Bringing someone to justice

Much has changed in the last two years. Much of what we knew as normal or expected behavior has been discarded like last weekend's stale pizza. What once was unacceptable has been normalized. Such are the times we live in.

In today's announcement on the death of ISIS' leader, Donald Trump used a phrase that took my breath away and sent shivers down my spine. In describing the killing of an enemy, Trump used the phrase "He was brought to justice." All day long that replayed in my mind, crashing loudly against the concept I have had that "bringing someone to justice" meant charging them with a crime, bringing them to court, and using due process to determine their guilt or innocence.

Granted, several sources online do use "punishing someone for a crime" as "bringing them to justice." In the case of al-Bahgdadi and many other accused foreign terrorists, death may be considered punishment for their crimes, assuming we believe everything we are told about them, a point I will not argue here. So that is how we treat foreign enemies, assigning death as justice.

A question kept jumping at me: what happens when this or any other administration turns that definition on domestic "enemies"? Will political opponents become "enemies" and, thus, subject to being brought to justice by means of death? We already have way too many examples of citizens dying shortly after committing insignificant "crimes". What happens when speaking your mind becomes a crime?

I don't know if Mr. Trump meant the phrase one way or another. I don't know if the administration would turn on its own citizens like this. I do know that words matter, behavior matters. And, based on the last two years, nothing, absolutely nothing, is outside the realm of possibilities. We have already seen that what was once considered absolute bottom is nothing but a rung in a very long ladder heading down.

A little FB experiment

For the last few weeks I have been paying careful attention to my Facebook news feed and doing an experiment to track how closely the bots are adjusting what they present to me. You will not be surprised if I tell you that the algorithms are very much in use on every one of us.

Personally, I do not want to be manipulated or brain-washed, especially when it comes to politics and elections. Therefore, I have decided to be a (mostly) non-reactive user of Facebook in as much as politics is concerned. I will not "Like," "Love" or share any post that concerns politics or the upcoming elections. It is nothing personal. I am just going to play a different game, and hopefully not their game.

The Experiment

My experiment consisted of two phases. First, I focused solely on posts of animals and landscapes, liking and loving as many of these posts as I could. Facebook served me more of those posts, tons and tons of them. In phase two I switches to focusing on political posts, liking and responding and loving as many of them. Quickly, Facebook abandoned most of the previous posts (the birds and landscapes quickly disappeared) giving room for more and more political posts. It took less than 24 hours for their programs to adjust to my new interactions. Phase three, now in progress, is to stop reacting and begin acting. I will try to use FB for nothing but building personal relationships, things such as saying happy birthday and keeping up with everybody's adventures.

Let's Be Careful

Please be careful when using FB. The poisoning of our minds is actively underway. There are active efforts to widen the gaps between us. We can either let FB and other actors weaken us as a nation, or we can find ways to cooperate and find common ground to make our nation truly greater than it has ever been.