The Paranoids Are Out to Get Me!
Jesse Walker, Reason Online
...We've heard a lot of warnings about extremist paranoia in the months since Barack Obama became president. We've heard much less about the paranoia of the centrists; indeed, the very idea that the sober center could be paranoid sounds bizarre. But when mainstream columnists treat a small group of unconnected crimes as a "pattern" of "rising right-wing violence," their thesis bears more than a little resemblance to the conspiracy theories of the fringe figures they oppose. In both cases, the stories being told reflect the anxieties of the people discerning the patterns much more than any order actually emerging in the outside world.
This isn't the first time the establishment has been overrun with paranoia about the paranoiacs....
What follows is a very good round-up of the history of paranoia among the left-liberal elite. Go read it.
Posted by: Mike 2009-06-19 |