When Congress is dysfunctional, we should draw our districts to encourage politicians to cater to common sense and not rigid extremes.
Religion is providing a moral medium for coping and justification for fighting, rather than a basis for rigid and extreme ideologies".
We assign equal blame to both parties for the dysfunctional politics when in reality the Republicans are more rigid and extreme.
Search on "dietary recidivism" and you'll find that most experts believe it happens when people don't have a good plan, or enough support, or when the diet itself is rigid or extreme or deprivational.
But the prospect of two decades of following the advice of Jane Brody with her rigid diet and extreme exercise regimen, frankly, is depressing (Personal Health column, "Secrets of Keeping Aging's Effects at Bay," May 29).
Her views were rigid in the extreme and she persisted in seeing worldwide communism as a monolithic structure long after its ideological and national tensions had become apparent in the Sino-Soviet split and developments in eastern Europe.
In response, the part of our collective psyche that is governed by tribal conditioning is contracting defensively, hardening and growing ever more fanatic, extreme, rigid and self-righteous.
When people are emotionally overwhelmed with feelings that their world, values and identity are turned upside down or destroyed, they may embrace beliefs that are extreme, rigid and serve the psychological purpose of denying the frightening, chaotic world they are experiencing.
No one wants to see schools treating bullying with the extreme and rigid zeal applied by the school that suspended a 6-year-old for bringing a Cub Scout utensil to use at lunch.
This leads to group polarization, in which initially moderate or tentative views give way to increasingly extreme and rigid ones.
As the Senate continues to consider President Trump's cabinet nominations, they must reject Mick Mulvaney and demand a nominee who will make decisions based on what's best for the American people rather than based on an extreme and rigid ideology.
