You are right C.J....the question is...do they hurt anyone?
I do not know. I think that the effect extremist positions have on public
opinion can be damaging...it can be helpful as well...I guess the question
of whether they hurt anyone can only be answered with "It depends on what
kind of damage you are looking for". I think that many of the extremist
positions have some unintended social consequences. I think these positions
sometimes allow questionable laws and questionable practices to enter the
mainstream as a kind of "tolerable compromise" or a "lesser of two evils"
kind of thing.

and you are right...all of this is okay...but as Mark Twain said...the
weakest of all things is a virtue that has not been tested in fire. I find
that the narrow focus of many of the extremists I come across is narrow for
just this reason...their virtue will not withstand fire...or even discussion
of dissenting opinion. I find these people very troubling...

"C. James Strutz" > wrote in message
...
>
> "RobDar" > wrote in message
> ...
>
>> First...I am not sure it is fair to generalize the vegan lifestyle and
>> assume they are all like the goof pot on the show...
>
> You're right, it's unfair to make wide generalizations about any group of
> people.
>
>> I cannot say that I have known more than a handful of vegans...but none
>> of them were as...interesting...as the lady on wife swap.
>> Our conversation during the show?....Where the hell do they find all
>> these people? Nearly everyone on these shows has some serious quirk or
>> another...I guess living my " average joe american" life in my hard
>> working neighborhood on a blue collar street...I have lost touch with
>> just how many off kilter folks there are around me!
>
> You're right again. It's a reality show and producers screen people and
> put them in circumstances that provide the best entertainment value. It's
> silly for anyone to believe that characters on some reality show are
> representitive of, well, reality....
>
>> There is a part of me that feels sorry for people like her. There is
>> something sorely lacking in their lives. Some part of themselves that is
>> empty and out of balance....anyone with so strict a mind set or activist
>> personality, and I mean those people who have become so engrossed that
>> they have lost the ability/willingness to understand and/or associate
>> with people outside their idealology, has something missing in
>> themselves. People look at activists and see dedication and strength of
>> conviction...I see weakness. I deal with activists and "want to be"
>> activists everyday and you cannot talk to even one of them. If offered a
>> descenting opinion they react with emotional outcry...why?...because they
>> nothing else to offer. They are the perpetual victims. People who, if
>> they do not have some cause or issue to rally around and cry about, have
>> very little else about themselves to make them feel alive or valued.
>
> Strength and weakness is a dichotomy - there cannot be one without the
> other. Don't pity people like the woman in the reality show. She obviously
> feels as though her ideology is a strength, not a weakness. It's not that
> they're "perpetual victims", rather their focus is so narrow that there's
> very little overlap with mainstream thinking. That's okay as long as it
> doesn't hurt anyone or anything.
>