Are You REALLY a Good Person?
I Have My Doubts, But Here's How to Be SURE...
Dear Permission to Be Powerful reader,
What would you do if you knew that you could do ANYTHING?
What kind of person would you be if you knew that you could commit any crime…
Hurt anyone…
Destroy any life…
And not pay the price?
Would you be evil for the sake of it?
Just because you could?
Or, would you be good…
Keep your morals?
ARE YOU SURE?
We all like to think we would stay the same…
Not let fame get to our heads…
Not lose ourselves in the rush of being admired.
But we all know the saying:
Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
This is plain to see in the most recent chapter of the Epstein saga.
Powerful people who are above the law.
Who live with impunity.
Who act like the rules are meant for everyone else.
I know you SAY you’re a good person…
But are you sure?
What if you didn’t have to be?
What if you were given the chance to be above the law?
You could live with impunity…
Do whatever the fuck you want…
I know this is hard to imagine…
But people like this absolutely exist — as you’ll soon see.
Imagine waking up one day and having the entire world at your fingertips…
Everyone you encounter knows you and loves you.
Your closest friends are also your colleagues — employed only to make sure you have everything you could ever want.
They are paid to keep you happy.
Paid to orbit you.
Paid to revolve entirely around you.
You are the center of their universe.
And the universe of thousands of people you’ve never even met.
The biggest and most expensive brands in the world beg for your attention, offering millions for a single photo in their apparel.
You get fan mail every day from people begging you to sleep with them.
Telling you they’ll do anything for you.
And they mean it.
All because you can sing.
Or dance.
Or act.
That’s what it’s like being a celebrity.
Every tin pot dictator’s wet dream.
Doors open for you that stay bolted shut for everyone else.
People treat you like a god…
Just because you can do something slightly better than they can.
But here’s the part nobody talks about:
Power magnifies rot.
Every insecurity.
Every wound.
Every defect.
Power drags all of your skeletons into the light.
And if you aren’t grounded?
Can’t resist being worshipped?
Then fame doesn’t elevate you…
It destroys you.
If you’re NOT a good person…
And there’s nothing to stop you from being a bad person…
No laws…
No taboos…
No structure…
You become a monster.
You stop hearing “no.”
You stop registering consequences.
You stop remembering what it feels like to be human.
And for as long as humans have existed, we’ve watched the same pattern repeat:
from Nero to Hitler — different eras, same pathology.
And in our era?
Same shit, different stink.
Powerful men, with confirmed trails of victims…
Most of them got away with it.
Sometimes out in the open.
For DECADES.
Some still do.
Here are the most infamous ones —
Harvey Weinstein
Bill Cosby
Jeffrey Epstein
Prince Andrew
Kevin Spacey
P. Diddy
R. Kelly
Roman Polanski
Woody Allen
Matt Lauer
James Franco
Chris Brown
Mel Gibson
Ian Watkins
And here’s the part nobody wants to face:
These people were protected.
Because power hides in plain sight.
It grants immunity.
It launders reputations.
It makes predators invisible.
They live among us.
Untouchable.
Adored.
Protected.
The scariest ones aren’t the ones we catch.
It’s the ones who get away with it.
Most monsters never make the headlines.
Even when they should.
Bill O’Reilly wasn’t criminally charged…
Yet, Fox News paid $45+ million in settlements for harassment.
He was protected by status for decades until the dam broke.
Charlie Sheen has a long public record of violence and abuse.
Yet, everyone still loves Two and a Half Men.
The world was stunned when Jared Fogle was exposed as a predator.
Subway executives knew. They looked the other way.
You don’t have to be O.J. Simpson to get away with murder.
Many of these folks thought they were untouchable.
Others are still abusing their power right now.
For now.
Until next time,
Tony V.
Editor-in-Chief
