Losing Our Senses

These past few days, I’ve been wondering why so many people and institutions have seemingly lost their senses — why they’ve lost their ability to reason, and to avoid saying or doing stupid things.

Example: United Airlines. Why in the world would any United employee on board that jet think it was a good idea to drag – forcibly remove – that doctor from a flight just because United had overbooked the flight and needed to make room for another employee?

Why didn’t anyone who worked for United on that flight say, “Hey folks, let’s not do this one?” Didn’t anyone have any common sense?

Example Two: Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary. Yes, he’s paid to lie for President Trump, and yes, he’s incompetent — but why in the world would he ever compare Syria’s strongman Assad with Adolph Hitler – and then say that at least Hitler did not use chemical weapons, like Assad has been doing?

Well, that’s certainly a surprise to anyone who has more than a fourth-grade education – considering Hitler had millions of Jews gassed to death in World War Two.

Example Three: That Fresno State teacher who  justifiably came under fire for tweeting that – in order to save American democracy – President Trump must hang – the sooner and the higher, the better.

Well, now. That’s a pretty strong statement. And it’s absolutely clear that those words are about killing the president of the United States.

And of course, after that  teacher was widely criticized – he  played the victim card – saying his words were being taken out context – and that Fresno State’s president was throwing him to the wolves.

He refused to apologize for several  days after his tweet became widely known — until the Fresno Bee’s Bill McEwen criticized him in a column.  Only then did the teacher “ask forgiveness of those who felt threatened or offended”  by his comments.

Sorry, teacher. That doesn’t fly. We all know what you meant when you wrote those words – and you deserve all the criticism you’re getting.

Example Four: Take a gander at Facebook or Twitter, if you can stand it. And read all the hate that’s posted on those sites — all the stupid and vile comments from both left-wingers and right-wingers.

Facebook and Twitter have become cesspools for crazy people who simply cannot help themselves — cannot keep from spewing their venom to anyone who has the misfortune to read it. Those media sites have made it possible for millions of people to react instantaneously to anything that happens — react without spending any time actually thinking about, or learning more about, what is outraging them at the moment.

And all this “reaction” — all this hate — generates more “reaction,’ more hate. It’s mindless and it’s destructive.

So I come back to my original thought: Why have so many people and institutions lost their senses?