The Problem With Letting Crazies Talk...

I have this personal philosophy. The crazier someone's ideas (neo-Nazis, isolationists, eco-crazies, etc.), the more I WANT to give them a platform to speak. The more looney someone's ideas, the more likely they are to spout off enough that people will see how "off" this person's viewpoints are.

Now, there are some obvious issues with this philosophy. Namely, we're assuming that those in the audience are able to rationalize how crazy the speaker's ideas are. As we know, this isn't always the case. Heck, it may not even be the case very often.

So, here's a story to bring this around...

Recently, a man was charged in an impaired driving crash in the midwest. No one was killed in this single car crash, but the driver himself was injured. Apparently, while he was driving, said impaired driver had been huffing inhalants.

Bad enough, right? The thing is, the driver said he learned how to get high from inhalants off the TV show, "Intervention." Really?

If you haven't seen it, "Intervention" shows some horribly sad stories of addiction and abuse of substances. It's reality TV, so of course, they show some terribly shocking cases. Somewhere in this driver's mind, he watches a tragic story on TV and thinks, "Hey, that sounds like a thing I'd like to try!"

Just like my philosophy of letting crazies talk as much as they want, there's a downside to "Intervention." I.E., it teaches people in the audience to get high.

I caught an episode of "Intervention" a few months ago, featuring a wife/mother. Alcohol was her drug. For most of the episode, she was seen staggering around the house with a giant bottle of mouthwash, swigging it all the while.

Now, if I was a 14 year old kid ready to experiment with alcohol...would I go through the difficulty of stealing booze from a store, sneaking it from the parents liquor cabinet or trying to get someone 21 to buy? No way! I'd be headed to the medicine cabinet and grabbing the Scope.

This is why it's so, so essential for parents to know what their children are watching. That way, parents can intervene to be sure the kids know the dangers to themselves and others before trying something they've seen on the tube.