I've become less enamored with trying to change opinions, because ideas need a zeitgeist, and if that's not fertile nothing you say will matter. . . . I don't see lot of value to being an advocate, though I know someone needs to sit down and write thoughtful things to counteract all the instinctive first-order solutions people think are great ideas (poor? give them money!). The problem is that it's hard not to become a partisan hack if you write too much, to pick on the other side's worst arguments, which regardless of what side you are on, will be indefensible and so prove nothing.
The original post is here. This, along with the fact that the number of political opinions I have has been on a steady decline, is why I don't post about politics anymore.