I believe it’s so enormously important to add a voice of moderation whenever possible. In today’s sound-bite culture of media driven hysteria, common sense is in pretty desperate short supply. Fact is, most people don’t take the time to get informed. They just skim the headlines and believe whomever generally agrees with them. So, if you’re a halfwit redneck, you will believe whatever Glenn Beck dishes out. If you would rather talk than think, you will swallow Betsy McCaughey whole. You think Fox is News.

On the other hand, if you want to know what you are talking about, you will cull actual knowledge from as many sources as you can, as close to the original as possible.

The fact is that the GOP is reeling in disarray, fumbling around in old school politics that no one with half an ounce of sense has any interest in anymore. This isn’t to say Republicans have nothing to offer, but I am saying that the far right is not doing America any favours. The knee jerk reactions, half-baked assumptions, and outright lies spouting from the deep right have slowed progress to a painful crawl across broken glass, for no better reason than that they rail against change. There just isn’t any nice way to say it: Hey morons, get the hell out of the breeding pool. You’re dragging us all down.

So in the interest of adding a voice of reason to the tumult, I respectfully offer this article from Newsweek that crushes the more idiotic claims.

Of course, the problem with posting this sort of thing on a blog is that, chances are, if you’re reading this, we are like-minded people, and you already know all this stuff.