(Also published at What Would Jack Do?)

You should probably come to grips with the reality that you're WAY too paranoid when you're foaming at the mouth over...wait for it...fluoridated drinking water. Yes, that's right, kids...of all the things that Tea Party could reasonably and understandably soil their shorts over, they've chosen fluoridated water.

Cue the black helicopters....

It's not a stretch to put forward the notion that this country faces some serious, intractable problems that can, should, and must be addressed and resolved by serious people doing serious work. Instead, what we get are Tea Party zealots exercised over the government putting fluoride in drinking water. Never mind that fluoride has been put in our drinking water for many, many years. Never mind that it's generally accepted that fluoridated drinking water helps to reduce cavities, particularly in children. Somehow, the Tea Party has come to see fluoride as another example of government overreach, the nanny state run amok.

WTF??

The board voted 4-3 last week to stop the 7-year-old practice, despite warnings from dentists that fluoride in drinking water is safe and effective fighting cavities.

The majority -- Commissioners Nancy Bostock, Neil Brickfield, John Morroni and Norm Roche -- sided with fears of big government and fluoride-related maladies....

[D]entist Edward Hopwood of Clearwater....said the board sided with a "radical" group of tea party activists who pressed the board to make the decision.

In an e-mail to commissioners, he wrote: "This is not a political issue, it is about right and wrong."

Exactly, opponents counter in their own messages to the board.

"Water fluoridation is not much different than sending a fluoride Gestapo around every day to force everyone to take fluoride pills, it is unethical and doctors who advocate this are in violation of peoples rights and ethics," David Jackson wrote.

Fluoride Gestapo?? How can you take people seriously, how can you give them credit for having ANYTHING of value to add to the public discourse, when they engage in this sort of rhetorical excess and silliness? How can we hope to have any sort of dialogue with those who think differently when this is what they're going with. Fluoride Gestapo? Really??

If this is the sort of unmedicated paranoia that thinking people have to overcome, how are we to even hope that we can make progress and determine how best to move America forward? When you spend your time trafficking in pointless conspiracy theories, there's simply no way, or reason, why you should be taken seriously.

Next we'll be reduced to discussing how and why the government wants to put microchips in our butts....