So we're talking about NSA 4th Amendment overreach...
They talk about Gay Marriage...
We talk about the balance of power between the legislative and executive branches...
They talk about the "War on women."
We talk about the printing and inflation of the US dollar
They talk about "Your employer hates you and deserve all his money."
It's like omg, EVEN IF THEY WERE CORRECT about Gay Marriage/War on Women/All Employers suck::::::::::: THEY ARE LARGELY IRRELEVANT TO THE MAIN PROBLEM AT HAND----TYRANNY AND PETRO DOLLAR VALUE.
Conservatives think. Liberals feel. Once you understand the world we live in then liberals aren't so damn mysterious anymore.
Liberals get a mental high from feeling righteous and enlightened and superior. The pinnacle for such feelings was the Civil Rights movement in the 60s. This was like mainlining heroin for liberals especially when compared to what they used to be about - supporting unions, supporting the everyday Joe in his battle against the Capitalists. Feeling moral superiority was like being on crack for liberals and they now seek it everywhere and this quest, and associated moral posturing and preening, now completely dominates their existence.
So we get to your discussions. They simply don't get the heroin rush in their brains from discussing NSA criminality that they do from preening like a peacock about how enlightened they are for supporting gay marriage. Being the champion of homosexuals gives them an immediate rush. It's more fun to get 15 moral highs from 15 preening incidents per day than it is to think about issues and discuss them intellectually and then have to work, without peer recognition even, trying to fix the ills of society.
Give a liberal a choice between preening and feeling morally superior and the option of doing something substantive which doesn't return the empty calories of preening in front of people and they'll always choose to preen.
Conservatives use their politics to try to fix the world around them, liberals use their politics as a positional good, to signal to themselves and others about how terrific they are as people.