The Range of Debate

With all the partisan bickering going on this week in Washington with regard to raising the limit on the US National Debt, it's worth revisting an observation by America's greatest living intellectual dissident:

"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum - even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate." -Noam Chomsky