As A Nation We Are A House Bitterly Divided And Probably Will Not Stand.

[DirkGently]

12. Or the nutty stuff could be intensifying because

... it's increasingly threatened.

Just spitballing, but I think, first of all, these things are cyclical.

Secondly, crazy talk has fewer and fewer places to hide. Sure, there's more of it in terms of sheer volume, but there's also more avenues for the truth to be revealed.

The rise of worldwide digital communication has been a many-edged sword, culturally. One big change has been that information is now a) ubiquitous and b) less filtered.

But notice how people -- not all, mind you, but maybe enough -- grow a little wiser, a little at a time?

Remember when you'd get at least one e-mail per week from an acquaintance or co-worker, warning of giant Toilet Spiders or HIV- tainted needles in gas pumps?

How long can sheer mythology or big lies hold out, in the long run?

And every time we get something right, it sticks, at least a little. Going to be hard to say gay marriage is an existential threat to civilization anymore. Now it's going to be a little harder to say we can do without government, or that healthcare reform is Devil worship.

Maybe I'm just optimistic tonight.

But I think we are staggering toward sanity. Insanity doesn't like that, so we'll be hearing its noisy complaints louder than ever for a while.