Some may have thought from my last few posts that I was apologizing far too much for the Iranians, the newest bad guys on the block and perhaps condemning our society and its allies, far too much.
If anyone thinks I am condemning victims of police states, such as Jews in Germany, I would ask them to carefully revisit what I actually said about arbitrary governments and their mistakes. The idea is to avoid these mistakes(mostly our own for not en mass insisting on constitutionally enshrined freedoms and limitations on power) with not more of the same only different players we choose, but to allow all kinds of loathsome dissent, so that in the event that loathsome control is one day exercise, dissent will still be possible. We are not "getting that" The only complaint I have about liberals and some Jewish attitudes about how to stay safe, is that it ignores the true mechanism of persecution in the first place. Totalitarianism. In being against that, and persecution, it hardly avers that I would be for or apologist for one iota of totalitarian action, persecution, and I would think it would follow, murder, mayhem and genocide.
Should I apologize to jews, and other persecuted people's for not joining in a chant of their siren songs about the nature of their enemy? Well if they cannot read, or infer the truth or don't want to hear it, I can suggest some excellent English literature classes, and historical analysis courses. Noahm Chonmlsky comes to mind, but they don't have to take any particular cant or political stance. I don't believe I have to thump any tubs saying "murder is bad, it is wrong to wring the necks of schoolchildren if their parents are Armenians or Jews, save us from the Klu Klux Klan." I have the record at home.
I think it behooves us to be critics of our own behaviour to keep in check our own errant impulses. Fine to criticize an enemy, or putative enemy, but you cannot change them. You are not part of their government.
Remember Pogo. We have met the enemy, and he is us.
I will stick to my guns. I know murder is bad. That is why they call it murder. The trick is how to avoid doing it, and having it done to you. In that I differ slightly. I see the murdered being entranced in fear and paranoia to enhancing a system that will allow them in blindness to murder too. This is the greatest fear. We need not worry about another rise to power of a Nazi empire in our midst, unless we are it already. Words of the oppressed alone are not power. Leading a police force, a bank or an army, or a government. That is power. Words should be free and power kept in check. Read the history of the Third Reich. I did not see anyone in it saying, "Go ahead say what you will about us Nazis, freedom of speech is our hallmark and it is protected in our constitution!"
The US government is the only one in the world that constitutionally allows itself to be changed by armed revolution if necessary. Check it out. Brave words indeed. But necessary to show power what it serves. Freedom of its peoples. That and all else is a necessary second.
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