“Police were dragged into the crowd and beaten. Rioters used makeshift weapons to attack police, including flagpoles, a crutch and a hockey stick. Investigators documented a number of firearms in the crowd, along with knives, a pitchfork, a tomahawk ax, brass knuckle gloves and other weapons. Officers have described in testimony fearing for their lives as members of the mob hurled insults and obscenities at them.”
The above is a quote from an AP article by Alanna Durkin Richer and Michael Kunzelman, which detailed President Trump’s sweeping pardons of those who participated in the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
What is to be done when Barabbas opens the prisons and more than half the crowd is happy about it?
In a previous blog, I wrote about the necessity of punishment (that is, discipline). It’s not pleasant. It doesn’t always work. But the intended function of it is to put up a guardrail against additional bad choices/behavior.
We talk frequently about bad leaders doing crappy things. But when a leader allows those under their authority to ALSO do crappy things, that is a higher level of offense. It exponentially increases the damage done and accelerates the timeframe in which it happens.
Ethical/moral leadership has no political affiliation. Biden’s preemptive pardons have ramifications, too, and in fact, that both sides are allowing their supporters free rein only makes the situation worse. But I share this article in particular and quote what I do about the January 6 events simply because the damage done is so blatant. Many of those involved have shown little remorse for their actions, and the pardons represent dozens of cases where judges and juries issued independent convictions.
So, I’m begging everyone in a position of power to understand their ripple effect and hold the line where it has to hold. Boards that override and oust good people, executives that elevate abusers into management or retaliate against those who go to HR — they are the same problem, just with everyday coloration. Whether you are president of your business or of the United States, the standard and reasonable expectation of accountability should never waver.