Mainstreaming the Crazy

Can occur in many ways. One we see all the time involves our media watchdogs taking seriously the rantings of paranoids and using their unhinged talking points as the groundwork for initiating a policy discussion in the interest of Fairness & Balance ("Is Social Security Really a Ponzi Scheme?", etc.). Another, more insidious, way this happens is when intelligent and sensible people in government who are smart enough to know better decide for purely political reasons to co-opt the crazy people's most radical beliefs for purposes of advancing their short-term policy cred and winning the favor of Serious People Everywhere. In so doing, they end up applying a veneer of bipartisanship to actions that would have been deemed needlessly divisive and extremist---and, in fact, blatantly criminal---a generation ago. You'd like to think that our current leaders in Washington are thoughtful and conscientious enough to avoid that political and ethical trap, but sadly, you would be wrong.

---Vitelius