I never said those fundamental beliefs were baseless. Just that generally people aren't viewing these things as trade-offs. You believe the government shouldn't

I never said those fundamental beliefs were baseless. Just that generally people aren't viewing these things as trade-offs. You believe the government shouldn't be trusted with regulation and that it wastes too much money when doing transit. That's fine. You can site examples that validate those basic beliefs and I'm sure someone could site some that invalidate them. But whether you think those examples are an exception or the rule largely comes down to your values. Is this true of absolutely everyone, no. The Cato Institute produced a health plan similar to Obamacare after all. Yes, there is a small group of policy wonkish people that get off on this stuff but I don't think it's the majority. Edit: btw if my point seems to dismiss people's opinions I mean exactly the opposite. IMO posts like this say "if we could just sit down, we could see eye to eye and find compromise". But I think what they really think is, "if we could just talk, I could resolve their information deficit and they'd come my way a little". I think that's condescending honestly and underestimates how much people believe they have thought their beliefs through, how much evidence they believe thwy have observed and how invested they are in those beliefs.