Reply #134: Absolutely - [View All]

[Tangerine LaBamba]

it's like the best lab in the world. All the experiments I did in grad school, plus all the adventures in life, none of them ever compares to the newest one. Because it's always a slightly different dynamic, even if the facts change, and it's riveting to watch the lemming-like behavior, done out of the best of intentions, coalesce and come alive.

What is troubling, though, is that it always requires a certain degree of demonization of those perceived to be the enemy, even when the facts are not there.

That's the mob mentality that's scary. The anonymity and impotence of the Internet(s) Tubes are somewhat reassuring, but it still gives me pause whenever a new one erupts.

This is how law-abiding physicians get murdered. The ramping-up of the uninformed outrage can tip an already unbalanced individual just a bit too far. That's scary stuff.

Remember the Duke lacrosse rape story?

I wonder how many of the folks who were calling for everything but public castration and lynching of those young men now realize that the DA who pimped that case lost his job, his license to practice law, and his freedom when he went to the slammer for what he'd done - although only for one day - that they filed civil suits against a whole bunch of parties who'd trumpeted their guilt even before the DNA evidence cleared them - that they settled for undisclosed sums, and might even still have a Federal civil suit ongoing against Durham, but I'm not sure of that.

Perhaps the best we can hope for, for starters, is that people would learn to reserve judgment, keep open minds, and wait for facts to be presented before declaring victims and villains. The shades of gray would add to their intellectual palate, and make it far more interesting, perhaps make it fair.

But the need to be part of a group is a powerful one, so overcoming that, taking the time and using the energy to think things out, and having the maturity to wait to see what really happened, is a great big hope that I'm not convinced will ever emerge.

Until then, the show will go on, and I've got this great perch from which to look up and watch it all go by......................