The merry pealing of bells in holy roller churches throughout our countryside greeted news that Samuel A. Alito, Jr. has been appointed to the Supreme Court. The reign of, if not the righteous, the elders who will make crooked ways straight had begun.
Alito, bringer of pain and tragedy into the lives of women, is being described as a “mainstream” conservative and, if that means that most conservatives take satisfaction by making young women in trouble more miserable than they already are, he may be a “mainstreamer”, a word which, when used as an adjective, has the power to make anybody thus labeled respectable. If you call a man a Nazi, it is a grave and terrible thing but call him a mainstream Nazi and it’s well, he may have his faults but he’s still in the circle of respectable society. Do what you want, but stay away from the edges.
Mainstream cannibal. Mainstream white collar criminal. Mainstream war criminal. Mainstream son of a bitch. Once the prefix is applied the word which comes next sounds like something everybody does or might do.
Almost as effective is the word “moderate.” Whatever it is, if the person doing it is moderate, it can’t be too bad and, if you’re a reasonable person, you ought to be able to give it pass.
Radical or extreme are two suffixes you don’t want affixed to you. Radical truth teller suggests that you are socially dangerous. Even being described as somebody who “takes charity to the extreme” conveys the possibility that you are deranged.
If you are caught doing something outside the center of the stream, absolution usually can be obtained by saying, “I take full responsibility.” Then everybody can forgive and forget about it.
The Washington Post recently found out that the CIA is running hidden black hole detention camps around the world. People are snatched off the streets and brought to them by a process called “rendition,” another good word. So we’ll tuck people up in mainstream black holes and the people in charge will do moderate torture. Nothing extreme.