With parts of Europe (and the USA too, of course) on the verge of bankruptcy, a massive famine under way in Somalia, a Libyan crisis beginning to look like a new Afghanistan, the frightening legacy of Fukushima for the next, say, 1000 decades, most psychiatrists and distillers are not about to run out of business. We are all under stress, to quote the late Hans Selye. On a smaller scale, our own various local and family situations, though a lot less dramatic, bring that annoying buzz of added pressure, like a persistent wasp about one's ears. But it of course does not mean that any of us are about to load up and go on a wild shooting spree. While we turn our attention to stifling the openness of our political debates, by vilifying other ideologies that may seem to us quite unsavory, we should ask ourselves if democracy itself stands a chance once we begin excluding anyone from the process. Anyone sane, that is.
