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There seems to be value in having exposed yourself to the best arguments from each side of a debate. Ceteris paribus, someone who has only seen the other side at its worst is vulnerable to a biased perspective of the disagremeent. For example, if my only impression of the left/conservatives came from online comments on news articles and Facebook posts, while having read lots of libertarian intellectuals, I would have a sense that left wing or conservative views were products of ignorance and weak reasoning skills. Fortunately, I have had the chance to communicate with many intelligent and intellectual conservatives/leftists, so I know things aren't that simple.
"Ceteris paribus" is doing a lot of work here, though, because people who tend to be involved with politics tend to be very interested in politics, and people who are very interested in politics seem to be more vulnerable to cognitive biases about politics than others. It's like team sports: I know some extremely smart people who fall prey to fallacies as soon as we're discussing their favourite/least favourite sports teams. And this is unsurprising: no matter how smart and intellectual you are, it's hard to produce cool-headed acute analyses about subjects that you are hot-headed about.
The obvious solution is that society should be libertarian, because this tendency of even smart and informed people to be biased about political issues proves beyond any reasonable doubt that democratic state action is a poor way of doing things: voters are either ignorant or biased. I feel very passionately that this is true and all the evidence I've ever seen confirms this hypothesis.
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