Claire Wolf: Question of the Century

My third great grandfather was an Ensign in the Revolutionary War, and saved the flag at the Battle of Brandywine.
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Claire asks a Question, here:

One of the hardest things about living in a police state is watching other people be crushed by state power and feeling unable to do a thing about it.

We read Pastor Neimoeller’s famous lines as a warning to ourselves. But really, there’s not much chance of heeding the warning in a way that changes anything — except perhaps for the worse.

We can’t watch others be crushed without feeling a stab of their agony. We know, as others are crushed, that the crushing machinery gathers momentum and will roll toward our own lives. We know that not only we, but the ideals that sustain civilization, are being crushed. And that matters to us. Matters vitally, painfully, heartbreakingly. No matter what else we do, we can’t stand by and watch that happen without feeling an obligation — or at least a passionate longing — to do our all to stop it.

But how? What? And why does it keep rolling on so inexorably when so many are speaking out?

So we come back to the question: What’s the responsibility of a resident of a police state? If mere speaking out doesn’t change anything, what does? And how do we do it?

Read the whole thing. The article captures the dilemma of every moral person, just now. How can we make it stop?

Claire is smarter than most of us. We'll see more of her thoughts in the next installment (part 2+?).

But here is my response, today-

“Let me see your papers”, and “Just following orders” were phrases we heard about other countries and other times- Now we see it here.

One thing I have been doing (perhaps stupidly) is engaging local ‘enforcers’ in discussions, and also on-line. I commented several times at Massad Ayoob Backwoods Blog regarding the murder of Jose Guerena- But Mr Ayoob sides with the storm troopers ‘just doing their job’, ‘just following procedure’ as they kill and kidnap citizens. Every suspect must submit or die, in his weltanschau. Anyone who dares question the tactics is no longer viewed as a citizen/his employer, but rather as a “cop hater”. So they create their mental barriers, to allow them to do what they do, to continue to pay their mortgage, to continue to ‘follow orders’.

I now understand how the colonists felt when the Redcoats demanded obedience.

MORE.