A person is smart.  I know many individuals who I respect and who I dare call friends who are highly intelligent, observant, logical, and intuitive.  PEOPLE, however, are stupid beyond individual comprehension.  PEOPLE, groups, open wide the door to easy propagandization and indoctrination, because critical thinking and common sense are tossed right out the window.  It's peer pressure, really.  We don't want our friends, the people in our group, to think of us as 'other,' so we conform our opinions to theirs.  We don't want to be the squeaky wheel, the conspiracy theorist, or the fanatic.  But it makes us, the different-thinkers, lose respect for our friends, doesn't it?  We think, we research, we form beliefs that are constantly evolving based on new and better information, where we see them as having antiquated, dogmatic ideals that are ultimately damaging to themselves and others.  But, being a weirdie, there's nothing you or I can say or do that will change their minds, because we're just a fanatic, and nothing we say means anything.  Even taking a pragmatic, either side has its flaws stance, we're wrong, which shows that they are also fanatics, just for the popular opinion instead of the unpopular one.  Or maybe these are the ravings of a pre-hermit.