Not listening seems like people are trying to get the gold medal

Judge Judy Photo

In society, people seem to be trying to get a gold medal for not listening.

Lately, I have been watching court cases on YouTube—primarily Judge Judy but others as well like the People’s Court. When I was younger I would watch Judge Wapner on the Peoples Court and learn things about the legal process and system. He would also help educate the viewer by explaining the law in simple terms. I enjoyed that.

However, I have to say that court cases now are trashy. People’s Court is lurid with its format and dumb questions on the street. No one on the street knows the law. I don’t care what the average person thinks of the case. Judge Judy isn’t much better. It seems like the people in her courtroom can’t shut up, can’t follow directions, and even have problems respecting her. I must admit that if I was a judge the first thing the parties would do is follow directions or their case was done. I would not hear cases from parties that were disrespectful.

Judge Judy Photo
judge judy photo

Yet this is where we are today. The courtroom has become a combat zone. I don’t find it educational, and I certainly don’t find it interesting. Why am I watching it? I am trying to understand why people go on the show to embarrass themselves and even cost themselves money when they find out they are wrong. I didn’t see one valid case in all of the cases that I watched yesterday. They didn’t have convincing evidence, they had ridiculous countersuits and they made themselves look petty and foolish. Why would you do that?

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What I have seen is that Judge Judy tends to give people the minimum they need to be made whole, and completely dismisses subjective claims like PTSD or emotional distress. She often catches people in lies, and frankly, once someone lied to me I would dismiss their case. She was way more tolerant than I would have been. Childish and immature are the best terms you could use to describe these people. More accurate would be ego-driven and loss of reality.

In one of the cases, someone who didn’t have a license and who failed her driver’s license test twice hit some pedestrians in a crosswalk. She was at fault. She should not have been in court. She should have done everything she could to make them whole, and to apologize for the situation. Why would you drag someone through a court system when they are the victim? Yet in court, she claimed that if they had been looking at their environment they wouldn’t have gotten hit. It took most of the time for Judge Judy to get her to change her attitude and apologize to them even after she asked the defendant multiple times.

Not listening, not caring. Why do we want to exist if we can’t have the milk of human kindness?