The Price of Money, the Cost of Silence, and Grandma's Apple Pie of Doooooom
Or: Apparently, some things are worth protecting more than others.
There's something rather unsettling about the things you stumble across when you fall down an internet rabbit hole.
I started with a cryptocurrency theft.
Approximately $6.3 billion worth of cryptocurrency was stolen from Binance in an attack that reportedly unfolded in roughly twenty minutes. The company said it would cover the losses through its protection fund and corporate resources.
That's an extraordinary amount of money.
And, naturally, the machinery of financial protection gets to work: investigators, blockchain analysts, asset freezes, corporate reserves, and efforts to trace the stolen funds.
Money is important. I understand that. Six billion dollars doesn't exactly disappear without consequences.
But then I kept reading.
Ten years for Joshua Wong
Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong received another ten-year prison sentence under the national security law imposed by Beijing.
Wong pleaded guilty to conspiring to collude with foreign forces. The case involved efforts to seek foreign sanctions and other actions against China and Hong Kong.
Whatever one's opinion of the political arguments surrounding that case, the result is difficult to ignore.
A man who became internationally known through Hong Kong's democracy movement is looking at a substantial portion of his adult life behind bars.
Reuters: Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong gets 10 years in jail
Twenty years for Jimmy Lai
And then there's Jimmy Lai.
The founder of the now-shuttered Apple Daily newspaper was sentenced to twenty years in prison after being convicted of conspiracy to collude with foreign forces and publishing seditious materials.
Lai denied the charges and described himself as a political prisoner. His case has become a major international flashpoint over the state of civil liberties and the rule of law in Hong Kong.
Twenty years.
Reuters: China critic Jimmy Lai sentenced to 20 years in jail
So, what exactly are we protecting?
Here's where my mind started wandering.
A financial institution loses billions, and we see an enormous effort to protect assets, investigate the breach, and recover what can be recovered.
People challenge political authority, and suddenly the language changes.
National security. Foreign interference. Sedition. Threats to stability.
Now, I'm not suggesting that a cryptocurrency theft and a national security prosecution are the same thing. They aren't. Nor am I pretending that every allegation against every person is automatically false.
But I do think we should be able to ask questions.
Who gets the benefit of the doubt?
Who gets the resources to defend themselves?
Who gets to challenge the people in charge without being treated as an enemy?
And perhaps most importantly:
Who decides when speaking out becomes a threat?
We like to tell ourselves that societies value truth, accountability, freedom, and justice.
But those values become rather inconvenient when they challenge someone powerful.
Governments don't always appreciate criticism. Institutions don't always welcome scrutiny. Organizations don't always enjoy having their decisions questioned.
And sometimes the easiest response isn't to answer the criticism.
It's to silence the person making it.
The inconvenient little thing called truth
I don't know how every one of these stories will end.
I don't know whether every stolen asset will be recovered, whether every imprisoned person will receive justice, or whether the people responsible for abuses of power will ever be held accountable.
But history has a habit of being rather inconvenient for those who believe they can control the narrative forever.
Records survive. Documents surface. Witnesses speak. People remember.
Sometimes the truth takes years to emerge.
Sometimes it takes decades.
And sometimes it arrives long after the people who tried to bury it have convinced themselves that the matter is settled.
I hope that day comes.
Not because I want revenge for the sake of revenge, but because accountability should not be reserved for people without power.
And when that day finally arrives?
Well...
Grandma will be waiting.
She'll have her apron on, the kitchen will smell wonderful, and she'll be carrying something special.
A freshly baked Apple Pie of Doooooom.
Because apparently, some people need a reminder that the truth doesn't expire just because somebody tried to silence it.
Grandma has entered the kitchen.
The oven is preheated.
And the recipe has been preserved.
By Jerry “The Ankle-Biter” Silverhand
Jerry's Marginalia — Department of Petty Affairs
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