I believe I do the same at times, but people that know me well enough seem to overlook it (at least I hope). That said, I'll answer the question you posed to your mother:

How can you believe that the government is both worth supporting ideologically AND a bloated, mismanaged exploitable piece of garbage?

Not without exception, but I take the view that government efficiency can be a bad thing. At best, government can make most of the people happy, and trend towards making more people happy. However, no individual or group of individuals can understand the workings of government well enough that they can implement anything but partial and gradual changes without doing more harm than good. Central planning can be a terror for all of the realities it ignores. Just as important as the current state of government, is the direction in which it is evolving, and the speed of that evolution. Because of this, even the wisest despot is a fool.

Well, as long as we don't think you're an asshole, you're safe here.

I don't find anything really wrong with either of your situations - there may have been ways to approach your thoughts more tactfully depending on the person, sure - and two examples do not a human or even a persona make.

Sometimes other people act irrationally. Sometimes, they react even more irrationally when you try to point out that their actions aren't making sense. I guess, some people are more ruled by their emotions than logic, whereas others prefer the yardstick of logic. With those that prefer emotions, I have found, they do not really appreciate when you bring a lot of logic in, especially when it's quashing their own emotional output.

I think it is a matter of learning that some approaches with people are not going to be effective, as opposed to being an asshole. My mother's irrational. Me pointing it out to her does not help anybody. For instance, once, she wanted me to get a job, so she took my car away until I could get a job. (Problem being: Cannot drive to job sites or interviews without vehicle.) Clearly I eventually managed, kind of swindling the car out of her, but point is some people don't make sense or prioritize it, and they don't appreciate it when it's pointed out to them especially when they are either already emotionally aroused or invested.

It's like your friend who's not reliable, except these other friends, maybe they're emotional. And you just have to learn to deal with that aspect of them and expect it.

Don't be too sensitive. ;) We like you all right.

Almost nothing is purely good or bad but a mix of costs and benefits. Your mothers view is one tempered by this realization even if she wouldn't express it this way. Anyone who simply declares that government is purely good or bad has an simplistic and immature view of the world.

There are plenty of things to hate about the government but on the whole it's benefits largely outweigh it's costs. It would be great to increase the benefit and decrease the costs. Each of us has our own set of preferences that conflict with each other individually, regionally, bureaucratically, economically and so forth, making the balance of all these preferences incredibly complex.

You may have disliked the form you had to fill out but you choose to fill that shit out anyway, why? Cost of dealing with the stuff you don't like must have outweighed the perceived benefit of having to deal with something you found irrelevant and annoying.

Like, I should be just as pissed off about something I have no control over, and I shouldn't be trying to make sense of and deal with the situation as it is, not as how I want it to be.

Heh. From Luminosity:

Her face lit up when I said my name, and she interrupted me. "Of course! I have your schedule right here, and a map of the school." She pulled them out of a tall, messy paper tower on her desk. It would have done less than no good to let the third sentence I spoke to this woman be a rebuke for the interruption, and even less good to fume about it indefinitely without taking action to prevent its recurrence. I did not like being interrupted as I tried to communicate, and my relentless attacks on this button had done no good; it annoyed me, every time. But I could make the annoyance brief, with a little work.

While the secretary marked all the routes I'd need to follow for my schedule on the map in highlighter, I went through my mood-zapping routine. Some people counted to ten, but that only made explicit the natural diminishing intensity of emotions over time and forced the waiting period. My way took a little longer, even after I'd pruned the process from a notebook-eating timekiller to a streamlined mental process. When I was done, though, I was not annoyed anymore.

The short version was just to review what I knew about my annoyance, and confirm to myself that I knew it. I knew that the woman had not caused it maliciously: she did not know me, did not know about this trigger, had no reason at all to try to irritate me, and was even now being supremely helpful. I knew that it did me no good to be annoyed: the emotion was not pleasant, it did not make me more effective at getting any of the things I wanted, and I did not prefer to be annoyed when interrupted. (It wasn't that I had a general desire to never be annoyed. I would have considered it appropriate if she'd shoved me for no reason or if she'd taken a personal phone call instead of doing her job when I walked in. But I had tried repeatedly in the past to eliminate altogether my dislike of interruptions, and that I'd so attempted was not consistent with wishing to be annoyed about this unspecial interruption in particular.)

Long practice at excising just this sort of reaction made it come loose more easily than some moods might have. But my annoyance was the ascription of motive to the secretary, glued down with entitlement and habit. If the motive were recognized to be nonexistent and the entitlement dissolved and the habit fought as a thing in my brain that I did not welcome, they ceased to trouble me.

How can you believe that the government is both worth supporting ideologically AND a bloated, mismanaged exploitable piece of garbage?

Regarding your friend: You have a specific and recurring problem with this friend. It might be a good idea to make your friend aware of your feelings at a later neutral time ("Hey, there's something I'd like to talk about, can we get together?") using a clear assertive message that will show an openness to discuss the problem, take responsibility for your part in the problem, explain the consequences, and search for solutions. (pm me if you want the formula laid out). There are other choices as others have suggested in this thread.

What is so frustrating for you is being trapped in the car on the receiving end of this. What you want to do is take charge of your environment. You could stop the car and get out.

The first one I don't know about, but the second one:

Let people handle their emotions how they like. If it makes him feel better to whine for five minutes, just agree and he'll probably move on quickly. Nothing pisses me off more than people who tell me to calm down when I'm venting. The AIM of the venting is for me to calm down.

Similar things happen to me. People tend to have a harsh reaction when I undermine their emotionally-charged beliefs with an effort to understand a situation.

To me, it seems like two different ways of dealing with the negative emotions from a frustrating situation are at odds with each other. I've caught myself doing both. Fuming, "that guy is just a dumbass"-type rationalizations quickly patch me up and let me move on. Hatred is kind of cathartic. Maybe in your mom's case it was something positive, having faith in a system and emotional attachment to that faith. Like learning to love something after living with it so long.

On the opposite side is trying to fit the situation into a bigger picture, really trying to understand why it's happened, and using that information to calm yourself somewhat. Understanding that people have habits, and aren't totally 100% in control of what they do. Or that an imperfect system that our society is based around could stand for improvement. I feel a great sense of calm when I rationalize things this way (or at least feel like I have). Almost...a smugness.

I don't think you're an asshole. I do think the way you rationalized those situations brought you closer to the truth. But also to a disagreement with your people. Perhaps their reactions made you feel like an asshole because you brought a conflict where they thought there wouldn't be one.