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The Consequences of Refusing to Persuade

"No oppression is so heavy or lasting as that which is inflicted by the perversion and exorbitance of legal authority." --Joseph Addison

Freedom. . . it's a word that's used and abused by politicians and pundits. The Founding Fathers of this great country never intended that the "freedom" they helped shape would end up a spectator sport. Nor did they intend that only "professional politicians" be the only ones safeguarding our system.

One distraction we have is the problem of living in an age that is excessively politically correct. We are all so worried about not offending anyone that we learn not to have any opinions and we don't learn how to argue our points and therefore don't have to defend our side of an argument or our beliefs, and therefore, we aren't empowered or informed to the extent that we could be. When you truly know an issue, only then can you defend what you believe to be true. And only by engaging others, can we learn and understand our differences.

Instead of engaging and possibly offending, we have become a nation of mutes. We go along to get along instead of making our voices heard. It's a strange submissiveness. Those in power take advantage of our silence and frame the issues, they foist rules upon us, and we're supposed to sit back and acquiesce.

In my opinion, one of the biggest offenders of this requirement of our submission is the police. It seems to me the police have forgotten or are choosing to absolutely ignore that their duty is to protect and serve. Instead they believe their job is to see how much compliance they can wrestle out of everyone.

Here's a story for you that will illustrate what I mean.

I came across an article in The Oregonian entitled "Four Sue Police, Alleging 'Dirty Tactics'".

Frank Waterhouse, one of the four plaintiffs in the suit, alleges that the police used excessive force when they fired a Taser at him and bean bag rounds because he was videotaping the police searching his friend's property.

The claimant alleges that the police came after him, yelling at him to put the camera down. As he was running away, he said, 'don't come after me' at which point the police shot him with a bean bag and Taser.

Officers wrote in their reports that Waterhouse ran off, they chased him and then bean-bagged and Tasered him. One officer wrote in his report, "He had refused to drop the camera which could be used as a weapon."

Wait a minute. . . he was running away and somehow he was still threatening to them? Crazy.

Good people keep quiet because they believe it is the 'politically correct' thing to do, and in turn then they get whatever the authority figures give them. I'd say it's high time to begin using your persuasion skills to let others know what you think. Don't let this happen to you.

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Kenrick Cleveland teaches techniques to earn the business of affluent clients using persuasion. He runs public and private seminars and offers home study courses and coaching programs in persuasion techniques. Get your own completely unique content version of this article.

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