As people are treated, so will they behave. When people are treated badly, these are the behaviors they internalize.

It does no good to holler about other people's behavior. This doesn't mean we can't resist unwise or unjust actions of others when confronted with a situation in which we ourselves must choose how to react in response to those actions. That's maintaining a standard of behavior in our everyday lives, as actors and witnesses, where we are participants.

Outside of the direct scope of our own lives, the only people whom it makes any sense to judge are those whom the community deputizes us to judge: those accused by the courts when we serve on juries, and those who stand for or hold public office, who invite judgment from the citizens by the act of seeking office.

Judging others distracts us from the very important job of judging ourselves.

Speaking as someone who deals with all manner of the public every day, and who has been stolen from four times in the last seven years (smash & grab in my driveway, office broken into twice -- once because a colleague left the building unlocked -- and the "lost and found" syndrome at work that cost me my personal collection of picture books and other media for the winter holidays which cost me $300 and several weeks of shopping to replace), let me assure you that judging "those people" doesn't get my stuff returned and gives me no help in working with the other people who never wronged me. It can, however, set me up to treat everyone with suspicion and plant the seed of resentment where none grew before.

Regards--
Mary Anne