“You can’t talk to an abstraction alright, but to cite that in the present instance is to twist language to support a strawman argument. I don’t remember when I ever told anything to “conservatism.” I have told things to people who were conservative.
“To win liberals, I was as a liberal.” — Straightforward bible application”
I think this would be characterized as a ‘testimonial’ rather than a persuasive argument, right? Otherwise it’s throwing pearls to swine though who knows maybe one of those swine will make good use of them.
It’s worth checking out unknown individuals to see if they will be all persistently swinish. Laziness and lack of confidence can also undermine potential testimonies.
One thing we never know till we check it out is how a person who was an ass (or a swine) in the limelight might react in private. I wouldn’t want to freeze anyone into a hopelessly damned category due to solely his or her limelight behavior, as pride is a powerful delusion.