Question and Expression of discontent

I don’t know how to relate to a group of people with whom I have a common past. In that past I loved and like them. These are my childhood friends, college buddies and just in general people which were a big part of my youth. Many of them left and end up here in the new and wonderful land of USA. The crowd which is here falls into two camps along major political parties: republicans and democrats. I do not see myself belong to any… even I vote democrat.

The problem is that many of them erected a wall around themselves. Within this wall they want to build a fantasy world, similar to one Ayn Rand created in Atlas Shrugged. Many of them never even heard about Ayn, but they worldview is the same. So it looks like there is a natural path which leads people to that believe. The path is not complex; in fact it is very simple. We lived in USSR which was a communist country. Everything was managed by government and everything was bad. It must be like that everywhere and government is just wasting our money and doesn’t do anything. (never mind that our parents on Medicaid/medicare and SSI). In the fantasy world free market will take care about all of this. It is pretty much described and discredited in one lovely episode of Monty Python in the Life of Brian: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExWfh6sGyso

I know that simplicity is a very attractive quality. It gives a clear way to judge what is good and what is bad without spending too much time pondering why? The religion gives the same benefit. No wonder that majority of people go for that. The question is why a few people who I respect and consider thoughtful and kind human beings fall for this very simplistic and childish outlook.
Any thoughts?