Sometimes in insular communities--maybe a niche interest group, maybe a church, maybe a small town--you'll hear about what a blogger from the Before Time called a Missing Stair.

http://pervocracy.blogspot.com/2012/06/missing-stair.html

Missing Stairs are people who are very bad for a community for some reason or another. Maybe they're a rapist or a child molester; maybe they're intolerable; maybe they're just an asshole.

What's interesting is that the communities don't /do/ anything about these people; they just sort of know they're around and route around them, in spite of knowing (or suspecting, in their heart of hearts) that the person is a walking Issue.

At this point your hackles may be raised, because the idea of identifying a person as Problematic seems grossly unfair and perhaps you yourself have been targeted by such claims, or even banished.

Hold onto that thought for a moment.

Excluding people sucks hard, and with some exceptions people don't like to do it. It's painful, and it tears at the community.

But if you acknowledge that perhaps yes there is a Problem, well--you almost have to, don't you?

If it becomes common knowledge Action is obliged.

So the easiest thing to do is simply Not See it as hard as you can.

This is tempting in any situation, and perhaps overwhelmingly so if the cost of solving the Problem is very high.

What if you lose your job? Your career?

So maybe you get people like Weinstein.

anyway, something to think about as you watch your reaction the next time you hear someone whisper the words "electoral fraud"