Being someone who loves to get into political discussions–especially with those that I consider to be on the extremes of issues, I’ve encountered my share of “it all has to come crashing down” attitudes.

On the left, they seem to see unregulated free-market capitalism as this seven headed hydra that has to come crashing down and usher in a new depression so that a new FDR can rise from the ashes to renew the social contract. Some seem to see the flooding of New York ala “Inconvenient Truth” as the wake up call we need, and that things will all simply work themselves out on global warming.

On the right, I have friends who have truly begun to believe that we are seeing the End Times, who may not believe but do receive emails about Obama being the Anti-Christ, global warming is a hoax perpetrated by Al Gore and super-secret scientists to form a One World Government under the oppressive rule of a ruthless Carbon Tax. They see the degradation of morals on TV and in the news and blame all of society, it’s all bad and only God can sweep it away. To them, if New York floods it isn’t because of global warming, but global whoring.

I’m someone who loves to play devil’s advocate, usually from the center, but sometimes part of being an effective contrarian is to adopt the views of your opponent and help them to fully imagine them. So to the lefty whose fetish is a stock market crash, maybe you ought to ponder more how that would come about and what the true ramifications could be. All my other “friends of Jesus” who think that God is about to give us another spanking, maybe you’d better start playing nice with the greens and helping them remain skeptical of “global warming” becoming as impervious to criticism as religion was in the Dark Ages. The point is that if either of you are remotely correct, the best solution to preserving our way of life is to nurture and foster communities.

Extreme Lefties: An economic collapse and ecological disaster may well bring reforms, but only if we don’t have a sizable portion of the religious community who believe that Obama might be a demon and Al Gore a dictator. You have to talk to them and reassure them that you will always be willing to be critical of your own leaders. You must tell them that you have learned from their mistakes with Bush. Be gentle about how you say that, ask them questions about how they feel about Bush. Most decent people will be elated to have the opportunity to admit to their mistake. Tell them that you don’t ever want to make that mistake, but that you can understand how people can become convinced of anything if enough of their piers feel the same way.

Extreme Righties: A little less fear, a little more love, please. Regardless of what the cause of a natural disaster may be or your likelihood of being wafted up to heaven like an angel fart, isn’t the Christlike path one of comfort for all us poor sinners who will have to rebuild the Earth? If there is an Anti-Christ on the rise, shouldn’t we all open our doors and our hearts and prepare to sacrifice more to offer one another comfort during a dark age? And no matter if Al Gore and the scientists are all dirty liars, the poor saps that they’ve deluded into “going green” are still gonna be interested in planting a garden on their front lawns. Why not bring them some lemonade and talk about flowers?

This is a very optimistic and bright letter for me. When I get on my eschatology kick, it’s not about global conspiracies or biblical prophecies, it’s all about the details. Mechanisms that exist such as the PATRIOT ACT, warrantless wiretapping and data mining, and the unitary executive are the things that make my hair stand up on end. Because while I can’t say for sure that the men in charge have nefarious ends in mind, as long as those mechanisms exist, it seems dangerous to never imagine that they can be abused. Because if we go too long without imagining so, someone will come to power who will imagine it for us.

Barring sprouting horns and a tail on live TV, I’m going to vote for Obama this fall. I’m not saying that I don’t wish I could vote for Nader, but there just aren’t enough other people for that to happen. I can imagine a lot of things, but I don’t see a way of Ralph becoming president in our current system. Since I will be putting my good name behind the O man, I want all my friends and enemies on the right to know that by voting for him I will be holding his feet to the fire and urging every decent American to do the same. We need to write letters, talk to our friends, and rebuild our local communities, no matter who wins.

[Note: When I use the term 'authority', I am not only referring to governmental institutions, but to anything or anyone that holds sway over the behavior of a person. From religion and 'conventional wisdom' to fathers and bosses. The basis for my definition relies heavily on Robert Altermeyer's psychological study, The Authoritarians]

Politics is all about authority to me. Whether we’re talking about a populist uprising, a military coup, or the local election for county comptroller, it’s all about who gets to be in charge. Regardless of the form of that authority, the people who are subject to its will will tend to develop into a range of two extremes: those who absolutely trust the established authorities (right wing), and those who absolutely do not (left wing).

In between those extremes we find many different reasons why people behave this way, and many subtle degrees of commitment to their baser inclinations. I would consider an extreme left wing person to be someone who is radically opposed to the authorities, and that person’s right wing counterpart would be an equally radical supporter of the status quo.

Now, when it comes to ‘wings’, I pretty much leave ideology aside (we’ll cover those in another episode). The reason is because I believe that both liberal and conservative ideologies can manifest on either side. Here in America, we’ve been trending toward right wing extremism for the last 30-40 years now in that the population and the institutions they occupy have been subservient to the established authorities. If there is a defining indictment against our media and in the last 10 years, it is that they have not been skeptical enough of the established power structure. If there is a defining indictment of our government representatives, it’s been a refusal to question the status quo of ‘free-market’ capitalism, our aggressive foreign policies, and a refusal to address the need for massive change regarding our energy, transportation, and communications infrastructures. All-in-all, I’d classify the America of 1968-2008 as conservative right-wing in that we as a democracy have been dangerously dogmatic in accepting the status quo.

