In the context of political opinions, I was thinking people like Adam Smith, Karl Marx, etc. But you're right, even those people stood on the shoulders of giant

In the context of political opinions, I was thinking people like Adam Smith, Karl Marx, etc. But you're right, even those people stood on the shoulders of giants, they didn't just independently get struck by lightning one day and suddenly have ideas in a vacuum. In any case, it's not realistic to expect Joe Smith the Generic Voting Citizen to have to have completely original new opinions on all the hot-button issues.