You keep framing reality as a choice between vanilla and chocolate, yet people keep perversely choosing pistachio. Isn't it irrational to not wonder what you might be missing?

The Bush-Cheney Gang framed the reality of Iraq for the Iraqis as a stark choice between vanilla Americanism and the chocolate darkness of Saddam the Tyrant. Yet the Iraqis seem to be seeing their world in Neapolitan tricolors. What does the Bush-Cheney mindset fail to see, thus fail to predict, leading their plans to aft gang agley?

What I found fascinating about your post is that you do (seem to) recognize that other people work according to their own internal logic, but you're going astay along classically authoritarian lines: To acknowledge the existence of other logic systems is to accord them some authority and thus create the risk that you might be swayed by their authority.

I've never once maintained that to understand how another person's mind works creates an obligation to agree with them (you think maybe after all these years I might have some idea of how your mind works? Any sign that I feel obliged to agree with you?). That's an utterly insane notion...yet that's the thrust of your argument.

To tell someone "You have a point" when they are engaged in lunatic fantasy concedes the concept of reality itself, and negates the idea of rational discussion.

Well, actually, no, if you've ever done any negotiation, you'd recognize that acknowleging that the other person has a point--which is to say, to refrain from insulting their intelligence and rationality--is the first step in arguing them around to your position. You can never skip the preliminary step of understanding where the other person is starting from if you expect to move them to where you want them to be. How can you guide a blind person across a room when you yourself are in darkness and can't locate them to even start the journey?

Could the Conservative hatred of diplomacy be rooted in simple incompetency at persuasion and negotation? Are you afraid that you'll always get the short end of the deal if you attempt to negotiate?