having cake and eating it too (or giving people a voice and telling them to shut up)

We've all heard it before... "If you want to make sure nothing happens, put a committee in charge."

I'm happy to report that this is not always true... but I regret telling you that I'm amazed at how much it is the case.  Even weirder, though, is that this isn't something that seems to have developed overnight,... or is it?

If I had a dime for every time I heard a discussion about how much the government can't do because of gridlock, I would be using this blog to bemoan my higher taxes. But has congress slowed down or has our expectation sped up?

Don't worry, I'm not jumping off into the abyss of political discussion.  This is just one of a gazillion examples... committees in your office, your leaders at your church,...deciding where your family will go eat on a Thursday night.  The speed of information has accelerated at an astounding and exponential rate.  The Mars rover tweets pictures from it's camera and the whole world can see them in a matter of minutes....

All of this illustrates the difference between information and wisdom.  Almost anyone anywhere can obtain endless amounts of information about anything any time.  Understanding what to do with it, however, takes time.  Occasionally, quick and swift decisions are in order and even required, but even those things are based on the vast wisdom that has been acquired over a long amount of time that gives you the ability to "make the call."

Many love to fantasize about firing all of congress and doing a line-change on Capitol Hill... but it seems like that could be equally disastrous because then you'd have a group of men and women who had zero experience and had to figure out how they worked as a group.  Shake up the committee in your office at a rate of 100% and you'll bring progress to a screeching halt, quite likely.

The truth is that we all love to have our voice heard, we just don't like the part about listening to others when its their turn.  Representation in any forum or format is valuable... it's not easy to maintain... and last time I checked, most in the world believe it's worth dying for.