Crowds surrounding the Reflecting Pool during the 1963 March on Washington. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In a few short weeks, we’ve had the following:

A joyful national coming together to  celebrate the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream“ speech.

The warm, fuzzy feeling of a unifying “American Dream” was quickly replaced by spinning centrifugal forces.

We went to the brink of war, and back, in Syria.

Oh, never mind, forget war. Back to our regularly scheduled program: “Defund Obamacare.”  Or else.

Wait! Wait! A mass shooting inside America’s oldest military installation, the Navy Yard, in the heart of the nation’s capital, a mile from the Capitol building . . . But mass shootings and gun control debates hold our attention for shorter time spans with each round of crazy violence.

Back, quickly now, to defunding Obamacare. (Obamacare is a serious but somewhat flawed effort to provide access to health care for all Americans. Therefore, it must be EVIL, right? Let me know if you can figure it out. I can’t.)

The alternative to defunding Obamacare, far as the crazies on the right are concerned, is shutting down the federal government!  And defaulting on the national debt; to be followed by worldwide economic chaos.

Loud and fevered — and apparently serious — conspiracy to bring down the federal government of the USA has previously been known as Treason. What should we call it today? Political and cultural insanity?

And now. to add a touch of humor, or not, the counties of Western Maryland (depending on how you define Western Maryland) are talking about seceding from Maryland to form a new state, complete with two U.S. senators! (Just what we need, two more additions to the world’s most dysfunctional deliberative body.)

Into the midst of the debate about secession comes a guest host on a Baltimore radio show, who displays amazing ignorance of Maryland geography and politics. She blindly relocated a state senator from District 37 on the Eastern Shore, placing him not only in the wrong county, but in a whole other region of the state, Southern Maryland, which is on the whole other side of the Chesapeake Bay. Hey, it’s only mainstream media. Actual facts are peripheral.

Not surprising that voters are fed up with the way things are going. Can the center hold? It’s looking more and more unlikely.

Fragmentation is the preferred intoxication of the day. Ah, the sweet wine of liberty!  “Don’t tread on me,” reads the label. Savor the fruity overtones of anarchy, and the subtle hint of chaos.

— John Hayden

Related articles

• Right-leaning Western Marylanders move to secede from state (washingtontimes.com)
• Plan Afoot for Western Maryland Secession (drudge.com)