An example of left wing extremism would be “The Nowhere Kids”, a group I learned about recently in the new documentary, Off the Grid which is currently running on Sundance. The film focuses on life the people living out on the mesa in the New Mexico desert. The Nowhere Kids come into the story after the rest of the more peaceful community has been established. Here’s a description of the clash between the community and The Nowhere Kids from a review in Reason Magazine:

A more intimate enemy soon emerged as well. Shortly before the filmmakers arrived, a cultish group of runaways called the Nowhere Kids settled in. “They were extremists,” remembers Randy. “They were stockpiling weapons. They had X’s tattooed across their face.” The new kids’ brand of anarchy didn’t sit well with the other desert dropouts. “They act like a bunch of revolutionists,” snarls one, a pig farmer who frequently takes in teen runaways. “They cuss the system, and yet they’ve got their hand out…for everything they can get.”

Before long, the Nowhere Kids were stealing food from their neighbors. “We don’t want to call the cops,” Robbie tells the Stulbergs. “But we’ve got to do something about this. Some people already got their guns.” The film cuts to Moonbow, a man who sees no contradiction in talking like a vigilante while wearing a tie-dye. “If you’re not a good neighbor,” he says, “then we’ll band together and chase you out of here.”

The rhetoric escalates. The Nowhere Kids declare that they have a right to take anything they please as long as no one is using it at the moment. They also refuse to be filmed, telling the Stulbergs they’ll “put bullets” in their heads if they don’t keep their cameras off. The other Mesa residents start counting their bullets as well. An informal group of local leaders meets to plan a response to the thefts. At this point, a cynic might accuse the Mesa anarchists of forming a regime of their own.

These kids are dogmatically opposed to respecting any established authority, no matter how benign or accommodating. These kids ironically believe that they are anarchists when in fact they show themselves to be fascists. They impose their rules on outsiders whenever it suits them. When The Nowhere Kids decided that they have the ‘right’ to steal supplies from mesa residences they changed the rules of the community without discussion, and they refused to be held accountable for their actions and threatened the life of the people who simply tried to video tape the process.

That’s the problem with anarchy it inevitably results in fascism. They don’t realize that human beings cannot coexist without a form of government in the sense that we need stuff from one another. We need to establish rules that keep things fair, and whoever enforces those rules will have to be held accountable. The best way to do that is through transparency and criticism.

The point in all of this is that extremism in either opposition or support of the authorities in a society tends to be a very bad idea. It always ends up with a bunch of bullies in charge of a group that is too scared, too ignorant, or too comfortable living in a world of mortal enemies.

So my advice to each side right now would be as follows:

Right Wingers
You’re far too supportive of the authorities in your life. If your dominant authority is your church, you’re probably allowing them to make a lot of very bad decisions about how you should regard gays, history, or the contributions of science. Or maybe you’re still beholden to the views of your father, well to you I’d say “Look William Kristol, I’m really glad that you think your dad was a great guy. I would say that some of his concerns about liberals and left wing extremists in the 1960s were somewhat justified, and yes there are some scary muslims. But you’ve got to take a moment and reflect on what you have wrought.” And if I actually had the chance to round up the the entire republican party in one room, I wouldn’t turn on any gas, I’d simply try to show them that they have allowed their ideology and their inability to accept and offer any constructive criticism from both within and without to bring their party and this country to the brink of collapse. Of course, I wouldn’t hold my breath that they’d see the light, but recent revelations by Scott McClellan do give me hope.

Left Wingers
[Full disclosure: I'm an Obama supporter and I'm definitely a left-winger, though not an extremist I hope. To be sure that I'm not, I warmly welcome your critiques in the comments.]
First I have to say one thing to a few Hillary and Obama supporters. No matter how awesome your candidates are or how altruistic the movement behind them, we’re still gonna have to all do our part to hold his/her balls/boobs to the fire. Honestly, that’s about as extreme as the relevant political spectrum gets and that’s really not saying much. I want to emphasize that I only see this as a very tiny minority in both campaigns, but those of us who have our wits about us will have to deal with them none the less.

Oh yeah, to the really far-left hippie/libertarian who doesn’t get involved in politics because she thinks the whole system is crap has to completely crash, something that can only be defined as ‘genocide by apathy’. To her I can only say fuck you, you spoiled piece of shit. Yeah, our political process mostly sucks these days, the candidates are mostly milquetoast and it is usually choosing the lesser of two evils. DEAL WITH IT. Because things can get worse, and if we don’t keep an eye on our leaders no one will. Because if it all does come ‘crashing down’, it ain’t gonna be pretty. If we allow a country as powerful as the U.S. to continue it’s slow crawl up the hill and over the cliff towards authoritarianism, it will certainly ‘crash’ and it will ‘burn’ in the fires of tyranny.