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Looking for the perfect response

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I endeavor to ask you all to assist me with coming up with the perfect response to this one woman whom I have had regular conflict with regarding political/other ideas.

They are some sort of neoliberal with marxist tendencies.

From time to time they bring up a comment that I hate more than anything (this is online in this instance). I recently posted a facebook status that stated:

"Circumstance does not make a man, it reveals him."

And here is that comment that I was responded with:

"Spoken like a true white, straight, middle-class, college educated male."

(If you can't guess yet, there is the Marxism showing, as well as a decent bout of feminism).

This specific comment has always just irked me to the extreme more than any other, and I want to show why each and every one of those descriptors is asinine and invalid in the most articulative way possible.

Anyone that would like to give this a try?

Edited by CapitalistSwine
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Gather and post some such troll-bait quotes, with one twist: that they're from blacks, "minorities" , handicapped folk and the like. Then, your perfect response would be: "Er, actually that's from Mr. X, a black handicapped guy who grew up in orphanages." If you think it is worth the effort, there are lots of rags to riches stories.

Edited by softwareNerd
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"Circumstance does not make a man, it reveals him."

"Spoken like a true white, straight, middle-class, college educated male."

My initial thoughts:

Her response traps her in a contradiction. She is advocating the idea that your ideas, your character, are not open to choice, but are determined by race, orientation, class, and (oddly enough) education. She's denying volitional consciousness. Therefore, simply respond by turning it on her: "Spoken like a true , [orientation], [class], marxist [this last is optional] female." If she tries to say something about why her position is valid and your reply isn't, ask her why; as soon as she gives a reason, you've forced her to accept on principle that consciousness is volitional and not simply determined by the aforementioned.

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I would find the "defriend" button, click on it, and waste no more time thinking about that person. If I felt compelled to send a kissoff message, it would be on the order of, "I am not on Facebook in order to read snide remarks or argue with irrational people. Goodbye."

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What's "neoliberal"?

CS is using the term incorrectly. You can't be a neo-liberal with marxist tendencies. A neoliberal is a buzz word made up by marxists to conflate certain economic policies advocated by the Chicago School (kind of free market school) and what is happening in the third world.

CS meant "Social Democrat, or 20th Century Liberals".

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A neoliberal is a buzz word made up by marxists to conflate certain economic policies advocated by the Chicago School (kind of free market school) and what is happening in the third world.

Thanks. Hmm... That's interesting. Do you have any source to back up your claim that marxists, specifically, were the ones who gave birth to that word?

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I would find the "defriend" button, click on it, and waste no more time thinking about that person. If I felt compelled to send a kissoff message, it would be on the order of, "I am not on Facebook in order to read snide remarks or argue with irrational people. Goodbye."

Understood, but not so easy and normally I enjoy the back and forth. This person is the girlfriend (of 6 years) of a good friend of mine.

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Thanks. Hmm... That's interesting. Do you have any source to back up your claim that marxists, specifically, were the ones who gave birth to that word?

"In the 1970s some Latin American economists began using "neoliberalismo" to designate their program of market-oriented reforms. By the 1990s, however, the term "neoliberalism" had become a pejorative to classical liberal critics, who dismissed it as a catchphrase invented by academic radicals to denigrate the ideas of Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek.[3]"

Wikipedia. Manfred B. Steger, Ravi K. Roy (2010). Neoliberalism: A Very Short Introduction.

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If you respond by saying "Spoken like a true <race> <gender> <class>" then you are ceding the point. No matter how you mean the opposite they will focus on that concession.

You need to show how she is herself NOT a product of her birth but a product of her own mind. If she is a Marxist point out how her upbringing was not Marxist, feminist or what have you.

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"In the 1970s some Latin American economists began using "neoliberalismo" to designate their program of market-oriented reforms. By the 1990s, however, the term "neoliberalism" had become a pejorative to classical liberal critics, who dismissed it as a catchphrase invented by academic radicals to denigrate the ideas of Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek.[3]"

Wikipedia. Manfred B. Steger, Ravi K. Roy (2010). Neoliberalism: A Very Short Introduction.

Yeah, but... I still don't see the part where the marxists make up the word. Could you be a little more specific? Being in the left doesn't make you by definition a marxist.

Edited by 0096 2251 2110 8105
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If you respond by saying "Spoken like a true <race> <gender> <class>" then you are ceding the point. No matter how you mean the opposite they will focus on that concession.

You need to show how she is herself NOT a product of her birth but a product of her own mind. If she is a Marxist point out how her upbringing was not Marxist, feminist or what have you.

That's a good point. I hadn't thought about removing that step, and I can see how it weakens the argument.

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Anyone that would like to give this a try?

"Spoken like a true white, straight, middle-class, college educated male."

...

In delegitimizing my thoughts through gratuitous over-generalization you have committed the same error that your statement inherently implies that I continuously make.

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