Fair enough, things get lost in translation on the web sometimes. I'm concerned though that so often the government is blamed for problems started by the priva

Fair enough, things get lost in translation on the web sometimes. I'm concerned though that so often the government is blamed for problems started by the private sector. I might go so far to say that regulatory capture is the issue. Maybe unintended consequences are at play. But in my state, a certain potato and beef producing corporation irreparably damaged the high desert through unregulated grazing. Old growth forests were clearcut a century ago. Rivers and lakes are polluted with chemicals and heavy metals from mine tailings. We needed regulation constantly, but never got it until it was too late. So what feels counterculture in California, stuff like conservatism and the demand for smaller government, has had devastating consequences for red states like mine. I'm the minority here. I've been disenfranchised my entire life. We rely on you all to vote for the environmental protections that we have been gerrymandered out of voting for ourselves due to decades of entrenched one-party control. Also after sleeping on it, I realized that my "root fallacies" comment was a bit heavy-handed. I have my own blind spots from being radicalized by the constant division sewn by amoral politicians who got their playbook from guys like Newt Gingrich. But I've known that provincial glorification of half-truths wielded for political gain my entire life. What I was trying to say there is that we need a common context based in truth or we'll never be able to communicate civilly and settle our disputes. Which I believe is what you were getting at with your comment here.