Ever attend a Political Convention?
Ever listen in on a used-car salesman's pitch?
Ever listen to builders, owners and architects haggle?
Ever heard the method used in Real Estate sales?
How much TRUTH did you hear?
How much HONESTY?
How much TRUST, FAITH, INTEGRITY?
If this article sickens you — you may be better off than you think.
WHAT an age! In the world's richest nations, there is more stealing, thieving, robbing, cheating and lying than in those stricken by poverty!
In the United States, for example, Mr. Average Citizen has a big chip on his shoulder. He feels cheated.
Why?
Why, because of income tax, state tax, Federal taxes on his automobile, his cigarettes and beer. Because of hidden taxes, excessive costs, dozens of appeals for money from religion, charity, poor and welfare funds, community projects, and his own family.
He feels cheated — and so he hopes to find opportunity to cheat — just a little.
Expect to Be Cheated!
In a nationwide survey, the editors of Redbook magazine found Americans have gradually adopted a greatly watered-down and unclear double standard!
Since the average person expects to be cheated — he expects to cheat.
Recently, a young man whose father owned and operated a fish market in New York, and who, therefore, knew a great deal about fish, found a typical example of this in New York fish markets.
He, together with inspectors of the city's Department of Markets, found tilefish being sold as more expensive red snapper; found fillets advertized as flounder were really cod: found examples of mislabeling almost everywhere.
And not, mind you, in the small neighborhood stores, but in the largest and most highly respected chains of supermarkets in the city!
Who were the culprits?
They were the "respectable" businessmen who cheat, mislabel, steal, misrepresent and lie almost as if by habit. It's as if businesses use cheating as a POLICY — on the premise that anything you can get away with is fair!
And why do they cheat?
Businesses Expect to Be Cheated!
They cheat because they fully expect to be cheated! Every manager of every supermarket knows he can discount a fair percentage of his year's profits as shoplifting, pilferage, accidental or wanton destruction of perishables, damaged cans and bottles, stolen or "borrowed" shopping carts, or a chance of a once-in-a-while robbery!
While the checker smiles as he rings up the totals, he's also wondering if you have any goods concealed in your clothing. When he asks for your credit number for that particular store before accepting your personal check, or demands a driver's license for identification — he's doing so because he has ended up holding a considerable number of bad checks — written by those who also live on the philosophy it's fair to cheat.
Result? They feel the only possible way to "come out even" is to cheat a little.
The Government Expects to Be Cheated
What about the man who looks over your income tax return?
First, he's suspicious. That's his job. He knows the reasoning of the average citizen concerning his income tax return. It runs something like this: "It's MY money, isn't it? I worked hard for it — so what's the matter with trying to hang on to a little more of it? I can see the need for taxes — but not for THAT much taxation!"
So the average citizen stretches his report to the limit — hoping he's not among the many thousands whose returns are selected at random for routine "audits" each year.
Yes, even the government expects to be cheated. Cheated out of FIVE BILLION DOLLARS EACH YEAR by false tax returns alone.
But the government of the United States would be tremendously relieved if this were the only area in which it is cheated.
During my naval service, I was in the Security Department on a naval air base. Our job was manifold. We had to watch the Naval personnel and the civil-service employees, who would steal tools, parts, copper tubing, electrical wiring, and almost anything of value. Workers within a motor pool compound would drive their trucks near the fence, toss over certain pilfered, objects, and then, under cover of darkness, attempt to retrieve the stolen object.
Tools came out the gates under hubcaps, under seats, in trunks inside worker's tool boxes, made to appear as their own, or taped under the hood. Every gate guard knew he could detect only a small portion of the goods actually stolen each year. The loss in dollars was monumental — typical of every military base on earth; whether employing civilian laborers or not!
What kind of people were these? "Honest" laborers. Plumbers, carpenters, electricians, mechanics. They were clerks, secretaries, supervisory personnel.
Example: The fire chief, a civilian employee, had held the office for many years. During my tour of duty, our civilian investigator (who used Navy time and equipment to figure the odds on the dog races) conducted an investigation.
It was found the fire thief had padded his time cards for years — had been on vacation, but turned in cards for sick pay; left early; but turned in a card for overtime, ad infinitum. He maintained two separate bank accounts, and, apparently, two separate women.
Hearing of the impending action against him, he reacted immediately. I arrived, with others of the department, only minutes after his parked automobile had been found outside the base, with a hose from the exhaust taped to the window. He was dead — a suicide.
Why did he misrepresent, cheat, steal? He had a good job. Security. A lot of friends — an environment that was of his own particular choosing. But he felt cheated. He felt he was underpaid, overtaxed, unappreciated, and exploited. So he felt justified in retaliating.
