Talk politics.

There's a basic division in the US on moral and philosophical questions. It's pointless to argue politics without first looking at what those questions are, and at some of the positions being taken. I offer a few of them, and am sure you can come up with alternatives to my loaded answers. The main point is not in which answers are correct, but that we don't have agreement in this country on questions like these. Unless they're resolved in some way, it's difficult for us to even understand each other, let alone get along. Note also that both major parties seem to agree on some of these questions.

Human Rights:
A: "There are principles so important that we say they're God-given or part of "natural law", and are not subject to popular vote. We should be willing to kill and die for these."
B: "Rights are concepts created by governments, hopefully through popular consent. They can be added to or subtracted from according to whatever public policy demands."

Content of Rights:
A: "Life, liberty and property, or the pursuit of happiness, all trace back to the same concept: that individuals own themselves and shouldn't be killed, robbed or enslaved without some overwhelming reason. The basic right is to be left alone. The basic duty is to leave others alone."
B: "Everyone has a right to live and have a reasonably fair, dignified life. This means a right to receive everything they need in terms of food, clothing, shelter, education, medical care, transportation, pensions, job placement, and so on, paid for by someone else if necessary. Everyone has a duty to give other people what they need." (See UN Charter on Human Rights.)

Taxation:
A: "Taxation in general -- not specifically in America -- is morally justified to protect people's rights, ie. mostly to fund the military, police and courts. Other uses are suspect. They need to be explained in terms of some overwhelming need to justify what taxation is -- taking things that don't belong to you."
B: "Taxation is justified whenever society has something it wants to buy. Any notion of property rights is subject to a democratic vote to negate them for any reason. There's nothing wrong with taking property by force when society wants it. If you don't like high taxes, win the vote next time."
C: "Answer B doesn't go far enough. It's justified not just for buying things, but to make society more equal. If someone is too rich, the government should take that money even if it ends up destroying the wealth, because making society more equal is a good role of government." (See John Rawls.)

Democracy:
A: "A popular vote is better than a dictator, but a pure democracy -- where 51% of the people can vote to kill the other 49% -- is evil. Democracy must be temptered with sharply limited government power, so that "the people" can't for instance elect the National Socialist German Workers' Party and have it grant its leader unlimited power."
B: "Democracy is the ideal form of government. If the people want something, who are some dead politicians to overrule the will of the living? A popular vote will prevent a thug like Chavez or a party like Hamas from coming to power or doing anything evil."

Capitalism vs. Socialism:
A: "Capitalism is the ideal of individuals being allowed to make their own decisions. It's the system with the most freedom and the best track record for creating wealth and innovation. Where it goes off the rails is mostly when it gets in bed with government. In contrast, socialists and communists are by definition in bed with government, and have a record of massacring millions of their own people. The ideal is capitalism with a limited government that has no abusive power for rich people to buy."
B: "Capitalism is evil. It's the system of corporations buying favors from government and stealing from the poor. Socialism and communism are nice in theory. The ideal is a system of government-run industries providing people with all their needs." (See multimillionaire Michael Moore.)

The Constitution:
A: "It lays out a specific set of powers for the federal government, and the states and individual Founders agreed that there would be no general-purpose "do whatever you want" power. If it acts outside those limited powers, the government's actions are illegal and dangerous because they move us toward being a pure democracy." (See eg. Federalist Papers, state ratifying documents, Amendment X.)
B: "It grants the government several unlimited powers to do whatever is useful for society. And why should we be bound by these dead white slaveowners' ideas? They couldn't have foreseen modern needs. So we shouldn't worry about the exact wording of the Constitution, only the general concept of having laws and elections."
C: "The government has legal and moral authority to do whatever it wants, because it's the government. We don't think about the Constitution." (See several Congrssmen re: the health care bill.)

Federalism:
A: "Important. Let the states handle all the things outside the Constitution, like abortion, marriage, and health care, and get fifty answers to choose from. Federalism will also help us get along peacefully on the policies we disagree on."
B: "Obsolete. The federal government should impose one solution on policies affecting the whole country, like having a national health system and a national school curriculum. We know the right answer, and shouldn't let backward states interfere."

Status of the country:
A: "Right now, most of what the federal government does is outside its legal authority. We should fix that by greatly reducing the size and power of the government and/or amending the Constitution to prevent further mission creep. It might become necessary to peacefully resist illegal acts by the government."
B: "Nothing's seriously wrong! We just need to raise taxes, trim fat from our budget, and do more federal investment in education and infrastructure. If some federal laws get struck down as unconstitutional, we'll promptly work around those and pass effectively identical ones. And if people resist, they're racist terrorists."