The main problem with resisting evil, in a 1942 ghetto or today, isn't even being able to defeat its emissaries. It's the concern about having to fight increasingly numerous and well-equipped agents of evil who would happily kill you, your family, your neighbors, and your whole world for resisting them. That's the stick. The carrot is that most smart evildoers claim to have limited designs against your life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. As Henry Bowman figured out, the watershed is the targeted reduction of your ability to resist in the future. As people around the world are finding out, that line is hard to define.
Having a rifle is adequate until tanks roll in: by that standard, Americans are already behind the curve. Folks living in most other countries are even deeper in it, having been reduced to pre-Medieval defensive technologies. Most people just want to live their lives unmolested, so they deal with oppression the same way they deal with weather, by adapting. The result is that the mafia, under whatever form of government it picks, remains in control and suffers only a little from competition from other entities like itself. Most cultures love the concept of underdogs winning, but Robin Hoods eventually die while kings keep on ruling. Not sure what solutions exist.
