Jesse Walker’s post on the subject is good (via Ed Driscoll*) – his gist is that the Crazy Tree is not linked to any particular people or group, even the ones that you don’t like – but it’s incomplete. Here’s the Sixth Law of the Crazy Tree: The fruits that you gather from the Crazy Tree are much worse than the ones that I gather. We just saw this Law play out in the Left-sphere, as people tried – and failed – to explain why it was no big deal that an administration official endorsed a malignant conspiracy theory about 9/11. It failed largely because nobody on the Left wanted to say “Well, our nuts are harmless, so we don’t worry about them.”
This is not to say that all conspiracy theories are equally harmless, of course. For example, nobody worries about the folks who believe that the Apollo moon landings were faked, and for good reason: they generally don’t do anything except get punched by Buzz Aldrin**. But it does remain true that it’s always the Other Guy’s fringe who looms larger when doing the subjective threat analysis.
Moe Lane
*Apropos of nothing – say what you like about Rush Limbaugh, but “flat-shoed bird-brained idiot” is probably going to be the best description of Robert Gibbs that you’re likely to read today.
**You’d think that would stop being funny.
Crossposted to RedState.
I have often wondered, but been too afraid to ask, if there is some correlation between Buzz Aldrin and Chuck Norris.