Judge Slowly

There's a breakdown in our society. We use to be a civilization that prized justice, equity, truth and honesty. Dedicated professionals sought facts, verified with the proper context. There was a reward for precision, for perspective, and for patience.

No More.

We have trained ourselves to react to every statement, misstatement, fact, and lie as if, without our personal Armageddon-like judgment, total annihilation would ensue and we would all be cast into the Pit of Despair for eternity. Most don't bother listening, much less reading, the actual source. It just takes too damn long to find things out for ourselves. We shorten the time to judgment by allowing others to summarize and slant. We chose or even seek out whomever's slant naturally fits our biases.

We're lazy, and stupid. It is absolutely Un-American.

And even more ironic, some of us actually defend the stupidity, like stupidity is pathway to enlightement, or heaven, nirvana or whatever one believes lies beyond.

Some try to intervene. Some believe that we can overcome our habit to be lazy and stupid by presenting facts and context, possibly by appealing to that buried part of us that might help turn the corner against the intellectual sloth.

Unfortunately, history has proven that self-destruction can only be delayed. If one is hell bent on suicide, intellectual, political or personal, one will achieve their goal eventually.

For those of us committed to self-preservation, to intellectual honesty, and to justice, we must resist the slide to the lowest common denominator. We must push back against the possibility of collateral damage from those who are self-immolating.

Judge slowly. Get all the facts and place those facts within their context. Make informed, and well formed, conclusions.

It may be our team, and our team may be wrong, but justice can only be served when there is truth and context.