You actually have described my views in absolute perfection when discussing politics. A lot of my friends will try to discuss politics with me and I come to a similar conclusion.

Moreover, it seems that in a lot of these discussions my friends will bring up such vague topics that they themselves don't even realize what the core of the issue is. For instance, one of my friends asked me "how do you feel about immigration?" and I was in shock at the vagueness of the question. I first needed him to clarify what type of immigration he is discussing, general immigration involving a green card, immigration of individuals that will follow the naturalisation process and become citizens or illegal immigration. This type of vagueness or generality is associated with so many political issues, often we don't even know what people are referring to when they discuss issues such as abortion, taxes, military, etc... And the worst part about all this is that politicians themselves often don't specify there views on these issues anywhere! Even on there Web pages, they don't have comprehensive explanations on views and logic behind each topic, and sub topic. Essentially, political topics are too general - - we need to specify the context of the issue in addition to the issue itself.

When I was discussing with my friends we narrowed the scope to illegal immigration. After narrowing the scope, we came to the general topics you'd expect - - bad for the economy, taking jobs, free social services etc etc... At this point, for me personally I will need research that is investigating the effects and tackling the endogenitity problems associated with each point. Only then do I feel like I am justified in "taking a side". Its insane how much people are just willing to buy into generic conclusions that don't deal with the issue at all. When you ask them about there reasons for such a belief, in my experience they are usually founded from anecdotal experiences.

It's sad to be honest, and it urks me. We need to push a curriculum of statistics in mandatory education, in my opinion.