So I had a convo w a lib recently and they said that I am hypocritical to have jeans or enjoy American TV and movies or enjoy anything in American culture or American inventions if I dislike the way our country is run and the state of our culture and politics. So I gave a few examples of things they like that would make them “hypocritical” by that logic. I said that they shouldn’t be allowed to eat ice cream or play Skyrim (umm no dragons for you, those are Chinese and Korean by origin) no more satellites because the big bad Soviets sent Sputnik. I obviously let them know I don’t actually believe that and they should be allowed to wear and eat and play what they want without having to tiptoe on eggshells around nonexistent ideological barriers. But just out of curiosity, what would be other examples of cultural influences or inventions that Libs/conservatives would have to divest themselves of(if they followed this dumb logic they way that they expect us to)?
"Using a cell phone, eh? Be sure to thank Comrade Kupriyanovich and the other soviet scientists who first made handheld satellite communication a reality"
They should really just abstain from literally any product that has the tag "made in China" on it, and any other "made in <country they disagree with>" for that matter. That includes most non-perishable goods available cheaply in the USA like clothes, electronics and household appliances. Also guns. I hope they don't like cars given all the petroleum coming from scary Muslim countries.
But also the 8 hour workday limit historically was a demand and a victory of the First International ( section 3 ), so if they don't like those foreign communist ideas they should go back to 14 hour workdays.
I once read a funny article where some Japanese actually checked out in practice those lib "boycot China", they found out volunteer for that and after taking everything made in China out he was just sitting in nearly empty home. They finished the article with conclusion that in Japan you couldn't even die in peace without China because nearly all coffins are made there.
could have just said "so a slave should not have complained about his conditions because he ate his masters food and worked for him?" or pointed out that everything they have is made in China and everything they wear in Vietnam
If that's the case then the only legitimate way to criticize capitalism is by eating berries and living in a cave. I ignore those litmus tests because it goes both ways. Since to them I'm either a hippocrite because I use capitalists products or I'm a poor freeloader who wants to own other people's stuff for free. When people make that asinine claim I usually just point out that black slaves in the south participated in slavery while being very much against such practices, imo there's no need to use hypothetical this and that to shut them down.
All modern technology, digital and medicinal. Almost all of it is made according to society principles, funded by public money for the public good. Then it gets patented and the public have to pay for it again if they want to use it.
Other things made with public money: roads, schools, parks, libraries.
If you're lib acquaintance is going to be so asinine, everything made by workers, considering these are the base of support for communism. If that's too far of a stretch, everything made by unionised labour.
I assume your lib acquaintance doesn't like slavery. So everything made with prison labour.
What about theft and coercion? That rules out everything made in the global south or, again, by workers.
There's very little that is not hypocritical to criticise (edit: wasn't finished) because surely even liberals are critical of where they live; they just don't have the same criticisms as us.
I agree with everything you said except them being my acquaintance lol. They’re a dimwit at work and we pretty much openly disagree and dislike each other. Politics aside they have a shit personality and I have plenty of issues w them but I guess you’ll just have to take my word for it
Everyone else is talking about other arguments so the pedant in me is free to point out that you're wrong about dragons. Skyrim's dragons are based off of European design (wyvern) and dragons in western myth date back to PIE culture.