I'll be away for a while

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I’m going to take another break from the forum and I’m going to try to hold myself to this one for as long as possible.

There was a time when I took breaks because of personal difficulties in my life such as emotional lapses or having a difficult time at school. This time, however, my life is actually going quite well. I’m taking a break instead because of a psychological inability to think through or accept the consequences of current political events. I do this so that I can focus on living my life and so that if (when) the catastrophe catches me I will be caught unawares. It’s the dread that I can’t live with.

I would be able to accept current events as the logical, inevitable, and in the final analysis bearable consequences of living in a democratic society, in which people I disagree with occasionally hold the levers of power, if I had some understanding of why these people were behaving as they did. During the Bush administration, and in periods of Democratic rule on subjects on which I disagree with the Democrats, it was at least possible to understand why, within the context of the rulers’ own worldviews, they were making the decisions that they were. Now, though, first with the decision to leave the Paris agreement and now with the progressively more maniacal decisions being undertaken in the rush to ram through the AHCA, I’ve lost the ability to understand why it is that these things are being done. I’m at a loss as to how significant numbers of people could be so vividly motivated by, or even merely unconcerned with the appearance of being motivated by, spite and contempt towards those weaker than themselves.

If I believed that these people were like that one pope in the Divine Comedy who was so evil that he’d fallen into hell while still alive and demons had indwelt his body, even that would be okay. I would know why this was happening, and I would be able to bear it.

But I don’t. I don’t believe that. These are men and women of flesh and blood and bone.

I’ll see you when I see you.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Coming back for a moment to clarify that this isn't intended to be permanent. It may be long-term, but not permanent.