Plata o Plomo

Over the past few years I have become interested in precious metals like gold, silver, and lead (9mm and .223), as an alternative to standard U.S. currency.  The federal government continues to print money as if it were fun coupons and I’m no economist but I do know when you have a whole bunch of something and keep making more of it, it becomes less valuable.  I like the physical aspect of precious metals.  I like the fact you can hold it in your hand and feel its weight and its ancient and everlasting value.  I like that its not made of flimsy paper or numbers on a screen and that even after our system collapses, gold and silver and ammo will still have value.

I came across a small company, Mutiny Metals, that mints and sells gold and silver.  They have a lot of pirate themed merchandise but one particular bar caught my eye.  It was a one-ounce piece with a grim reaper and the words “Plata” and “Plomo” on it.  This is a reference to the Colombian cocaine drug lord Pablo Escobar.  He was well known for bribing and murdering public officials as part of his drug empire operation.  Everyone from police officers to high level government officials were subject to his influence.  The phrase, “Plato o plomo,” is Colombian Spanish slang which in English means, “Silver or lead.”  It means the government official may take the silver, a monetary bribe, or the lead, a lead bullet or death.  I bought it because I thought it was cool and I started carrying it around with me impulsively without thinking it through very much.

As time went on, my conscious mind started to catch up with why I liked this new trinket so much.  I have really come to appreciate the value of honor and integrity.  I believe the truth should be held above all else and that most of our problems can be solved through truthful speech.  I have reflected on times when I was dishonest and I remember how it made me feel small and weak.  How the distortion of the truth distorted my reality and made it harder to make decisions and to act in the world.  When you tell a lie, you trap yourself into a false reality that you will be forced to lie about again and again to keep it going and each time you lie the distortion magnifies.  The amount of mental band width it takes to keep it up is exhausting.

In Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, rule 8 is “Tell the truth-or at least don’t lie.”  Once you commit to this rule, and I mean really commit to it, a large burden is lifted and a big chunk of mental band width becomes freed up.  There are obvious difficulties like situations where a small white lie could easily solve a short-term problem, but once you are truly committed to telling the truth no matter what, you unlock a new level of human ability.  Your anxiety drops because you no longer have to decide if you are going to hold back something truthful for self-preservation.  Your behavior becomes honest because you are now forced to behave in a way you are willing to tell the truth about.  You don’t have to think very much in conversations or when answering questions because you aren’t formulating or creating anything.  You are just saying what is true. 

When I first really committed to rule 8 I noticed times in my professional life when I was feeling uncomfortable about telling the truth, not because of a lie I was concealing, but because I was afraid of the consequences for uncovering a lie someone else was concealing.  This was the year 2020 in a nutshell.  I was newly promoted to a probationary rank and had two kids and a pregnant wife at home who needed me to keep my pay raise.  I was terrified to say things like, “Those are not peaceful protestors in front of our building, they are violent rioters.”  Or, “Of course all lives matter and no I’m not a racist for believing that every human life has a spark of divinity and we are all equal under god.”  Or, “I know about 50 people so far who have caught and recovered from this new virus and they are all fine so no I don’t think it’s a big deal and I’m not going to play along with your neuroticism just because you think it’s a big deal.”  Or, “George Floyd’s death was tragic, as all deaths are, but I’m not systemically racist and no I’m not going to kneel or apologize for something I haven’t done.”  These are all truths that at the time could cause some serious reputation damage if they were said publicly.  My fear kept me quiet through some of this and my unwillingness to tell the truth made me weak and small.  I will not do that again.

The other thing I noticed was if you find yourself in a situation where telling the truth will get you in trouble, you are in a corrupt situation.  If a group or an individual has made you feel you cannot say something true, it is because they are hiding the truth for nefarious reasons.  The solution here is to say the truth as loud and to as many people as possible.  The phrase “sunlight is the best disinfectant” comes to mind.  This isn’t to say you will be unharmed, but it is better to be damaged by the truth than unharmed by a lie.  At least you can look yourself in the mirror and be the kind of person your wife and children admire.  Plus, the only reason the totalitarian liars are able to keep control is because they make everyone else afraid to tell the truth.  My sense is that as soon as the first person is willing to be honest, the whole web of lies will start to fall apart.

Going back to the concept of “Plata o plomo,” I don’t judge the Colombian officials who took the bribes.  I can’t imagine what it would be like to live in that environment where people you know and work with are constantly being murdered by the drug cartels and knowing your time is coming.  I have no idea what its like to live in poverty and be given an opportunity to be rich for helping the cartels.  Given the choice between death or a way out of financial ruin for me and my family, I can’t say what I would choose.  I would hope I kept my integrity.  My point is, if there were Colombian peasant policemen who were willing to face down a murderous multi-billion-dollar drug cartel, the least I can do is be honest about what is happening around me.  I hope to always turn down the plata, or the safety of the big group lie, in exchange for the plomo, or the punishment for telling the truth.