I mean, if it were as clear to all bystanders and people outside of the store and across the country that there were someone bludgeoning a cashier, unprovoked,

I mean, if it were as clear to all bystanders and people outside of the store and across the country that there were someone bludgeoning a cashier, unprovoked, and stealing the money, then I'd agree that with that much consensus, what's the point of talking about it. I have many friends and family who I'm quite certain see actions by the administration as either innocuous or exciting—to privatize—or righteous and brave—to take on the "fraud that will be perpetuated through mail-in voting." The people who believe the latter won't be convinced through much debate, but the people in the former may, because they may believe strongly that it should be privatized and yet disagree that it should happen now. I can't speak for others, but I learned a lot in this short, 1-2 day dialogue. I want to learn how to have conversations with people who disagree with me to try to bring us closer to resolution. Oddly enough, I took a hostage negotiation training last year and want to strive to get better at resolving conflict as they do. That being said, asking a question like you posed at the beginning could confuse the guy and disarm him a bit, setting him up for further conversation and maybe resolving the conflict. In conclusion, I deeply appreciated this thread and what you contributed to it as well, because I feel more prepared for the conversations I'll inevitably have around this. And I think HN seems to have been handling it well, but I still kinda feel like an outsider here, so I don't know if I'm playing by the rules lol.