Politics of personal...

When I was a young adult, my mother or others would say something about me being in a bad mood when I obviously wasn't. That person would persist and persist until I would snap and then they'd say "I thought you weren't in a bad mood."

The truth was I wasn't until you pushed me there.

I saw this happen in the last few weeks with a SCOTUS nominee. I'm not here to discuss his merits or his faults, but to recall a tendency.

When we push someone to the breaking point, we have no right to criticize their temperament.

It reminds me of something my dad used to say about Sabbath observance. Sometimes there is an "ox in the mire," something that comes up that involves what would normally going against Sabbath observance to take care of. My dad would say "it's ok to get that ox out of the mire on the Sabbath as long as you didn't spend all day Saturday pushing him in."

To bring this back to current reality, "It's ok to bring attention to someone's temperament as long as you aren't the one to drove him or her there."