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No, you're not wrong at all. In my experience the best way - sometimes the only way - to convince someone of your way of life is to just quietly live a good life being a good person. Sooner or later people start asking questions like "what makes him so happy", or "I was taught that X are bad people, so why is he seemingly such a good person?". That doesn't itself convince them, but it gets them to open their minds, and can lead to opportunities for further persuasion.
The culture warriors don't do this because they aren't actually prioritizing convincing people of their ideals. They want to enforce their ideals on people, convincing is simply gravy if they can get it. So they act accordingly. They use power to enforce their vision with an iron fist, all while driving people further and further away from them.
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