Manipulation is designed to influence people through intentional misinformation. There are many reasons why a person would not tell the truth and it doesn't take a scientist to tell you why some people lie. There are natural short term gains to being dishonest, "spinning the truth" and providing misinformation to people who are already willing to hear it (Yes...you can simply reconfirm someone's existing beliefs and enrage them by telling them what they already wanted to hear.)
There is the long lasting impacts of allowing others to intentionally misinform people. We must move beyond the false narrative and damaged reputations to see motive. In my situation, I couldn't care less any more what people think of me in the area. They would think negative of me pretty much no matter what I do right and what I do wrong (Doing things in a different way often upsets the applecart even though it shouldn't be of bother to anyone. This is just the type of people we are dealing with.).
There are the consequences on children and what looks like intentional manipulation, involving children in adult affairs, feeding false information, and putting undo pressure on children to give answers they want (Very easy if the child wants to please others). Mature minds would wonder how children are involved and when the kids are damaged why the perpetrators feel they are "victims".
We can often figure things out from the history of behaviors of the group. If the group has a history of spreading false information, coordinated bullying of others, low moral values, utilizing derogatory terms/language to devalue others (race, religion, people, others, etc...)and have tried to "set up" others then we should be concerned. They have become a danger to the community through their entitlement of behavior and misconduct.
What we don't want to happen is that the laws are applied subjectively for different groups. Part of that thought process made its way into local decision making and in turn pushed people down the wrong path (As intended by the perpetrators). Perhaps the stakeholders figured out not everything is as first stated and corrected with outside stakeholder help.
Not everyone is honest and some people have become so accustomed to dishonesty that they can make aggressive behavior look as though they are "defending themselves". In some sense they are correct. By being dishonest and spinning the story we can find that they are defending themselves from the truth of themselves. As long as they can find a scapegoat they are free to not face themselves or the consequences of their behavior.
What allows a group to be so dishonesty and have ultimately no checks and balances is a history of blind support for bad behavior. Let us pretend for a moment that the group was not trying to to self enrich through illegal behavior (The problem with not holding people accountable at all is they repeat behaviors.) In this case, lack of accountability, mixed with a poor culture, have led to repeated behavior that has ended in the hurting of children (No idea if the law sees this as illegal but that is up to their moral aptitude. The problem is that much of society doesn't feel they are doing enough to stop hate).
We as a society will have to decide if we want two societies with different rules for different people or one with central values that all institutions can adhere too (That will determine whether we have one nation or two nations). Holding people to account through the universal application of justice can go along way in sewing prior mistrust for a huge swath of society. If we don't see the logic in protecting children and holding bad apples accountable (whether mental health or criminal) then we are unlikely to successful navigate the next stage in American's development.
I have yet to see a law where the "super cool", "super shallow" and "super selfish" are given defacto immunity simply based on their personal associations. As a matter of point, the law was written specifically to protect society from them whether or not we apply it that way or not. Race and religion should not determine the value of protecting our youth; their rights should transcend the law. Sweeping some lives under the carpet to give others a free pass in hate doesn't seem to me the right thing to do....but perhaps there are brighter minds that understand things better- I just dont think the track record is that good (Maybe we should sample the whole population versus those at the very top and find how how they feel about giving free pass to hate in Michigan and the discounting of youth life. We can hope that law and wisdom can be paired.)
No comments:
Post a Comment