Worth the trouble?

I'm beginning to wonder if it's worth the trouble to keep an open mind. Seems like it would be a whole lot easier to just decide what I think is right and never listen to another person's viewpoint.

I seem to get into a lot of discussions with people who don't feel like I do about current events and politics. Although discussion might be the wrong word. Most of them don't want to hear opposing views, and they seem to hate facts. I don't believe that I have all the right answers, I'm still looking for them. But it's hard to get a good discussion going when you can't get people to agree on a starting point.

ME: Terrorists deliberately target civilians. This is wrong.
RANDOM LEFTY: Americans have killed innocent civilians too.
M: Not on purpose.
RL: So?
M: I said deliberately target them. There is a huge difference.
RL: Whatever.

So it really seems pointless. Until we can agree on a version of reality, I don't know how we can get anywhere on what to do about the people who want to kill us.

M: Bad people want to kill us.
RL: Maybe we deserve to be killed.
M: We are mostly good people who would like to see the whole world live in peace and freedom.
RL: They don't want to kill us, they just want to live in peace and freedom.
M: You changed the subject, but okay, then why do they attack us?
RL: We support Israel.
M: And that justifies the murder of schoolchildren?
RL: Bush is an idiot.

That's pretty much the way most of the discussions go. I haven't really heard anything that convinces me to change any of my major positions yet. But I'm still willing to listen.

What I've learned is that there are different versions of reality, depending on who you talk too. Not just different versions of the same basic concepts, I mean nothing in common at all. We can't even seem to agree on what "bad" and "good" mean. If I say "Car bombing a market full of civilians is bad," I never just get "Yeah, that's wrong." I always get some bull about how the poor terrorist has no other way of protesting the evils of western culture and how we are responsible for the bombing because the billions in aid we donate to the third world is less per capita than Sweden.

I just wonder why it's so important to so many people in America to take the blame on themselves for the evil of other people. I'm sure we have done bad things, things that people in other countries have a right to be angry about. As a world superpower we can't look after our own self interests and please everyone in the world. But nothing justifies killing random civilians.

Until we can agree on that, we can't move forward.