The fallacy of the reasonable middle

Crazy Extremist: "We have to kill all the kittens!"

Sane 'Extremist': "What?!? No! That's crazy! There's no need to kill any kittens!"

Moderator: "Now, now, none of that namecalling. Compromise is called for. We'll kill half the kittens."

...

A decade later, as the sane extremist has been repeatedly berated for their extremism, the "kill half the kittens" compromise has become the status quo, the best of a bad situation as it were. The yelling dies down.

Whereupon the crazy extremists again call for killing all the kittens, and the moderator insists on a "compromise" where only three quarters of the kittens die

The sane extremist then - understandably - goes ballistic, and is universally put down for being so impolite

The "middle grounders" are in fact, helping the craziest extremists.

In the presence of effective always-middle-grounders, then, the only reasonable approach is to be even crazier than the other guy. Otherwise, the middle grounders eventually hand all the ground to whoever is craziest.

Think the GOP will reduce the Federal Deficit?

(Click for larger image.)

Hasn't happened since Deficits-R-Us Reagan was elected.

As I have said before Republicans don't believe in government so they can't govern well.

Many Insane People Running This Year

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Because of ignorance and people's desire to "send a statement" and the new shrunken media a lot of these crazies are likely to win.