Bill Cummings wrote: :
Think about it -- If intimidation keeps you in line it will probably work on someone else.
It is the system that we the people have given consent for our society to use to keep us in line and if we can't find help then isn't self help all that is left?
How often are the police there to stop an assault?
More often when seconds count the police are minutes away. (My friend told me that respect is really 90% fear.)
I just wanted to focus on that last part of the quote from Bill's friend: "respect is really 90% fear".
I think that varies a lot from person to person, and that variance may explain a lot of the friction and misunderstanding that we have in our society.
I believe there are certainly many people who only give "respect" out of fear. But I think that's because they are incapable of true respect, and use that word as a nicer sounding substitute for a fear that they don't want to admit.
For me, fear and respect are highly decoupled. I have tremendous respect for Joe Faust, but I have no fear of him at all. I respect him in great part because his kindness does not generate fear. In fact, when I think of all the people who I respect, I find that I have very little fear of them.
On the other hand, there are despicable people who I fear greatly because they are harmful to others and are willing to continue to be harmful to others. I have no respect (zero) for those people.
I am now suspecting that the differences among individuals in their pairing of fear and respect may be a huge factor in their conflict. I think, for example, that David Jebb could see no distinction between fear and respect, and so he tried to gain respect by instilling fear. That probably worked well for him with others who - like him - could not distinguish fear from respect. But there were others of us who refuse -
absolutely refuse - to give respect out of fear. The
more that Jebb would try to gain respect out of fear with us, the
less we would actually respect him.