The Thug’s Secret: Silence Is Acceptance
I’m going to let you in on a dirty little secret; one that has been
used by tyrants and thugs and criminals and politicians for countless years.
You ever wonder why bad people are able to continue doing what they
do? A police officer abuses his power
and it gets swept under the carpet.
Innocent people are arrested or even murdered and nothing is done about
it. A certain huge religious institution
has a serious problem with pedophile priests that goes back generations, and
people actually wonder why it’s so pervasive.
We see abuses going on continually, and yet nothing is done about it.
I mean, we’ll get on our high horses and say “this is wrong,
blah-blah-blah”, but when it comes to actually fixing the problems, it’s the
criminals and the thugs and the predators that end up being coddled and
appeased, while the victims are victimized all over again and are made to
suffer for it.
And the reason why boils down to this: in the mind of the perpetrator,
silence is seen as acceptance.
The new series called “Untouchable:
Power Corrupts” on the Investigation Discovery channel show just how
supposedly “good” people in positions of power and authority become not just
corrupt, but out-and-out evil. The
pattern is always the same. A supposedly
“good” person decides to cut corners, break a few rules, make a few exceptions,
and instead of being called out for those things, they get rewarded. This goes on and on, until someone tries to
speak out about it, and when that happens, they’re hammered down and pressured
into silence. Nobody wants to “make
waves” or ruin a “good thing”. Nobody wants
to “rat” on a co-worker or superior.
And it just gets worse, because the longer the silence goes on, the
longer nobody says anything about the abuse, the more it goes on and the worse
it gets. The perpetrator sees the
silence as acceptance. They don’t hear “this
is wrong, stop doing it”, so they believe it’s perfectly fine. So why shouldn’t they keep doing it?
We’re seeing it today with the various local police departments where
people have been killed. We’re finding
with some of these officers they have prior complaints. But they clearly haven’t stopped doing those
things, because the system coddles them.
We’ve been seeing it with the Roman Catholic Church and their pervasive
problem with priests. We’re talking
about claims of abuse and molestation going back generations, and yet the
priests would be quietly shuffled to other places and the victims would be paid
to keep quiet. So why should they stop
what they’re doing? The church covered
it up then, and they’ll cover it up the next time around, and the next time
after that, and the next time after that.
We’re even seeing this in Wall Street with financial abuses. If you saw the documentary “Inside Job”, you’d
know that the so-called “Too Big To Fail” financial institutions paid out
billions in fines even before the Great Recession for all sorts of faults and
abuses. The faults and abuses wouldn’t
stop because it was making billions for the institutions, and the so-called “penalties”
were pocket change in comparison, and, of course, nobody would ever admit
fault. Ever.
We see it in the schools and the workplace with bullying. Bullies thrive on silence, both from their victims
and pretty much from everyone else.
Silence tells them “It’s okay.
Keep doing it. Nobody will stop
you.”
And bullies don’t stop. They
keep on pushing those buttons. They keep
on doing what they do until someone stops them.
Until someone stands up and says “this is wrong” and puts them in their
place.
Unfortunately, that’s when “the system” steps in and actually helps the
criminals. The school and the workplace
coddle the bully, claiming that “both sides are at fault”. The federal government coddles the Wall
Street institution in the name of “justice” and “expediency”. The church coddles the molesting priest,
being more concerned about their “image” than in helping the victims. The abusive government agent gets away with their
criminal activities because they don’t want to “make waves” and their “need” to
“protect their own”.
You want to know how far this idea of silence as approval has
gone? There is a mindset within certain
conservatives that suggests that any kind of law – especially one that they
support – has a limited time period where any kind of “objections” could be
made. If nothing is “said” within that
time, then any law, no matter how wrong or unjust it may be, is perfectly fine.
This came out in the recent Supreme Court decisions surrounding
same-sex marriages. They argued that
since nothing was “said” during the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment in
the 19th century about same-sex marriages, that it instantly made
laws prohibiting them “okay”. By that
same argument, they could claim that Jim Crow laws were “okay” as well because
they didn’t hear any “objections” at the time.
But let’s get brutally honest here... it’s not “okay”. It’s not “right”. It’s nothing short of coddling criminal
activity.
Call it a “good ol’boy system” or a “thin blue line” or “office
politics” or “not taking sides”. It’s
still the same. It’s being a passive accomplice
to what, in certain cases, is a crime.
This is why I get pissed when the media – specifically
Fox News, since they love the whole “law and order” shtick – get all huffy
when police abuses are pointed out and they drag some government official out
to puff up their chests and say that we shouldn’t be bringing up the
subject. We shouldn’t be questioning the
police according to them. We should just
shut up and do whatever they tell us to do because they have badges and
guns. Funny how even the supposedly “well-intentioned”
efforts of police make them look more like third-world junta leaders when that
subject comes up.
You see, we’re “supposed” to blindly trust a system that has been so
corrupted by this kind of abuse that it sides with the predators and
perpetrators instead of protecting the victims.
If something is wrong, we’re “supposed” to report it and let the system
deal with it. But how can we do that if
the very system that we’re “supposed” to trust works against us?
When you have a system that says “finking is wrong” and “don’t make
waves”, you can’t turn around and tell the masses “if you see something, say
something”. You can’t expect the masses
to trust you when you’ve already demonstrated you don’t care about them.
Bullies need people silent and obedient. It’s not just a way to demonstrate
acceptance. It’s also to show your
surrender to their might. It doesn’t
matter if it’s a schoolyard bully, a workplace bully, a pedophile priest, an
abusive cop on a power-trip, a self-righteous judge, an egomaniacal
businessman, or a corrupt politician with delusions of grandeur. They don’t want your respect or your
trust. They want your blind submission
and obedience to their every whim.
This is where our systems fail us.
This is where true anarchy begins.
When the institutions are so full of their own lies and their self-serving
corruption that they make themselves worthless.
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