So, on the way back home with Little Girl Blue today, after a morning of doctor’s office visiting and donut gathering, I see a bumper sticker on a car in front of me that reads as follows:

Liberalism is a mental disorder

Now, I can pretty much assume that the driver was a conservative, and not simply a moderate, based on two pieces of evidence:

First, there is no “Conservatism is a mental disorder” sticker to balance it.

Second, there was a National Rifle Association bumper sticker on the car, too.

From this, I can also infer something else.

The driver lacks critical thinking skills. Which is why the Tea Party is so successfully pulling the Republican Party to the extreme right and dangerous ideological territory, because the Tea Party seems to have the most motivated and energetic extremists in the United States right now.

So, why am I slamming the person’s critical thinking skills based on the bumper sticker? Why am I assuming the person isn’t a moderate or close to moderate?

Simple.

Most things are on a spectrum. Liberal is one end; conservative is the other.

Just like obsessive hoarding and filthiness is on one end and excessive cleanliness and germ phobias is on the other. Both are mental illnesses. It’s the people in the middle who are more balanced and less troubled and able to function in the real world effectively.

So, by the same token, if liberalism is a mental illness, its counterpart on the other end is also a form of mental illness.

But why use one’s brain or look at the world in a balanced way when it feels so much better to be an extremist?