The Search for The Hatchet Man

Play along with me and consider this scenario. Disgruntled young thugs who hate their fellow man explode bombs on the London mass transit system killing many who were on their way to work. Suppose the police track down a suspect to a London flat. The landlady is uncooperative. "He is a nice boy and so clever," she says. "I don't know why you're after him."

Why would this fictitious woman defend a "nice" criminal?

In my unpublished book, "The Big Online Book of Linux Startups", I talk about my former neighbour, Fred "The Hatchet Man" Karner. He's an example of what I call a Destroying Angel, the Enron-era executive breed that is polite and amiable but backstabs and defrauds companies for personal profit. Destroying Angels undermined the economy, destroy stock market confidence and cause massive corruption and waste. They leave a trail of broken companies in their path.

Some people actually worship these guys and want these guys in their companies because they believe that someone who isn't afraid of the law will increase profits. Their logic is: if being in the law makes money, then working outside the law will make more money. As if obeying the law or not has anything to do with the bottom line. There are people who think evil is an advantage.

Over 10 years ago, when I was away at graduate school, Fred went too far. He pulled an alleged scheme that put the RCMP on his tail and he was forced to flee the country and leave a trail of unpaid bills in his wake. I thought I had seen the last of him until I received a phone call this week from a man who did not disclose his name. He said he knew where Fred was hiding out and was trying to find out if there was a warrant for his arrest. He didn't want to be embarrassed by phoning the police directly. Since I was out of the area during the time of Fred's run in with the law, I directed the man to Fred's old landlord, a man to whom Fred owed back rent. I called the landlord later and was surprised to hear, "Yeah, I covered for Fred."

I was dumbfounded. Why would anyone cover for a man who was wanted by federal law enforcers? A man who owed him money? "Fred doesn't owe me anything, " the landlord said flatly. Then added, "because I found some personal possessions of Fred's that covered the rent. Sure he owes a lot of money to OTHER people around and he's wanted by the cops. But Fred is just a good ol' boy."

Do I understand this? Fred hurt people. Fred insulted the Canadian justice system. Fred suckered a lot of people. But fraud is a "nice" crime so we can't send him to jail?

How Canadian is that?

On a recent news broadcast, the reporters were interviewing Canadian police on a drug bust. The policeman explained that they sat out front of grow operations with the police cars in plain view making sure that the people inside can make a clean getaway--sometimes waiting as much as an hour or more before entering the building and destroying the drug operation. (To the police's credit, they explained that the judges let these drug growers walk away so there's no point in arresting them.) We are so polite we let the criminals get away. In the meantime, Canada has become the largest exporter of high potency marijuana to the U.S.

Canadians were once heroes of courage. We were peacemakers cleaning up the world's messes. Our leaders spoke out against the Vietnam War on America's soil. We were the whisteblowers and negotiators of the Western world. But something has changed. We've become a nation of getting what we can for ourselves and turning out back on wrongdoing. We envy the criminals instead of fight them. And it's exactly this kind of attitude that Destroying Angels love: no one blows the whistle on a nice criminal, and when we get burned by them no one blows the whistle on our behalf. In a nation of cowards, corporate crime is all to easy to get away with. And it's no wonder that people like The Hatchet Man show utter contempt for the Canadian people and the law.

I asked a woman at a checkout if Canada would be the target of a terrorist attack. She responded, "Why? Our lax security gives them easy access into the U.S. Why would they want us to tighten our borders?"

Why indeed. And why aren't we ashamed?

Talk back on the Linux Cafe.

July 14, 2005