T'S long been apparent there are Bermudians and residents alike who do not make decisions based on facts. Rather, they make up counterfeit "facts" based on decisions they've already arrived at.

Reasoned argument has never been a Bermuda forte. But the long-established tendency to counter legitimate criticism by falling back on fantasies, myths and the Bermudian answer to Urban Legends is now reaching epic proportions.

Listen to the incessant conspiracy theorising that passes for commentary on the talk radio shows. At times the paranoia and tortured stream-of-consciousness thought processes are so all-pervasive you have to wonder if the callers aren't in fact participating in a type of recreational therapy organised at the Mid Atlantic Wellness Institute.

Listen to the woefully misinformed cocktail party chatter at some of the island's more exclusive enclaves (confirmation, if it was ever really required, for the adage that you can tell what God thinks of money by looking at the people He gives it to). There are two types of characters in evidence at these haunts of the very rich and spoilt.

The first is the native , a now almost extinct socio-economic species never able to adapt to the fact the island is no longer being run as a large country club for their convenience but rather as a small country for everyone's benefit (at least in theory). Ignorant and self-righteous but insulated from reality and their fellow Bermudians by money and privilege, their thinking and value systems are mired in a past that has not existed for more than four decades.

The second indulged type is, of course, the peacock-plumed cuckoo. An invasive species that turned up here some 20 years ago along with the modern insurance/reinsurance infrastructure, this Armani-sporting character now all but dominates certain regions in the delicate Bermuda nest.

Pampered and protected from second-guessing by dint of their positions as high men on Bermuda's corporate totem pole, they hold forth on Bermuda and Bermudian affairs with contrived authority. Lacking both the experience and background knowledge to come to any but the most superficial conclusions they nevertheless lecture all and sundry on what is best for Bermuda and Bermudians. They declaim on the business of Bermuda being International Business, on why Bermuda's already strained infrastructure must do whatever is required to accommodate its interests.

They don't actually know many Bermudians beyond their secretaries and maids. And the environs of, say, north Hamilton are as unfamiliar to them as the dark side of the Moon. But they nonetheless believe themselves sanctioned by virtue of their corporate positions to help determine Bermuda's civic destiny.

But worst of all, listen to the melodramatic emanating from the House of Assembly and the Senate.

Logic tends to die of shock if it's overexposed to the less restrained orations of Bermuda's political elite.

Parliament has become an echo chamber for crass generalisations and venomous non-sequiturs, a launching pad for flights of absurdist fancy so deliriously silly the Monty Python troupe would have been hard pressed to devise some of these routines. The frenzied free-associating heard in Bermudian politics is now so very surrealistic many speeches probably qualify as modern art masterpieces ? but they hardly pass muster as intelligent analyses of the people's business.

Indeed, to the casual observer it would seem a goodly percentage of our elected representatives have fallen victim to an epidemic of treatment-resistant Tourette's Syndrome, a disorder that makes them prone to the most insensitive and logically inconsistent outbursts at the most inappropriate times.

Cynics would argue Parliamentary debates contribute increasingly little to Bermuda's general welfare except for the fact they keep some of our more feverish fantasists off the streets whenever the House and Senate are in session. If Belco could find a way to harness this high-octane Parliamentary hysteria, it would tap into a self-renewing alternative energy source that would never be exhausted.

But it's worth noting that in at least some instances there is underlying method to the rhetorical madness so much in evidence in political circles these days. An over-emphasis on a particular slogan- or repetition-driven argument should trigger suspicions that a loopy propaganda campaign is in the works.

Currently, yet another tired variation on that favourite old Bermuda theme ? racism ? can be heard emanating from the Government benches in a manner that suggests a clumsily concerted effort to deny reality with appeals to racial solidarity.

The idea seems to be that if you express even the mildest distaste for Government corruption or overspending or incompetence, you must be driven by the worst possible motives.

Reasoned argument, according to Government and its flacks, is entirely indistinguishable from a deep-seated and malicious racial prejudice. And even the most damning and incontrovertible facts are to be either dismissed or entirely ignored, characterised as racial slurs rather than evidence of Government failings.

Take the latest Berkeley fiasco. The Works Minister has rejected all criticism of this over-budget, over-schedule monument to Government ineptitude as racially-motivated and partisan-driven. He believes such blanket allegations are sufficient to obscure the issue to hand ? namely, does the school have flaws built into its very infrastructure.

Of course, there are some Bermudians whose critical faculties have long since atrophied through lack of use and who will find the Minister's evasive outbursts acceptable. But the vast majority of people, black and white alike, are actually waiting for answers to the very serious questions raised about the school's structural integrity.

Then there's the Finance Minister, a woman who has enjoyed all of the material benefits and corporate upward mobility this community has to offer, but who now seems determined to posture as a front-line warrior for the cause of racial cohesion. The contradiction is not missed on anyone. Her ill-tempered attack on Grant Gibbons' laundry-list of questions concerning Government finances had less to do with reshaping Bermudian society than it did with striking a particularly unconvincing pose.

Finally, the Tourism and Transport Minister, media savvy, intelligent and viewed as the Premier-In-Waiting by supporters and foes alike, has invoked the spectre of racism to avoid answering questions he does not like. From now on, he says, he will ignore "plantation questions". Since the definition of this term appears to be flexible, it seems likely that any inquiry on any subject that is not to his liking will be deemed a racial affront.

He knows better than this; he is better than this. Presumably it's just a matter of time before he divorces himself from what is almost certainly a Cabinet-wide strategy intended to counter a torrent of bad publicity with racially-oriented appeals to the Progressive Labour Party's grass-roots support base.

Whoever choreographed this propagandistic counter-offensive is entirely missing the point. You don't win elections by pandering to those who are already converted to your cause.

You win by appealing to the middle ground.

And the middle ground does make its decisions based on genuine facts ? not the counterfeit, racially-coloured variety Government is now bombarding them with to avoid taking responsibility for an ongoing series of setbacks.