I have often wondered about the heightened levels of cognitive...

I have often wondered about the heightened levels of cognitive dissonance evident in conversations on the Gold Forum. It puzzled me that the harmless comments of someone like Skol (who I don't often agree with) could provoke such outbursts of incoherent rage. It reminded me of the tone atheists sometimes encounter in conversations with fundamentalist Christians.

So I was interested to read Paul Krugman’s comments in his post “Barbarous Relics”: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/

“For many people on the right, value is something handed down from on high. It should be measured in terms of eternal standards, mainly gold….

“And given that the laws of value are basically divine, not human, any human meddling in the process is not just foolish but immoral. Printing money that isn’t tied to gold is a kind of theft, not to mention blasphemy.”

He is talking about the Republicans in the US Congress, but the similarities with so many comments on the Gold Forum are too obvious to go without comment.

If Krugman is right, I am an iconoclast! Should I change my HotCopper user name to "Dawkins". LOL