The further you get from the political centre the more lies you encounter.

[TaraJo]

I have never met a person that thought of themselves as extremist, true some realise that not many others hold the same opinions as themselves, but they often put this down to the others not being enlightened as they are. I have also come across many people who have presumed that they carry average opinions as they have not examined their own views.

I think most of those people are the same thing. There's also the fact that most people who are pretty extreme are able to look at someone else and say "I'm not an extremist because they're more extreme than me." My inlaws are fundamentalist Mormons and their beliefs (both religious and political) seem pretty extreme to me, but they can point to the FLDS and say "nope, that's extreme; we're normal." It doesn't help if you live yourself in a safe little bubble where everyone you encounter in day to day life believes the same thing you do (for example, my boyfriend was raised in what I call 'the Mormon bubble'). When you do that, sure, your beliefs might seem mainstream, but they're only mainstream within your bubble. Outside that bubble, with the rest of mainstream society, those beliefs are pretty extreme.