Why, Yes, I Think So Too

An epic rant by Ace: Is America Now Officially Crazy?

I believe it is. I believe the dominant media culture has gone crazy due to the trauma of not getting their way. I further believe that their constant hysteria makes more sane people not actually crazy, but very stressed out and agitated.

If you've ever spent five minutes in the company with a manic or very anxious person, you know that such psychological states are easily transmittable. I personally know that when I used to have panic, that panic infected the people around me. (And actually, then I would sense their own anxiety and I would become more panicked-- a vicious cycle of sympathetic animal-level emotional transmission.)

It's all part of our pack animal evolution -- it's evolutionarily advantageous to pick up the signals of alarm (even subtle ones) from a neighboring pack animal. When his ears prick up, it's good to prick up your own ears. If he stops breathing to hear more clearly, then it's good to hold your breath too.

But those things are good only when the pack animals around you are sane and reasonably reacting to stimuli that seem to indicate genuinely possible threats.

However, when half of the pack has Mad Cow Disease and shriek and wail over nothing at all, this transmission of anxiety and fear becomes toxic for the healthy members of the pack.

Half of America now consists of barely-functional lunatics, and it's best to avoid them for all sorts of reasons.

and as an example, he offers:

John Ekdahl made a good point about two months ago. One day he asked, "Does anyone remember what the freak-out was about before this latest freak-out?"

The previous freak-out had occurred just 48 hours or so earlier. (Two days seems to be the longest the lunatics can go without a collective Amok Time.)

And yet, when Ekdahl asked the question: I could not for the life of me recall whatever Shrieking Hysterical Horror had so consumed Internet People just 48 hours prior. I knew it was something -- it's always something -- but I failed John Ekdahl's test. (Or, maybe, passed it.) I could not in fact remember the last This Changes Everything and History Will Never Be the Same Again monumental event that had come and gone like a fart on the hurricane deck of a ship in a gale.

and concludes:

Life is short, guys. No one ever realizes how short life is until they're looking at having only days or weeks of it left.

Tune out the lunatics, filter out the hate, embrace things that matter, and try to get off the white-knuckled machine of anxiety, fear, depression, and hopelessness Your Media Betters have made for you.

Amen, brother.