One thing I notice repeatedly about the far right that I find very disturbing is there is no gray to them, just black & white. There's either right or wrong, up or down, hot or cold -- nothing in between. Everything is framed in stark, strident terms contrasting one thing versus another with hardly any blending or attempts to find a middle ground. In fact, I almost named my blog, "Embrace The Gray."

There are two reasons I believe this to be the case. The first is it's too difficult to ponder the many nuances in the middle; it's much easier (lazy thinking) to quickly lay down the two opposite views and simply pick one. It could also be the case they lack the intellectual capacity to actually surmise what could be in the middle, which most of the time is where the real complexities of an issue dwell (of course, now I'm sounding like an "elite").

The other reason, and more likely, is the gray or "muddled" middle is simply not polarizing enough, i.e. it's boring. The priority of the far right is to excite their base and keep them in a state of anger, with fangs showing, claws slashing. They can't have them consider the many sides of an issue and then choose the most reasonable, i.e. they can't have them consider a topic carefully and afford it the time for introspective thought it deserves. If they allowed for this to happen, they'd likely lose voters and even more so, given the many right-wing TV and radio hosts, they'd lose viewers/listeners. After all, the last thing the far right seems to do is encourage their base to think for themselves.

Here's an example of the above: after Kerry's speech on Thursday, a right-wing radio guy proclaimed that the delegates cannot rightfully cheer for the Band of Brothers on stage supporting Kerry and at the same time be against the Vietnam War. Again, on the surface, this would seem to be a black-and-white logical constant, however that's simply not the case (if you at least think about it for a minute).

It is a completely A-OK stance to support our soldiers that go to war while at the same time not support the war they're fighting. As Americans, we will always support our brave soldiers no matter where they go to fight. They had nothing to do with the politics leading up to the decision to go to war; therefore, it's logically consistent that one can support the efforts of our fellow human beings who must do what they're told (or face court martial / jail) while at the same time not support the war itself (due to faulty reasons for being there, political lies & distortions, etc.).

Is this "grayness" to complex for the far right to handle? Likely not. Instead, it simply doesn't fire-up their ravenous base and therefore is of no use to them.