Radical Extremists

"You can beat a man's skull. You can arrest him. You can throw him into a dungeon. But how do you control what's up here? How do you control an idea?"
--Sextus (Ben-Hur)

It has become all-too-common for the status quo to label folks who disagree with them as radicals and extremists. The status quo's assumption is that those labels will serve a derogatory purpose, ultimately quelling the threat posed by someone willing to break away from the pack and attack rigid, unproductive institutions.

This is because the status quo values compliance and conformity. Thus, accusing others of being non-compliant and non-conforming seems appropriately derogatory.

It does not dawn on the status quo that people who break from the status quo view the radical and extremist labels as complimentary. They know that significant positive change, by definition, requires radical departure from the status quo.

Radicals and extremists, not the status quo, have paved the way for human advancement since the beginning. The Catholic church and the United States were founded on such radicalism.

When this is no longer the case, then perhaps we will have reached the end of time.