Living Here
Fighting hatred with hate is like being cruel to fight cruelty.
To win, it can be argued, one must be as bad as the enemy one is fighting. No matter where hate and cruelty are, they are the enemy, however. Compassion and empathy for victims are what is needed, not anger at the perpetrator of the crime. One person breaking a law does not give another person the right to break that law or any other law to bring “justice” to the situation. One has the right, and sometimes the obligation, to peacefully protest and make his or her voice heard, but one doesn’t have the right to break a law or laws while protesting about other broken laws. It is important to note that witnessing a crime makes one a victim of that crime because to witness a serious crime and to remain silent about that crime is to be an enabler of the crime.
To continue to remain silent is to be a participant in the cover-up of the crime. Yet, in most cases, those who speak out and turn in another member of their group, become ostracized by that group for violating an understood protective code of silence. “Thou shalt cause no harm to your fellow members.”
All groups usually have this kind of self-protective philosophy, from families to political parties and even among educated professions. It is a human survival characteristic to protect and defend one’s own, but who, what, when, how, and why one includes oneself or excludes others says a lot about the person. Responsibility for one’s actions also applies to those attending peaceful protest gatherings. Their own actions themselves may be fine, but they are not fine when used by others as a diversion, or as a cover for a violent act of anarchy, or to damage or steal the property of others. For peaceful protesters to attend a repeat demonstration wherein he or she has enabled others to resort to anarchy, destruction, and looting is to be responsible as an enabler for the actions that one’s actions help others to do.
Responsibility for one’s actions applies to all of us. To demand others to be held responsible for their actions, one needs to be responsible for one’s own actions and to do them in a manner that is fair, measured, responsible, and respectful of others.
Peaceful Demonstration in Lake Geneva