Have you noticed how so many people toss around the word “extremist” to describe others who simply disagree with them rather than appropriately using the word to describe the fringe who take things too far? Pro-life extremist. Gun rights extremist. The word “extreme” means “of a character or kind farthest removed from the ordinary or average.” So what is the ordinary or average? How do we define who is normal and who is extreme?
Civilized societies have laws against taking the life of another. These laws are pro-life regardless of the age of the victim. Whether they are three years old or 83 years old, civilized societies are pro-life. Are murder laws extreme laws that were created by pro-life fanatics, or were these laws derived from ordinary thinking? If the answer is ordinary thinking, wouldn’t the true extremists be those who advocate killing life regardless of the age of the victim, be they in the second trimester or the 180th trimester of life?
The people should be free from a government that abuses its power, and the people should be able to protect themselves from that government. Those are parts of America’s founding principles. Hence the necessity for the Second Amendment. Is it extreme thinking to want to be free from government dictating your every move, or is it ordinary thinking? Is it not the true extreme to want the government to control all aspects of your life?
I want to be able to kill my baby, and you don’t want me to kill my baby, so you’re a pro-life extremist.
I want you to be as vulnerable as I am, and you don’t want to be vulnerable, so you’re a gun rights extremist.
That is the true extreme.
Like many other words that are misused today, “extremist” has been perverted by actual extremists to incite an emotional and extreme response from those who would agree with them, while labeling ordinary thinkers who disagree with them as the extremists.
