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Justice is an elusive concept. Part of the reason is that crimes are committed in darkness, while justice needs to come out into the light. The problem is that within the arena of accountability, it can be easy to overlook the true scope of the atrocities.

The judge sitting secure and protected in his cozy courtroom does not know the pain of the survivor. Instead, he sees the accused standing before him doing his very best to appear contrite.

“Your honor, I now see the error of my ways and I promise I am reformed.”

“I’m sure he learned his lesson.”

We’ve seen this miscarriage of justice play out again and again. In fact, the entire ideological structure of this country is designed to pardon abusers and force the general public to believe in the lie of a false redemption arc. That’s the fundamental impulse we have to change.

It’s time to stop making apologies for the people who torment us.

Instead, we have to start giving power to survivors.

The current corruption we’re enduring as a nation will pass. It has to pass because the people currently in power are only occupying themselves with planting the seeds of collapse. These are men without vision who insist on living in an eternal present. They deny the evidence of their eyes and ears because accepting reality would force them to confront their delusion of superiority.

Men derive their cruelty from a subconscious acknowledgement of their own lack of self-worth. Granting them power is their worst possible outcome. Anyone who is dropped into a situation he is not equipped to handle will suffer for it.

The problem is, the innocent, too, shall suffer.

The fact that we will all have to force into a position of prominence in our mind is that enablers bear arguably more guilt than the men who actually commit evil acts. Enablers are those with the power to prevent tragedy, who can’t find the motivation to rouse themselves to meet their duty.

Essentially, the greatest criminals of our age are those that consider themselves “moderates” or “centrists.” These are the ones who have sat passively and allowed monsters to have their way. They argue, “Let’s give them a chance,” even though anyone with an ounce of common sense knows how the story will play out.

You don’t allow a fox into the chicken coup with the hope that maybe he’ll behave against his fundamental nature. When people show you who they are, believe them. When they show themselves to be criminals, you must oppose them.

Our centrists and moderates have failed, failed, failed.

In our hearts we know this to be true, but few people have found the courage to speak it openly. Too many prominent voices sitting on huge platforms still maintain an allegiance to an outdated status quo. They fear that if they say what needs to be said they’ll lose whatever power, luxury, and influence they possess.

I say that if you are afraid to speak the truth, you don’t have a platform anyway. You haven’t earned anything. You’re a plaything of a greater power of cruelty.

As hard as things can seem in our day to day existence, it’s important to remember that this regime cannot succeed. It’s impossible to run a country when men without merit are appointed to every position of power. We can’t simply assign a white supremacist to perform a complex task. Their racism does not make them more equipped to fly a plane or deliver a baby or negotiate a peace deal. Once they face a challenge of consequence, as they inevitably must, they will fail. The people will suffer for it.

But the crime is not theirs. The crime belongs to the silent masses that placed them there.

If a superintendent puts a rapist in your child’s classroom and your child is raped, there are two criminals. Both the rapist and the superintendent have committed crimes against humanity. Both must be punished.

That’s what we have to remember.

As the foundations crumble on this era of false strength and cowardly bullying, we have to keep that lesson in mind. Everyone who allowed this must be held accountable.

Again, those men and women (but mostly men), will come into the light of justice and cry and wring their hands and try to evoke our sympathies.

“I didn’t know the consequences of my actions.”

That’s a lie. They knew exactly what would happen. If they are ignorant, that’s no defense. They shouldn’t have been placed in a position to make important decisions, and they must never be allowed that position again.

We can’t be content to only put in jail the man who pulls the trigger. We must also arrest those that manufactured and sold the gun. Only by pulling the rot out by the roots can we provide any protection for our kids.

These awful people who have tormented us are going to cry. They’re going to beg. They’re going to insist that they’ve changed.

Don’t believe them. Don’t pardon them. They must never be allowed behind the levers of power again.

They’re going to call us cruel. They’re going to say that the punishment doesn’t fit the crime. But they’re depending on us forgetting how much pain we had to endure by their actions.

The abuser is never aware how much pain he inflicts. He’s always delivering the agony. We are the ones who receive it. So, he can be convincing when he tries to trivialize his torments. You have to constantly remind yourself that he didn’t endure them. He doesn’t know.

The time has come to assist survivors in inheriting their rightful power. We need to elevate people who knows what it feels like to not have money for rent. We need people in power who have experienced hunger, and crime, and abuse.

For some reason we defer to the lie of the redemption arc and we elect monsters to power. We’ve accumulated enough evidence to compel us to stop placing our faith in the reformed.

Instead, let’s turn our focus to evidence of decency. Let’s elevate people who have demonstrated a pattern of compassion instead of corruption. Let’s respect people of merit and achievement. Let’s allow for leaders who know the consequences of cruelty and understand how to steer humanity towards prosperity.

The crocodile tears are not sincere. Listening to them makes us enablers. They try to leverage our best qualities against us. But we need to stop having excess compassion for the abusers. It’s long past time that we placed our focus on the needs of the survivors.

The survivors speak for everyone.

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