can you provide sources or links for the fossil fuel vs. solar subsidy figures? I’d like to be able to use these too.

That is an excellent question, one that I have also pondered, and I do have an answer: the people espousing that position (as you say, hundreds or thousands or times) are truly unable to distinguish subtleties in societal trends, and in personal relations. Instead, they go by rigidly held positions, because that is all that they are comfortable with as individuals. There is a brew of resentment and isolation, which appears in statements such as “If I could do it, why can’t THEY” (the mythical THEY who are supposedly trying to muck up our supposedly wonderful jobs system, economy, health care, etc). Due to their own lack of grounding, these aggressive advocates of the so-called free-market, want to believe that government is what robs them of control in their lives, when the real enemy is within. The real enemy is within for all of us — but some of us are more willing and able to confront and challenge ourselves, while others are more capable when blaming government, immigrants, and other various out-of-control forces that are supposedly “out there”.

That is my answer to your question.