Sure. And that’s what Lenin said…. And Mao, it’s very easy to whack a flag in the ground and side with the oppressed. You just have to know the direction of intended travel of the people on your own side. Those of us who sit in the centre ground do so because we have questions about those who choose to politically use ‘the oppressed’ for their own ends. That has become doubly true when ‘oppressed’ can be self defined - a sensible centre ground position of seeming indifference with the caveat of sticking to enforcing basic human rights is a sensible place for your friend to be. That’s often why intellectuals end up in the labour camps or gulags twenty seconds after a lurch in either political direction by the nearest demagogue.