Alaskaball

. I tried "government is just like a gun, it matters who is wielding it and for what interests" but that was still too complex.

Damn if even the good guy / bad guy with a gun dichotomy's too complex then you're in a situation that's a tough nut to crack.

You try the "who's gonna build and maintain the roads or make sure your diabetes pills aren't just sugar pills" bit on them? If they can't get past the rugged individualist mindset to get they live in a society then frankly I think they're at the point where experiencing material reality will Trump their idealized visions thatre detached from reality.

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202407/1315551.shtml

Just announced that the PLA to hold joint military exercises in Belarus shortly after announcement that Belarus is joining the SCO

https://news.cgtn.com/news/2024-07-04/SCO-s-big-family-expands-ushers-in-new-chapter-of-cooperation-1uY3mn92PbG/p.html

Belarus officially joins the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO)

Yarp

Nifty graphic from visual bootlickers with data sourced from https://www.foreignassistance.gov/

I want to say the missing component is an understanding of class and class struggle but my encounters with "big gubment bad" lolbertarians, regardless of how sharp they can be either boils down to what you said or in one case a theocratic nut job who straight up believes in a spiritual plane of existence that's impacting the material world.

For the former I tend to have a bit more success pulling Parenti bits on our taxes being used to fund the empire while the profits of empire go straight into the pockets of the bourgeois and generally try to walk a fine line of explaining shit in their own lingo and avoiding vulgarizing marxist-leninist theory.

The latter however I more or less gave up on doing anything other than having pleasant discussions on the few avenues our respective ideologies meet - being hating the ukronazis, shitting on the corpse-emperor, and complaining about our jobs. - and keeping my mouth generally shut whenever he goes off the deep end on demonic forces trying to stop Trump or, classically like it is with everyone in his demographic, gender issues.

That's the fella who calls be the 'okay commie" and calls the democrats Maoists instead of Communists out of polite respect to me.

I'll set you loose in the Lemoyne bayou and chase you down like a wild hog

Oi, guvnah yous godd a loisence fur thar noif?

rdr2 is good and you're a lib

Rdr2 is good and you're a lib

So after all that would you say the game was an experience? Something you'd recommend or give it a 10 foot stick treatment?

I know that period of our lives can be edgy but I wonder if it was as edgy as the game portrays it