Feeding fringe fantasies

Things I can live without: cell phone use by drivers and in public places, fantasy football leagues, and Republicans. There are other things on my list, but those are the first three that come to mind. Republicans, though. Damn, we need to do something about them for sure.

Okay, liberals had their antiwar protests during the eight year plague of the W. administration, and sometimes things probably got out of hand. But when I see a bunch of liberals carrying posters, I don't automatically start wondering how many of them are also carrying concealed firearms and hoping for an excuse to use 'em.

Just when I think right-wing crazies have reached the bottom of the insanity barrel, they come up with something new. This time, it's panic over Obama's death panels. The first time I heard that term, my immediate reaction was that maybe the Democrats had finally come up with a solution to the nation's Republican problem. Now it turns out that the Democrats don't want to exterminate Republicans after all, just old people in general. And maybe Sarah Palin's baby.

In my lucid moments, I think it would be best if I just try to ignore the lunatic fringe and go on enjoying my life. Really, I think my bro in Houston has it figured out. He remembers the country was practically ripped in two by the civil rights movement and the Vietnam war, but eventually things settled down -- most people accepted the results and even decided things had probably worked out for the best. The stuff that gets headlines these days is fairly trivial compared to the big issues of the sixties. It only gets attention because news media people are bored. A relative handful of obnoxious bottom-feeders are banging pots, and the people with cameras and microphones are reporting it like they were somehow important. Yeah, the potbangers are on TV and in America, the public is conditioned from childhood to believe that if they see something on television it must be significant, so they get a little worried, too.

The best thing Obama has going for him is the notoriously short attention span of the typical American. This country generally finds ways to muddle through anything that gets thrown in its path, and it will again. Deep down inside, I think the fringe element nuts realize that and are trying to get in as many licks as they can now, while there's still some uneasiness among the sane people. Once the economy starts to mend, and it eventually will, nobody will care about the things birthers and teabaggers are obsessing over now.

Added 9:26 am, Saturday, 15 August: Paul Krugman on this issue. I don't always agree with Krugman, but this time I think he's on the right track.