Acceptable Negative Consequences

And where they fall

This is a piece I wrote privately a year ago that I’m republishing here. The idea of consequences, who feels those consequences, and who doesn’t feel them is perhaps one of the worst parts of our civilization.

To say that more bluntly — the rich and powerful almost invariably are shielded from consequences and I think that’s a bad thing.

I’ve been thinking about that a lot since the war in Iran. It was top of mind when I wrote about it recently in Choosing Who Pays. It was also something that was top of mind after reading a piece yesterday from The Dispatch that asks the question Are We Approaching an Unprecedented Energy Crisis? Here, again, is a reminder that even when we don’t have a war and a very probable global energy crisis that it’s always something to be thinking about: where are the negative consequences falling?

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3.27.2025

I’ve really been finding myself obsessed with “acceptable negative consequences” recently. I’m currently watching Reacher on Amazon — an incredibly well done show about a giant of a man who is brilliant, perfectly willing to be a vigilante, and possessing a physique that’s literally impossible if all he does is wander from town to town with the clothes on his back and his toothbrush. People scoff at dragons and spaceships but this show is easily as fantastical. Think Sherlock Holmes if Holmes was willing to break people’s necks who displeased him and got to sleep with a different smart/hot/tough woman every season. I’ve eliminated all nuance and I don’t want to give the impression I don’t like it - it’s one of the few shows I immediately watch when a new episode/season comes out - but it’s not going to speak to you in your heart of hearts.

I digress, but sorta not. In the last episode I watched, a cop yells at Reacher and says “what you’re doing isn’t justice.” Reacher responds with, “I don’t want justice, I want vengeance.” This is followed up with a warning that Reacher will be on the run for the rest of his life and this is going to fuck the cop over too, to which Reacher responds that it is already how he lives life anyways and he did warn the cop that this would probably happen if they got him involved. I’ve been sitting with that for most of a week.

What are you willing to accept to get what you want?

It reminds me a bit of those buffoons with their Punisher skull stickers on their big beautiful shiny trucks. Apologies to anyone reading this who has a ridiculous truck you’d never dream of carrying 2x4’s in with a Punisher sticker on it but, yeah, dude I am judging you. Performative security blanket aside, The Punisher is an emotionally crippled and world-weary vigilante lashing out in an unjust world in response to the murder of his family. Have you ever even read the comic book?

He’s not okay. He’s not a hero. He’s not someone to emulate. He’s someone to pity. Why the ever-loving-fuck do you have his symbol on your gender-affirming care object?

Acceptable consequences. Innocents die when the Punisher is around. Everyone but Reacher pays the price for his decisions. To be sure, the bad guys die in blood and fire as well but…there’s always a price to be paid and it’s rarely a price paid by the Punisher or Reacher. They’ll be back next week with a new bad guy to kill, new innocents to pay the price, and in Reacher’s case a new woman who will trip him into bed.

A problem I have with politics and capitalism and the world in general is that as you accumulate enough power, in whatever form, you gain the ability to push those consequences farther from yourself. Power is not just to effect change around you but also to defer the consequences of those changes. Musk, Biden, Hillary, Trump, Bezos, McConnell, Pelosi — none of these people are impacted by the consequences of their actions. They play games with lives in the world but unless a nuclear holocaust comes raining down on them they’ll never experience consequences.

It’s an unjust world we’re all living in.

I compare this to my own life. The idea of consequences is something that Squirt hears about constantly. He fucks up, he pays a consequence. Yesterday he was doing some experiment with wet paper...I didn’t really ask...but the sink was clogged in his bathroom when I went to use it. So I proceeded to snake the drain and get it cleaned up but I pulled him from his allotted game time to make him help me. When we were done he asked if he could add the lost time back to his game timer. You can imagine my response, I’m sure. He clogged the drain because he didn’t think about what would happen and he lost game time helping. It wasn’t coming back. Consequence of his actions.

And yet...

A problem I have with America is that we are so rich we frequently don’t have to pay the consequences of our actions. Harris or Trump, didn’t matter, still better to live in this country than most other places. Americans are generally insulated from the struggles outside her borders. We are the McConnell/Pelosi of the earlier metaphor. We don’t pay the consequences for most of our actions on the world stage. Those costs are reserved for others.

As a child most consequences are tightly coupled, and immediately coupled, to the actions. Clog the sink and you have to fix the problem and lose your game time. The price is right there. But as a modern nation or an adult? Not so much. Or not always. And the more power you have the less likely it’ll be you seeing the consequences at all.

There’s always a price to pay. But I guess it’s easier when it’s someone else that pays it.

Anyways, now it’s 4am so maybe I can get back to sleep.