Suicide tragedy in Brooklyn...

[Johnny1A]

First of all, the horrible event itself:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5616241/Prominent-gay-rights-lawyer-60-sets-fire-protest-suicide-Prospect-Park.html

This is tragic on several levels, and part of me hesitates to comment at all.  I'm sure he died in agony, and I would wish this fate on no one.

That said, exactly where the tragedy lies is more complicated than it appears.  Assuming the paper has their facts right (a qualifier that must always be added), his suicide is the epitome of a needless horror.  It served no purpose, undid no evil, it was merely self-inflicted horror.

Did he really, seriously think that the use of fossil fuels constituted such a threat, such a moral violation, that such an act might even occur to him?  Unfortunately, I fear it's possible that he did so think.  The social-issue Left, over the last 30 years, have built up a fantasy world that many people actually live in, disconnected from practical reality.  Too many people really do believe that global warming represents an imminent threat of extinction, or that Christians are plotting to execute all the gays, or that Trump is Hitler.

And, too, there's always the lingering threat of reality intruding on a treasured fantasy.  If, for ex, you've convinced yourself that gay marriage is a civil rights issue in the same sense that the Scotsboro events were, the suspicion that most of the public deep down doesn't agree is probably always creating a sense of nervous fear.

I have a nasty suspicion, though, that this won't be the last such horrifying tragedy.  The hysteria is reaching levels we haven't seen in decades.