You are right, everyone who wants to be taken seriously -- "conservatives" , "progressives" , and whatever else we choose for terminology -- needs to apply crit

You are right, everyone who wants to be taken seriously -- "conservatives" , "progressives" , and whatever else we choose for terminology -- needs to apply critical thinking to make good social and fiscal policy. (Foreign policy is even harder.) But the group-level defamation that has infected US discourse in particular is a sign of someone who is failing to think, has fallen to propaganda, or is being a troll. In many cases, maybe all the above. Some participants/actors/entities are not at the discussion table with the objective of a mutually-beneficial outcome.