I am just seething right now at how good honest people are taken in by sound bites and rhetoric that they do not fact-check for themselves. I know it is difficult to understand at times some arguments and policy explanations. But what is worse than difficulty is ignorance. I try to understand the points of view I am confronted with but I at least search as much as I can and read other points of view before I begin to elaborate on my conclusions. I have found that it is better for me and the world I live in if I just tell the truth and say I don't know. It is okay to not know, considering how bad it is to think that I do know and find out that I don't. My reputation is at stake and I value what my word means when it goes out into the ether. Too many times I have had to have foundational discussions with folks that have skewed to both extremes in their inaccuracies. Somehow we have learned that out-sourcing our thinking is a shortcut we can afford to take. Well if anything has taught us of the unwise decision out-sourcing our thinking can cause, just look at political decisions that have been made by those who end up in office on the pretense that they care about you and me. Nothing about being uninformed is a good strategy, unless of course being uninformed and at the whim of others is a life strategy. I cannot help but wonder if our lives have become so consumed with ideals that don't reflect who we are as a species, and therefore, need to be inspected and discarded. We are all little data processing human beings and as such what data we are processing, if not linked to our fundamental ideal of a civilized society then what else is more important? We all need a reality check and it is up to each of us to check the validity of the thoughts in our heads and the words that come out of our mouths.
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