Generally speaking, the selfish, extreme behavior of conservative politicians has a lot in common with the toddlers' "terrible twos!"

Thomas Ridge is a danger to us. He's extreme and irrational. Take a case in point, the McCloskey - Yang affair.

Michael McCloskey was convicted of robbery and murder. We ought not to be robbing one another and we certainly ought not to be killing one another. But, as a rational people, what should we do when robbery and murder occur in order to benefit our society? The 29 year-old Mister McCloskey was sentenced to "life" in prison. In Pennsylvania, that's really a death sentence, death by old age.

Anthony Yang confessed to setting a number of fires when he was 21 years old. There's no question that we ought not to be burning down other people's places. But most arsonists have deep psycho-sexual illnesses and, in any event, what should a sane people do with an arsonist which would benefit the society? The young Mister Yang was sentenced to 20 to 50 years in prison. In Pennsylvania, that's a death sentence - death by old age.

After many years of hopeless imprisonment, with no hope of help and no hope of redemption or release, the two victims of the inane "corrections/industrial complex" found themselves being cell partners at the State Correctional Institution at Dallas in Northeastern Pennsylvania. The prison system had done nothing to make the men better persons. It had not helped them and it had not helped us, the  society at large. Without hope or prospects for relief, one fine summer night the two men escaped. Better a few days of "freedom" than a lifetime of desperation. It's the duty of every individual to try to liberate himself from oppression. It's the only rational response to enslavement. 

When little Tommy Ridge heard that the men had escaped he stomped his feet. He ranted. He raved. He threw a tantrum. He is, after all, not of very sound mind.

Little Tommy's fury was not directed at the failure of the correctional/industrail complex to improve and correct the two prisoners. Tommy wasn't mad at the stupid crime-schooling system which had succeeded only in making the men worse. Tommy didn't sympathize with the two victims of the cruel system which breeds hopelessness.

Tommy was enraged at the prisoners! They had escaped! That wasn't very nice! He would show them! He would punish them all He'd punish all prisoners. That would get them back for those two naughty guys escaping.

To make it even more extreme, Tommy also punished the families and loved ones of all the prisoners. How dare they have a prisoner in their families! Tommy wouldn't let the families visit their prisoner loved ones or communicate with them.

As for the prisoners, he didn't think he could get away with wholesale killings. He had them locked up in groups in tiny bathrooms where they could hardly move for days on end. He had them fed a punitive starvation diet. He had them prodded, baited, harassed. That was great fun!

The point is not how badly Tantrum Tommy Ridge treated prisoners and their families. The point is that this is a dangerous person. And not just Tommy himself, but all the rabid conservative politicians who share his knee-jerk, extremist distortion of reality.