Silence is golden

I was going to write about something else today, but it'll keep and can join the list of stuff I want to gripe about in the near future.

I have a need – born of frustration – that is more pressing.

I need to slap people who rush to comment on what other people have said or written – in real life and on the Web – without making sure they have the back story first. They have a skewed view of the situation and therefore, contrary to what they think, cannot have anything relevant to contribute. And if you have nothing relevant to contribute you should shut up. That’s what I was told when I was a child, anyway. It would save everyone time and energy: one wouldn’t have to tell them where they went wrong, and explain the whys and the wherefores…. And, after they’ve acquired the correct information and been able to look at the whole picture, do they change their minds? Very often they don’t because the harm’s been done: what remains in their heads is what they thought in the first place, however wrong that was.

Think back…. Yes, that time, when so and so…. Exactly! They should have kept quiet instead of shooting their mouths off!