Buddhist skillful means

It seems that the Buddhist notion of not 'reacting,' of observing initial emotional responses like anger or fear or hate is to let the charge pass so that one can response with equanimity and 'skillful means.' But this has been rationalized into accepting a host of degenerate and unjust behavior, thereby not doing anything constructive about it. Yes, traditionally Buddhism has compassion for those who have been treated unjustly, but also those who have committed unjust actions. For that latter the calming of the so-called negative emotions to elicit love and compassion seems to have led to not taking appropriate actions with criminal perpetrators. It's almost a New Age sort of belief that if we treat such criminals with love and compassion this will transform them.


Hence the lack of Buddhist political or government or police involvement, involvement that might use righteous indignation to motivate actions toward justice on a broader scale, including punishment of perpetrators up to an including death. I think this might be why the engaged Buddhism movement even began. And a part of the evolving dharma? And perhaps that anger and even hate are not necessarily wrong reactions but can be also channeled into skillful means?