I sympathize with the author. His first mistake was even engaging them, given their approach.
Speaking with liberals is possible, but only with liberals who are in the middle 30%.
The upper 30% are people who will vote liberal no matter what, and are too stupid to be able to engage in any kind of discussion. Most of the time they aren’t interested in any kind of discussion anyway.
The Bottom 30% are moonbats who are all too happy to engage in discussion, and will regurgite reams and reams of “data” they have harvested from the media. These are the ones who maintain it was Sarah Palin who said she could see Russia from her house, Bush stole the election, etc. etc. etc. These two persons who engaged the author were in this group. (I also lump in hard-core Aslinskyites in this group as well, even though they may not swallow all the liberal propaganda hook line and sinker. They know what their goals are, and they know how they want to get there. In both cases, it is utterly worthless to engage them. They have neither the patience or inclination to listen, the inability to apply reason or logic to an argument, and the inability to feel shame or cognitive misgivings when they are proven wrong. They lack introspection, and are incapable of evaluating their own stance dispassionately from a distance.
The middle 30% of liberals are usually thoughtful, intelligent,insightful and, generally decent people who allow their emotions to rule their intellect, and unthinkingly and unhesitatingly accept many tenents of liberal dogma, because “Who doesn’t want to help people in need?” You can talk to these folks, they will often listen, and sometimes, even change their views.
This author was from the Soviet Union, I would think he had them scoped out pretty quickly, even though he sounded surprised they existed.
The author pretty much says the same: As the two women faced my questions, their knowing smiles turned to scowls. Sometimes they would backtrack and correct their previous statements; sometimes, they would angrily storm out of the room in the manner of Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg on The View with Bill O’Reilly. After a while they would return with more talking points, and then they had to answer another logical question. My friends who witnessed the scene told me later they saw the shorter bully beginning to foam at the mouth.
Speaking with the committed liberal is a waste of time. His approach is not to convince but to expose. Not all, but many in attendance will have rational beliefs, and understand just how absurd their points are from such exposure. It's not for the benefit of the liberal, but for the benefit of those confronted by them...
Have you notices, when a conservative speaker visits (by invitation) a college or university, the lefties try to shout them down and drown them out?
Ideas outside their control terrify liberals.