With the Federal Court case between Essendon, James Hird and ASADA beginning on Monday, it’s time for everyone to pick an extremist position.

Nobody likes a fence sitter and in the biggest issue to ever occur, having a well thought out, carefully reasoned position helps nobody.

People who believe that all sides share some blame for the mess this has become, are simply the worst.

The time for reasoned, intelligent debate is over.

In developing your own extremist views, I recommend the complete abandonment of facts.

Facts are pesky, but hardly insurmountable obstacles on the way to forming opinions that suit your own worldview.

One-way to do this is to cherry pick points and opinions that suit you and ignore everything else.

You also need to avoid seeing the world in shades of grey and stop focusing on the complexity of things.

My advice is to not think too deeply or independently on this, or any other issue for that matter.

To help you form your own view, here are the only two viewpoints you are allowed to have and the beliefs that underpin them.

Use your emotions to help you pick one of them. No one has ever gone wrong by using pure emotion to make a decision.

Once you choose one you must stick with it no matter what new facts emerge.

1. Everything is James Hird’s fault

• James Hird has no feelings
• He purposely set out to build a race of super athletes like the old USSR
• Since being caught, he has done everything to avoid responsibility
• James only cares about himself
• Hird doesn’t care about global warming and clubs baby seals in his spare time
• His wife is a lawyer
• James actually liked the people in France
• The fact he hasn’t resigned is a disgrace
• He has left a great stain on the moral fabric of the game

2. A giant conspiracy is in place to destroy Essendon

• Essendon has never done anything illegal
• The Bombers haven’t done anything the other clubs weren’t all doing, not that anything illegal is involved, so that point is irrelevant really but we make it all the time anyway
• Andrew Demetriou is the worst person ever born
• The AFL forced Essendon to self-report and tipped them off that they were being investigated
• James Hird once sent an email telling people not to do illegal things so that covers it
• The AFL, ASADA and the Gillard Government wanted to destroy Essendon and the Hirds, just because
• James Hird’s wife is a lawyer
• Everyone who works at ASADA hates dogs, especially puppies
• They also hate children
• Now the AFL is involved in the biggest cover up since Mitch Robinson didn’t admit he got his eye socket broken in a 5am brawl

Once you’ve chosen your position, it’s important to treat those with a contrary position with scorn and contempt.

Shout them down, block them on Twitter and get angry.

This is trenches time people, good luck.