I'm a very tangential thinker.  It comes from years of debating.  When you debate, you find that the easiest way to win a debate is to stop debating the current topic if you don't feel strong in it, and get them to talk about something you're stronger in.  If you're really good at it, the other guy doesn't even know you changed the debate.  So when people start talking about one thing, my thoughts tend to not only think about that topic, but other related topics, and how the current debate impacts those things.  Those who have debated things with me over the years who read my blog can now feel free to go back in your collective memories to recall how many times I've done it to you.  Go ahead.  I'll wait.

All with me again?  Good.  This really shouldn't come as a surprise to you, since pretty much everyone who is active in politics does this.  In fact, almost every blogger I know does this.  It's just that most bloggers do it without realizing this, while I do it very purposefully.  Of course I could be totally wrong, and you could just be very good at it.  It's actually a very natural response if you're an argumentative person.  Nobody likes to lose a debate, but it's bound to happen some day to everyone.  I truly fear the day when I lose my first debate.

The real problem is that there are lots of problems in this world, and we don't have all the solutions yet.  After all, if we had all the solutions, then we'd be out of problems.  What we tend to do when we talk about problems though, is to change the subject and talk about things that we might already have solutions for.  We sound smarter, and we think we're less likely to lose the debate.  What could be better?  Unfortunately, this rarely leads to those problems actually going away.  But hell, it still makes us feel better, and isn't that what it's really about?

So far I've been pretty generic.  You may know what I'm referring to, or you may think I'm off in la la land.  The majority of you probably stopped reading this post after the first paragraph.  But for those of you who stuck around, I'll give you some examples.

An innocent girl was killed, and we started debating the relevance of a newspaper columnist.

A partial birth abortion law was upheld, and some people started talking about the morning after pill.

Horrendous violence occurs daily in Milwaukee, and people are cheering the arrest of a single alderman.

The Earth is getting warmer, and people are debating types of light bulbs.

Discuss.