The Merging of Good and Evil

We are in a battle of good against evil. Sadly, it looks like evil is winning. Recently my wife and I were talking about the events in the news and it just seems that everyday there is a new level of evil. The scary thing about it is that people are blurring the lines between good and evil.

The Bible warned us about this in Isaiah 5:20-21:

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and shrewd in their own sight!

You can’t even call someone out for doing wrong. When you do instead of admitting their error, they will attack you instead. We live in a time when nobody is wrong. Many refuse to accept accountability for their actions. People would rather justify them doing evil than repenting of their ways and doing what is right.

In our country there is a divide between Republicans and Democrats with good and evil being interchanged constantly until people really don’t know who to believe. Anything that is contrary to what someone believes is called “fake news” or attacked. The truth doesn’t stand a chance. Just because a politician or someone in the media believes something is true doesn’t mean it is. We have to be careful in weighing the good and evil. We can’t rely on what “they” say but trust what God has already said about it.

Apart from God, our value system will always become jumbled. We will begin to confuse sweetness and bitterness, light and darkness, and good and evil. Many look for every reason to disprove the Bible or have a belief in God rather than just simply doing what the Bible says. They would rather debate you and argue.

In these challenging days, we have to stick to a standard and that standard is the Holy Word of God. You can’t just base what is right on what you feel. Feelings change and we don’t like being told we are wrong.  Somehow we have to fight to keep the separation between good and evil.

Can "No Kings" Cause Change?

This weekend millions of people participated in “No Kings Day” protests around the country.  Based on this if I were president I think I would examine my actions which cause millions to protest you. Instead, he posts an AI-generated video showing him flying a military jet, wearing a king’s crown and dumping feces on the protestors. Can you even imagine the reaction if any of the former presidents have done that?

Clearly we can see that our country is no longer united.  There are some deep lines drown between us.  So seeing the protests yesterday, I wondered if it will do any good?  How can these protests affect any real change?  The politicians only want us to donate money but how can anything change?

So what other protest made any changes in American history?

U.S. Civil Right Movement - The 1963 march on Washington for jobs and freedom, featuring Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, helped build momentum for the Civl Rights Act of 1964.

Women’s Suffrage - Women's suffrage advocates organized demonstrations, petitions, and civil disobedience to demand voting rights.  The decades-long movement culminated in the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920, granting women the right to vote in the U.S.

Anti-Vietnam War Protests - A nationwide series of events in October and November 1969, this was a significant turning point that mobilized a mass movement and helped to erode public support for the war.

Protests do work and can create change.  I don’t know how the “No Kings” protests will make change.  We are definitely in a crucial time in American history.  

Watching these protests made me remember the Schoolhouse Rock episode.  

Watch it here:  https://youtu.be/WvOZs3g3qIo?si=y_vuqvIrony4fKFy

It is my hope that things will change whether these protests make a difference or not but I honestly can’t see it right now.   

Tales from the Courtroom: Taking One for the Team

I was looking back at my journal and read that it was six years ago today that I was thrown under the bus for a technical issue in a case I was working.  The issue had to do with electronic data our side had not turned over to the other party.  Without getting too deep into the technical stuff, when we process data, we will do something called deduplication which - in this case - we removed any EXACT duplicates from the data we had processed to turn over to the opposing party.  This process is supposed to aid lawyers in reviewing data, so they don't have to review anything that is an exact duplicate.  

Unfortunately, neither my attorneys or the opposing attorneys understood this, and it made it as if we hadn't turned over all of the data.  This misinformation caused the opposing party to request a continuance and six years ago today we had to appear in court to explain it; however, my attorneys threw me under the bus and laid the blame on their "IT person" for not turning over the data.  The judge scolded the lead attorney and me.

I still get mad about this all over again when I think about it.  Could I have handled it better and headed off this issue?  Yes.  I should have made a better effort in ensuring that my attorneys understand what deduplication meant.  They didn't and I took the hit for it.

So, as a result of this court incident, we turned over the EXACT copies of data they already had.  It was just yet another delay tactic by the opposing party and in the end, the defendant was still convicted. 

So, to make the issue clear: 

Deduplication in litigation refers to the process of identifying and removing duplicate documents during the legal discovery and review stages. This is crucial in both civil and criminal law to prevent wasted resources and conflicting outcomes. Legal systems must develop mechanisms to prevent the same issue from being litigated multiple times across different courts or jurisdictions.

In layman's terms, it means if you have exact copies of the same document.  Do you really want to review all the copies when you only need to review one?