Has anyone tried saying, "prove that capitalism isn't political" because it's well established that money in politics is bad. Like these people could easily be forced to defend a position of "well okay there's money in politics but it shouldn't be" in which case, you've won because the only people who support taking money out of politics are socialists. This segues nicely into "how do you explain politicians self-identifying as capitalists" or talk about supreme court justices who self identify as pro-business.

Its so intellectually dishonest to act like social systems are completely separated, when even in the abstract its demonstrably false. People like to retreat to these broad axiomatic generalizations where basically any position can be defended, and I think the way to pin them down is to make them grapple with specificities, particularly where they concern people's lived experiences, surveys and self-reports.

But ultimately, arguing with apologists is almost always a waste, they are defending an ontology, not seeking truth for its own sake. The greatest number of people will be convinced by work, by hope for something different. Forcing people to defend indefensible positions is a hoot, but I really wonder how many people are actually convinced 5 comments deep, I think usually if people are reading that far in they already agree with one of the two sides and are sort of engaging in the polemic by proxy. Granted, I am a prolific effort commenter but usually I'm doing this to improve my personal understanding, not engage in apologetics or propaganda which I'm not super interested in.