Discussing ideas makes them stronger but if ideas have to be defended long enough it drives their pr

Discussing ideas makes them stronger but if ideas have to be defended long enough it drives their proponents to the extreme of the idea, and then the idea becomes ridiculous. The temptation to think any idea that's any good then must be good taken all the way to its logical conclusion. This is nonsense I blame on the Platonic notion of "ideals." Which is garbage. Plain and simple. Anyway, political conflict is making many perfectly reasonable ideas into caricatures.

Feel free to replace "idea" with "opinion" or "proposition" in the above.