It is not Palin I find scary, but the mindless mob-think that floods her with approbation she does not merit. To see mobs of people getting stirred up in support of mindlessness is scary no matter who is involved.

Why? Because we have demonstrated time and time again that mindless mob-think tends to engage in large-scale destructive actions. Examples without number exist on our back track: the Crusades, the invasion of Iraq, the election of W, the Spanish American War created by the Hearst chain, the upwelling of eugenics in the United States between 1890 and 1920, the American Civil War, the lynch mobs of the early 20th C US...need I go on?

There may be a wisdom to crowds; I have nothing against multiple views being taken into account in decision making,. But we have to differentiate between the kind of stimulus-response mentality of reactive mobs thinking only with push-button sweeping generalizations devoid of substance, and the collection of actual thought from multiple individuals thinking for themselves.

Doug, your failure to recognize this in the "social phenomenon" of Sarah's apparent popularity is discouraging. If this is a mandatory Republican blind spot it is even worse.

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