awww forget it.

it can be fun to argue politics. but it is futile. reasons have nothing to do with anyone's positions, and if one set of reasons for your position that x gets blown up, you of course don't ditch x, you invent or (more likely) mimic some new layer of arguments. the opinions are emotional commitments or are pathological, always. they have to do with your childhood, or what social groups you associate with or identify against. i include my own opinions here, of course. but i definitely include yours. this goes for presidents, secretaries of this and that, philosophy professors, nobel-prize winning economists, and karl marx, exactly as much as it goes for sarah palin or frank my barber. it goes for anarchists and totalitarians, capitalists and communists, leftists and rightists, al qaeda and homeland security. the differences have to do with how many defensive layers you can deploy, how thick the accreted patina is over the massive, evidence-independent commitment.