My mother called me a couple of days ago and she said this:  “You know I hate to talk politics with you, but I’m really curious about one thing:  Can you keep it to 10 words or less?”

I told her I’d be glad to.  Whatever the question.

“What do you think of Marjorie Taylor Greene?” she asked.

I told her I could do it in less than 10.  In fact, I could do it in three.   (Albeit there is one contraction).  “She’s mentally ill,” I said.

She was elected by 75 percent of the vote in her Georgia district.  I suspect she said she wasn’t against guns, but she was against abortion.  And in this country, whether we’re red of blue, a pol’s position on those two things is all that matters.  Those two issues, for or against–sometimes with a side of Green New Deal, Medicare for All and Black Lives Matter–are what drive every House election in the country, one way or the other.

No matter what I read, Greene sounds crazy to me.  In the most medical and diagnostic of terms.

She’s sick, not bad.

But that’s not how most people see it, I guess.  Especially politicians who should know better.  They treat mentally sick people like criminally bad people.  How wrong they are to do that. And they should change their tune. Now.  When it really matters, with a real person in a real situation.

Saying someone is very bad or very mean is easier to do than saying someone is very mentally ill.  Dealing with mental illness takes compassion, it takes grit and wherewithal and strength of character and just plain physical strength.  And dedication.  Because mentally ill people, who you have to do something about, zap everything you have, mentally and physically, all your prowess wrapped up together.  It’s really really really really really really hard.

And that sort of energy is in short supply in Washington.  Especially the compassion part.

If your kid started telling you that school shootings are a hoax and that forest fires are caused by Jewish lasers, would you throw her out of the house or take her to a doctor?  Would you allow people to call her an awful disgrace and despise her?  Or would you want your friends to help you get help for her?

When sick people are demonized and not encouraged to get treatment, it’s a sign of a sick society.  Look in the mirror.  Who are we?  Should we let pettiness and meanness prevail?  The people in Washington do practice what they preach, which is demonization at all cost.  And for the rest of us, that is not an example to follow.

Not one person in the media or in the government or in my circle of friends has ever suggested that people like Greene are mentally ill.  Never.  They may call her crazy–but they say it as an insult, not as a diagnosis.  Our politicians operate in the dark ages.  We should demonize them.

When Washington insiders go on talk shows and cavalierly call Greene nuts, they never mean it literally.  They’re right.  She is nuts.  But they mean she’s a worthless fool, who needs a kick in the butt so hard, she lands back in Georgia.  They think a good insult is what she needs to combat what ails her.

Greene is not spouting conspiracy theories.  Conspiracy theories are possible theories about possible conspiracies.  About things for which there is evidence.

That Bush and Cheney looked the other way when knowing for some time that Muslim terrorists were going to fly planes into buildings is a believable theory about a conspiracy between the White House, the intelligence community and the oil companies.  That there were made up weapons of mass destruction to provide an excuse to invade Iraq and get their oil is plausible if you’ve read American history.  True or not, it sounds possisible and there is some evidence.  It could be true for all we know.  That is a conspiracy theory.

But believing that kids in a school being gunned down is a hoax is not a theory about a conspiracy unless one is crazy.  Certifiably crazy.  Which Greene appears to be.   There is no evidence whatsoever that supports that theory.

Greene is delusional if she believe Jewish lasers are conspiring to start forest fires.  Believing that indicates a psychotic break.  Believing that Bush and Cheney and the intelligence community and the oil companies conspired to get us into a phony war doesn’t indicate that a person is psychotic.  It indicates a certain level of skepticism.

Likewise, false flag conspiracy theories aren’t crazy if there is 100 percent evidence that one was underway, like this one from 2016.

But if you believe, without any evidence that Hillary Clinton was running a child sex ring out of a pizza parlor, that indicates a psychotic break.

So what should be done about Greene?  If anything.  I don’t know.  I’m not in Congress, nor am I in the medical profession.  Even if I knew exactly what to do, I couldn’t do it anyway.

But there are choices for others who have a responsibility to do something. Do nothing and ignore her?  If the House thinks that Greene is dangerous to herself, or to others or to the Institution she was elected to serve in, here are some ideas:  Take her to court and try to have her committed.  Call a psychiatrist over to Capitol Hill from Walter Reed for advice on how to convince Greene to take medication that could help her discern reality.

Ask Greene’s family to hold an “intervention.”  Maybe they’d have to restrain her in a straitjacket to get her to see a doctor.  But better that than letting her be called a bad person and stripped of all dignity.  Hospitalization to get her brain chemistry back in order could help her, perhaps.  And she may agree.  And she may agree to therapy of some kind, too, if she knows she’s not thinking straight.

Everyone should put their money where their mouth is.  And if they don’t think she is dangerous, leave her alone.

Otherwise, I’d say remove her as a danger to herself and others–due to a severe illness.  A break from reality.  Not because she’s stupid and bad. And hold that standard for all, don’t use medical emergencies as a political tool.

The easiest thing to do, and politicians usually do the easiest thing, is to call Greene an evil stupid woman.  And kick her out of the club even though she was voted into the club by real people who live in a real district in this very real country.  Be real.  And don’t make that a cavalier precedent.

It’s hard not to bully her or silence her or demonize her.  Like House leaders and others of the chattering classes in the elite circles of Washington and on the coasts do.  It’s her country, as well.  And she deserves consideration and respect.  Maybe ignoring her rambling is better than giving it all this negative attention?  If you want to try a simple Pavlovian treatment.

Whatever.  But help her.  Understand her.  Extend a compassionate hand. Don’t live and act in the Dark Ages.

Put up that sign in the halls of Congress that so many Americans have in their windows and on their lawns:   Hate Has No Home Here.

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