Hi Paul,

First let me say how much I appreciate you nuancing your point. You talk about hope in your reply and it's messages like this that give me hope. Every time I have a conversation that ends up in good faith, especially on the occasions when it doesn't start that way, is a reminder of how much potential there is in us all to understand each other and make progress.

I think there are still a few points where you might be misunderstanding me though. I didn't inadvertently say there were millions of bombastic orange tinted voices, I just wasn't saying that at all. I included the "orange-tinted" precisely because I wanted to make clear that I was only labelling Trump this way. Again, the central intention of the article was to say that tarnishiing all of Trump's supporters with Trump's flaws is a horribly simplistic way to look at their motivations.

Also, I didn't mean to imply in any way that you thought I was raciually incapable of seeing the deeper issue. Your comment didn't refer to my race so I didn't see any need to assume it was relevant. My issue was just that your interpretation seemed to be deliberately uncharitable, as if you were searchiing for a way to cast what I was saying negatively, and then you went on to describe a problem which I hadn't raised in the article but seemed to assume for whatever reason that I was unaware of, or would disagree with.

We'd probably find ourselves in agreement on a lot of the issues of groupthink that you raise, especially if you're a fan of people like Sam and Coleman. i find them both to be at the very least sincere and deep thinkers. Sam's thoughts on free will are informed by his medtation practice and I thnk generally speaking his position on free will is more of a philosophical exercise. There are strong arguments for the non-existence of free wiill, but practically speaking, there's no choice but to live as if we choose our actions. I don't think Sam would advocate for a world without accountability or responsibility on metaphysical grounds.

Lastly, no, you absolutely haven't made it impossible for us to see eye to eye, or even to have constructive, friendly disagreements in the future. Conversatiions like this are how we all learn, so I appreciate the time.