h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"So, these people are basically wrong and they're stupid and ANGRY. And they *don't matter*. Really. And, no, they are not in control of America.

And the best you could all do is stop reprinting their silly essays, stop worrying about them and ignore them. I do. Until some of you lot start going on about them."

I'm in partial agreement with you Zagreb, but I don't plan to ignore them any time soon. They're not in control of America, but they are a vociferous minority, and people believe them. Hell, I live in Texas and it's full of the buggers. True, most of the people they influence are of pretty much the same point of view anyway, but you should never simply dismiss and ignore the 'cranks' just because they talk apparent gibberish.

I don't overestimate their importance, but neither do I underestimate their power to influence the... feeble minded and crackpot. You have to be lacking a few marbles to want to fly a plane into a skyscraper, and those are exactly the types who listen to 'these people'. You have to be lacking a few marbles to think that you can win against people daft enough and determined enough to fly planes into skyscrapers, and those are exactly the types who listen to 'these people'. 'These people' should not be ignored - the people who throw their hands up in the air and reprint their silly essays should.

I see your point, but extremism tends to go nowhere. The last century showed that pretty well. I don't mean it doesn't cause harm but it never fulfills it's goals. Nazism and Communism both spluttered and died, Islamism is on it's way out, the other religious totalitarianists are headed the same way.

Most countries in the world are full of angry idiots with insane theories who shout them at anyone who'll listen. If they live in 90% of the world, they get rightly ignored. If they are American, people take notice and start getting scared of them. There's a great deal of fear of America in the world at the moment and a lot of it comes from obsessing over the United States and it's internal politics. It's not healthy and the rest of the world needs to get it out of it's system.

I agree with you that extremism goes nowhere - in the long term. In the short term however, it can appear strong, powerful, even invincible, and it can affect the lives of millions of people. It can do untold harm to people's lives, even whole races of people, as happened during WW2. The government of Margaret Thatcher for instance altered the lives of thousands of young people by preventing them from staying in one place for more than six months at a time - I'll explain more if you want to know how that came about.

It's very easy to say 'Let's just sit it out and let it run its course', but I'm guessing that neither of us have been directly affected by extremism along the lines of the KKK, the Spanish Inquisition, the Nazis, or Al-Qaeda. We may have a different view if things were different. When something happens to you, statistics such as 'Ten percent of males between the ages of 15 and 25 etc...' mean nothing - the only statistic you know about is 100%.

I think that many people around the world *and* in America are currently concerned about not just extremists, but about the administration, based on what they've seen happen rather than any irrational fears. People talk about America being a bully. That's true to an extent (in my opinion), but I see the current administration as more of a child than a bully - a child who hasn't yet learned how to deal with other people, hasn't learned proper manners and ways of interacting with its friends and peers. Like a kid who runs around the school playground mouthing off about other kids, telling everyone how he reckons that little Johnny has been selling crack to other kids based on an overheard rumour but without any evidence. Little Johnny then gets hauled up before the head teacher, and simply because he has a couple of friends who have bad reps, little Johnny is guitly by association even though he did nothing wrong.

What the Bush administration is doing is playing with the lives of people in other countries - something many governments and corporations have done at one time or another down the centuries. Hell, the British Empire was based on that very principle. Eventually people will come to their senses, just the way they did during the McCarthy era, and realise that they've let a small bunch of people get away with murder - metaphorically and literally. A handful of people will have gotten rich, a much larger number of people will have have been shat upon from a very great height in order to make those people rich, and I think that's wrong.

I won't say flat out that Bush has lied about a number of things, but I'm very dubious about many of his statements and justifications. Oh hell, I don't believe a word that comes out of the bloke's mouth.

I lived through the Thatcher years, and I see so many similarities between this administration and hers. The poll tax was her downfall... I'm wondering if social security reform may be Bush's.

Kinda got off the subject of extremists and crazies there didn't I.

Naaaaaaah