biden is elected, rather than a choice being made by the property owners. …

This is the second part of an ongoing series on defeating conservative arguments. Read the introduction here.

Common tactics:

Intentionally or otherwise, conservative arguments mostly fall into a handful of categories. As you read through this, think of times you’ve faced these tactics before, how you responded, and whether you achieved your goals.

It is important to note that very few people know what strategies they are using in an argument. This is not a high-school debate tournament where you will get bonus points for pointing out their logical mistakes and argument types. …

When ICE was called out for “high rates of hysterectomies” performed on detainees per a report filed on September 14, many were shocked.

Some were reminded of rights violations in history that echoed these allegations.

However, as others pointed out, we have closer comparisons at hand in the United States of America.

What does this mean?

If you are the average US citizen, you might not know much of the information in this article. It is often edited out of our history lessons.

Brace yourself, and grab some paper and a pen. We’re going all the way back to the beginning to find out how the US became Hitler’s muse and why that matters today. …

I am a 22-year-old leftist. For the last decade of my political life, liberals have called me a naive idealist. From debate tournaments, to Democratic caucuses, to dinner-table-debates, I have endured dozens of lectures from life-long Democrats who see my radicalism as a dangerous folly of youth — something to be lauded at times, scolded at others, and ultimately, outgrown.

Treating leftism like a toddler’s mistake, these Democrats have told me bedtime stories warning of the dangers and failures leftism has wrought in American political life.

Their story goes something like this:

When I was 3-years-old, naive leftists who voted for Nader over Gore handed the country to Bush and thrust the nation into war. …

Please remember its gruesome history, and that many are still disadvantaged

Criticising the West does not earn us moral high ground over previous generations. Nor are the various behaviours exhibited by Western states we have learnt to consider as reprehensible — genocides, slavery, imperialism — isolated to Western states. Actions like the Nanking massacre, and events perpetrated by Al-Qaeda and ISIS provide persuasive evidence from the last 100 years that atrocity was and is a global phenomenon.

However, while the West has accomplished many great feats — high employment, extremely high literacy rates, high life expectancy, democracy — praise for Western achievements must be balanced, with the ways many of them have been brought about firmly in mind. …

Humans have grown from small tribes into large, diverse nations, bringing many different ethnic groups under one flag and one identity.

These nations, though, have not proven to be fragile or riven by internal conflict, but have rather endured for decades or even centuries. Strong bonds have formed between millions of people against the odds — I cannot know the vast majority of my fellow Britons, for example, and yet, I would still say that I feel British.

However, whilst we can look at nations as a great feat of human cooperation, we cannot blindly ignore their darker side — nationalism. …