Attitude Toward Crime
Most people remain absolutely opposed to crime, as such. But the private definitions of what constitutes a crime; whether or not the crime was justified because of the circumstances is becoming increasingly cloudy in the public mind.
Law enforcement officials decry the near-obsession of the modern courts with insuring the protection of the CRIMINAL and his "rights," instead of strengthening the laws prohibiting and punishing criminal acts.
Recently, a man brutally murdered his wife. After the crime, he became remorseful — went to the police and confessed. After signing at least two separate written confessions, including his leading police to the garbage dump where he had deposited the body of his wife, the man was held fed trial.
Today, he's walking the streets as a free man. The court held his "rights" were violated when no legal counsel was provided to inform him, at the moment of his confession (which, by the way, was voluntary, and not coercive) that such a confession was not necessary.
The judge threw out the confession as evidence. Without it, there was no case. Merely a woman's body on a dump, with no physical evidence or clues as to her murderer.
Is this true justice?
And so it goes. The public obsession with protecting the rights of criminals has made it increasingly unclear who is handcuffing whom.
However, it is not only the public attitude toward organized crime, toward the more flagrant or violent crimes that is alarming today — but the attitude toward what people consider allowable under certain conditions.
The average citizen wouldn't invite to dinner, for instance, a burglar. But he would invite to dinner a man he knows has cheated on his income tax — perhaps even hoping to pick up a few tips on how to cheat on his own. So long as criminal acts wear respectable clothing, it seems, the public finds it acceptable.
But the public is sick!
Non-involvement!
This hazy notion of the difference between what is right and what is wrong has resulted in almost complete public indifference to crime.
Bystanders ignore shootings; turn away from women giving birth on a cold sidewalk; refuse aid to victims of automobile accidents; refuse to help officers in making an arrest; watch casually as a woman is raped.
Look magazine's senior editor, Leonard Gross, wrote an article entitled, "WHO CARES?" in Look's issue of September 8, 1964. He tells of 60 persons in Chicago who ignored a uniformed policeman's cries for help as he battled two youths. He called this growing obsession with "noninvolvement" a "new national horror"!
Cited was the pitiless case of Catherine Genovese, whose attacker returned to stab her three times as at least 38 neighbors heard, or looked on.
None of them would help her, or even summon police. She died.
The story gained nationwide prominence, and local newspapers began printing dozens of similar incidents. In Santa Clara, California, several motorists watched the robbery of a cabbie — none summoned police. In San Pedro, California, many motorists drove by two policemen struggling to prevent a man from jumping off a 185-foot bridge — trying to prevent him from committing suicide.
In New York, a crowd of passersby on Broadway watched eight men stomp two — and did nothing. In the Bronx, a crowd would not rescue a naked girl from a rapist's attack as she repeatedly begged "Help me!" No one even offered a coat for her nakedness — they just looked.
In New York, a gang member stabbed a college student. The student said, "I put my hand down and saw blood. I went over to a car that had stopped to watch. 'Please help me to a hospital,' I said. They rolled up their windows and drove away. I went to another car and asked for help, but they did the same thing, drove away. Then I went to a truck and asked the driver for help. He pulled around me and drove away and left me there. Nobody on the street helped me.' "
In Las Vegas, Nevada, a Federal narcotics undercover agent was shot while sitting in his car in a residential neighborhood. Many people ran to their doors and peered into the darkness, but none investigated further. When questioned later, they told police they had been watching The Untouchables on television, and had wanted to see the end of the program without interruption. (The program features gangland killings, and federal undercover agents at work — but it's pure fiction)
In Albany, New York, a crowd of boys chanted, "JUMP! JUMP! JUMP!" as Richard Reinemann, 19, fought a life and death struggle within himself on a ledge of the top of an 11-story building.
"Go ahead!" someone screamed at him. "I hope he jumps on this side," commented a well-dressed man, "we couldn't see him if he jumped over there." As relatives rushed to the scene, after firemen had unsuccessfully tried to coax the boy to safety, a man was heard to remark, "That kid isn't faking. I'll bet ten bucks he jumps." Another bystander immediately took the bet.
By the time the boy's relatives had arrived, the crowd numbered over 3,000. A woman said, "I can't wait around all night, I just missed my favorite television show!"
Finally, a relative dissuaded the boy, and he was pulled to safety. Cursing, the betting man said, "He cost me ten bucks!"
"These people wanted him to jump," said a fireman, shaking his head in disbelief. "They really wanted to see him die."
But these cases are only the merest beginning. Space could not permit the printing of but a very few. Our News Bureau files are filled with reports of similar incidents, and, paradoxically enough, many of them on various of the national holidays.
But why? What's wrong?
Our peoples are sick!