You're generally right about group-think and hostility, but the couple of good-faith exchanges I had with right wingers may have gotten a couple of snarky replies (maybe pre-emptive defense from being heavily attacked, prior?) but also half-hearted attempts at engagement and addressing my points until the "progressives" came in and did what they do. It's sad, I don't even want to alienate others, preemptively, by calling myself that. Leftist definitely does that. And I'm probably some conglomeration of leftist and libertarian (in the global sense, not the Yankee sense) with a sprinkling of anarchism, somewhere in the mix. I'm not sure yet. I'm not exactly in the process of changing my core values, more somewhat refining them into a more mature form. It's not quite personal anomie, but I haven't found my solid footing yet on the shifting ground beneath them.

Anyway, thank you for a bit of understanding. I appreciate it more than you know.