why doesn't it persuade anyone who isn't already convinced? Are we evil, stupid, or just not paying attention?

Tom, I don't plan to profit from plundering your assets, and I don't seem to be obsessed about the government looting mine. As for compromises and middle ground, it appears to me that you're the one who doesn't want any part of it. As far as I can tell about your concept of economic freedom, it appears to be best expressed as "The government should not steal from the people, that's business's job."

We live in a complex and interrelated economic jungle populated by organizations deliberately designed for nothing but endless growth and self-perpetuation. Some form of regulation and centralized planning is not only inevitable, it is essential, because in an economy dominated by these organizations and their agents, they will always find a way to pervert the very mechanisms that you trust to self-regulate the system. That's their job, and they are selected for excellence at it. They will get their way, or they will wreck the economy trying to run it strictly for their benefit, as recent events so clearly demonstrate.

The reason your critics seem so intransigent to you is that you refuse to give an inch. And the reason they appear so dense is simply that they don't agree with you. It's not only evident, but not surprising, that that message, delivered in that fashion, simply doesn't appeal to the nation any more.

We ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more.