Blame and Punish Podcast
Episode: O-0011
Posting date: 03/22/21
[This written episode was used as a guideline to the spoken one. To hear the exact words, find it at https://www.blameandpunish.com/podcasts ... ry/latest/.]
Snitching . . . there is no such thing!
Bruce Carlson. Here I am. This is week 11 of our Blame and Punish Podcasts. This week I am going to start out with a definition. I am going to read the definition of the word SNITCH, or the derivative “snitching,” from the Oxford American Dictionary, Heald Colleges Edition. This particular dictionary has been on my desk since the 80’s so I trust it. At least I trust it to help me talk like I’m from the 80s. That will be good enough for this Podcast cuz the word “snitching” means the same now that it did then.
Snitch means (definition 1) a slang term for “to steal” and the 2nd definition is “to act as an informer.” You’ll get the same definition if you look up the word in Google (which I guess I could have done to make it easier on myself, but whatever). We are going to concentrate on the 2nd definition.
One way we could refer to snitchers (the people who actually do the snitching) is to look at Hitler when he was trying to take over the world. His Nazi Party indoctrinated children into their Hitler Youth group and literally required children to “snitch” on any activity of their family members to the Party so their parents could be punished for any anti-Hitler thoughts or talk. That is “true” snitching!
But what could be considered “NOT true” snitching?
I am going to change the perception from snitching to reporting. How can we make that definition change and stick?
What if it’s good for society? Is that a fair answer that will cover all aspects of being acceptable? Well, maybe not since Hitler was the society of Nazis. A lot of people liked being Nazis. A lot of people liked pushing people through lines and making them march into gas chambers. Don’t ask me how that’s possible. That is history. We have that confirmed many different ways. Some people in society are just plain crazy, or sadistic, or evil. Hitler was all of those (that is my opinion and the opinion of millions). Me and those millions would not have wanted to live in Hitler’s society but the fact is: In Hitler’s society, snitching was good – therefore good for society. If Hitler would have been successful and taken over the world, we would have no say in what was good for society – Hitler would decide.
Okay, we can’t say that snitching is acceptable if it is good for society because that is too general – we have to be more specific.
I think we can be more specific, though, using the Hitler example. We can say it is okay to snitch if it is for a good reason – what’s a “good” reason? It has to be a “morally” good reason. A morally good reason is not, for example, telling a robber where someone will be at what time so they can rob them BUT maybe telling someone where a person is going to commit suicide so they can be stopped. Of course, this is all a sticky-wicket (I have no idea what that means – sometimes I just say things).
So wait, how can you morally determine if that was a morally good reason? What if the person who was going to commit suicide had put their affairs in order, was in extreme pain every day, and wasn’t allowed to have a legal “assisted” suicide in his state but could wait six months if they moved to the next state forty miles away? What’s fair about that? Then you call and have the suicide stopped and the person spends their last six months in an insane asylum in deplorable conditions – and, I might mention, extreme pain? Was that morally correct, or good?
That makes it hard to decide who is allowed to be morally correct? The snitcher or the “snitcher-ed upon.” Whose morality is worth more?
Now we are stumped again. Too hard to make a distinction so what is next?
Let me give an example: "Shootings at two massage parlors in Atlanta and one in the suburbs Tuesday evening left eight people dead . . .
"A day after the shootings, investigators were trying to unravel what might have compelled 21-year-old Robert Aaron Long to commit the worst mass killing in the U.S. in almost two years.
"Officers found Long thanks to help from his parents, who recognized him from surveillance footage posted by authorities and gave investigators his cellphone information, which they used to track him, said Reynolds, the Cherokee County sheriff."
The above reporting was from the Associated Press website of their AP News Service (apnews.com).
How about if snitching is done to stop or report a murder or murderer? That seems cut and dry to me BUT that might only be because I had already chosen to concentrate on murder as being the first crime that we must stop in our Blame and Punish premise!
Please, before I walk too far away from what I said a few seconds ago, not that I reported, "Officers found Long thanks to help from his parents, who recognized him from surveillance footage posted by authorities and gave investigators his cellphone information, which they used to track him . . .”
Yes, the parents failed us. They created someone who killed. They should be punished besides their son BUT they REPORTED that their son was behind the murders in Atlanta. They REPORTED. Reporting is not snitching.
Actually, I would go one step further: I would say that reporting was an obligation to stop murderers.
This killer was 21-years-old. 21. Not that many years out of the raising, the education, the love, the caring, the responsibility of current laws, of their son. What makes it okay for that 21-year-old to go out and murder eight people, and likely affect a hundred more through those actions, and we can’t blame the parents for some of that? Or all of that?
How many times do I have to say this? HOW MANY?
IF THE PARENTS HADN’T CREATED THIS KILLER, HE WOULD NOT BE HERE TO BE A KILLER! THE PARENTS PUT THIS KILLER IN OUR MIDST SO IT MUST BE THEIR FAULT THE KILLER KILLED!
IS IT NOT TRUE THAT IF THEY WOULDN’T HAVE CREATED HIM HE COULDN’T HAVE KILLED?
ISN’T THAT ABSOLUTELY, CATEGORICALLY, FACTUALLY, WITHOUT ANY ARGUMENT WHATSOEVER A TRUE STATEMENT?
If it is, why is it not their fault they put him on this earth?
Why is it not their fault that he killed? Why didn’t they raise him not to kill? Why are they given a pass?
Will the next parents who bring someone into this world to kill someone you love be given a pass?
What do you care? I guess you don’t love the person you say you love if you don’t start doing something about this.
Do you?
I’m Bruce Carlson. You’re responsible for allowing parents to kill if you don’t start stopping this.
Come back next week . . . or don’t. Whatever. Actually, only come back if you’re alive!
Bye.
[END]
