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Demand justice only if you value justice

The press and the media have been way off base weighing events in the news. What might skew their judgment?

Consider these recent questionable responses:

• Look at two types of events at Abu Graib prison. For decades at the prison, while Saddam Hussein had Iraqis there tortured, maimed, and killed, the United Nations, the world press, and Muslims across the world took no notice. Yet more recently, members of the American military were accused of demeaning behavior at Abu Graib prison. When brought to light, charges were investigated, those accused were charged and tried. Few seem to notice the differences. Few seem to value that Americans made possible a process of justice that worked over time.
• Consider the scorn heaped on the hint of descration of Quran by American personnel at Guantanamo Bay that Bibles have been forbidden in that bastion of the Wahhabi Sect of Islam, Saudi Arabia, people have been arrested, deported, and even killed for owning a Bible. But that is overlooked to condemn the even more murders of innocents by zealots rioting and killing based on the ostensible Koran desecration appear to matter not at all.
• Consider that terrorist car bombers don't care about justice that works over time and don't want any system that will.

What these show is that people usually don't think about time and their place in it. Too bad. When they don't, their temporally-flat, static view of what's happening prejudices their judgment. What is only an incident becomes overreachingly significant.

Simply put, justice is a process that takes place over time. To value justice, you have to value the time it takes to work. If, by your actions, you don't, you should expect no sympathy and no tolerance from those who do. In fact, you can expect those who do to defend themselves from you, because living with such misbehavior is too dangerous to tolerate. People who act uncivilly should expect no special consideration for their handicap. Murder is murder. An inability to differentiate justice from terror deserves no credit because inhumanity is no excuse for further inhumanity.

Interestingly, while everyone CAN have a sense of time, people tend to use it only when it's brought to their attention, which means it's almost like not having it at all. If people don't consider consequences over time when deciding how to respond, they put themselves and everyone else in greater jeopardy.

Civilization is about is learning to respond properly. Readers analyze, measure, compare and respond appropriately so as to further civilization rather than undermine it. In the end, if people don't value process, they don't know what to value, or why. Looking at the news and its misrepresentations of scale, civilization may still be a long way off.

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