I agree. I'm only at the beginning. One of the reasons I started to lurk around here is a need for clarity in my own thinking.

You need more than clarity in your own thinking. You also need to understand the positions of others.

I know how a German political party works from the inside. I have to extrapolate from that if I'm talking about US politics but I don't just say that something is bad because I don't understand what it's good for.