Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site:
“Don’t let the bad guys get you down, old friend.”
The “bad guys” you refer to are a figment of your imagination. Please come join us in the land of reality.
Tell it to the people who lost their businesses in the 2008 crash. Or who lost their jobs. Or who saw the value of their stock portfolios collapse and who became frightened about their financial futures.
The people who posted with me at the old Retire Early board were real human beings. They had stories. They had hopes and disappointments. I got to know them. I kidded around with them. I came to care about them. Sue me.
Someone who lies to them about the numbers they use to plan their retirements is doing something bad, in my assessment. If you want to point to good that that someone has done to add balance to the story, I am 100 percent with you. That’s a fine thing to do. If you want to point out that that someone had suffering of his own that he had to endure at earlier times of his life and say that that influenced the choices he made and argue that he would have made different choices if he had been able to think 100 percent clearly at all times, as none of us are, please feel free to put down my name on that statement.
There are things that I can do. But there is only so far that I can go.
If I participate in a community day after day after day and I see a study being recommended that I know to be in error and I keep my mouth shut because I know that I will earn the wrath of a gang of internet Goons if I express my honest views, then I become one of the bad guys myself. Not interested. Not this boy. I care about the people I write for and I love my country. Please try to find somebody else.
It would be nice to believe that we lived in a world in which nothing bad ever happened. I enjoy writing inspirational stuff as much as the next fellow and I like seeing the reactions it generates. But it has been my experience in my 61 years of walking the planet that there really is bad stuff out there. And each time one of us holds back from pointing it out when we see it, we cause more of it to be generated. Death threats are bad stuff. Demands for unjustified board bannings are bad stuff. Thousands of acts of defamation are bad stuff. Threats to get academic researchers fired from their jobs are bad stuff. Those things don’t happen by themselves. Human beings make conscious choices that cause those things to happen.
Financial fraud is bad stuff. Prison sentences are bad stuff. If I keep quiet about someone committing felonies before my eyes, I contribute in a small way to those acts. I don’t like seeing my friends go to prison. Find someone else. I will not keep quiet when I see this sort of thing take place before my eyes at the discussion boards and blogs that I love. That one is not in the cards.
We all have bad within us, Goon friend. We all have a duty to act in love when we see our friends losing the ability to think clearly about these matters.
My sincere take.
My best and warmest wishes.
Rob
feed twitter twitter facebook