Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. – Jesus (Matthew 25:40)
Ready to die for your beliefs? Do you have beliefs worth dying for?
I’m not talking dying in theory. Valor is easy on paper. I’m talking lights out, fine, the end of our grand adventure. And I’m talking about you in your energetic prime, brimming with life and hope, not you at the bedraggled, limping end of your allotted days. Death, when it’s your time, is not that big a deal. But death before your time, when you’ve everything to live for, is the ultimate price. That’s why war is tragic: it is the young who die, the old who spend them to preserve themselves.
America is at war – with itself. Folks are dying – and the pace is accelerating. At first, it was only dreaded immigrants, unwed mothers, and transgender kids who were targeted – who cares about them! Next up, the unlucky victims of preventable disease. Climate catastrophes will erase others – while vindictive terminations terminate useful careers. Kids will suffer and sour, deprived of school meals, while so-called “business leaders” proclaim our prospects rosy. Then it will be our turn. Our crime? Irking the tyrant. Needing a helping hand. Thinking our own thoughts. Check out Hitler’s and Stalin’s death tallies – they’re impressive. Tens of millions – of their own people. These are the paragons the Nameless One emulates and his goons revere. Oh, to be such a god!
Really, Carll, I hear some of you chiding, you’re exaggerating for effect. Your life is good. This too shall pass. You’re lousing up the liveliness with your alliterative laments.
To which I reply with Martin Niemöller’s familiar poem (but read it again):
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out,
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out,
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out,
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.
This pastor knew what he was talking about. Earlier in his career he’d been a committed Nazi. For daring to dissent, he spent the years of Hitler’s Armageddon in a concentration camp.
A reader forwarded me a stirring letter from Marc Elias, a (maybe the) leading election attorney in America, to Elon Musk. (Bless you guys for keeping me current!). Read it – now – don’t bookmark it for tomorrow – it is that important. To oppose the Nameless One makes you the equivalent of a Jew to Hitler, in line for a comparable fate. If you think that’s farfetched, look about you, read the news, believe the facts not your hopes, pull your head out of the sand.
The end of self-government is happening now – in what’s called “real time” (though it feels unreal) – and each of us is called upon to decide: comply or die? Morality is action, not opinion: if you’re unwilling to defend your beliefs with your life, what are either worth?
I’m no firebrand. I’m timid, lazy, placid, devoted to quiet and the arts of peace. I’d opt for the ostrich option if it worked. Only, it doesn’t. The war is now. Either we fight it with all we’ve got or risk extinction. Let each do all we can – follow the examples of Marc Elias, Liz Cheney, Chris Murphy, Jamie Raskin, the intrepid few whose legions swell daily – and pray it may be enough.