AND THEY CAME FOR ME

Folks, this is a belated Memorial Day post.  I am sure many have read something similar to it.  If you have not, its time to get mad as "heck"!! and do something about it.

Hope this provides fodder for good thought and action:

There is no way that could happen NOW.  There is no way that could happen HERE.  We are better than that….RIGHT???    Well, you better read on...

THEN THEY CAME FOR ME . . . 

…and there was no one left to speak for me.

“First they came…” is a famous statement and provocative poem attributed to pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984) about the sloth of German intellectuals following the Nazis’ rise to power and the subsequent purging of their chosen targets, group after group. There is some disagreement over the exact wording of the quotation and when it was created; the content of the quotation may have been presented differently by Niemöller on different occasions.

You have probably heard at least one version of “First they came…” at some point in your life.  Here is a common version of it:

First they came for the communists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.

Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.

There are other interpretations that include Catholics, Social Democrats, etc.  Which version you choose to quote really doesn’t matter because the point of the statement is not to describe the exact groups Nazis’ targeted.  The point in this statement is that the totalitarian/statist Nazis targeted and punished their political enemies using various tactics, including intimidation, until there was no one who felt safe speaking out against the government.  Those who stood in opposition to the Nazis were destroyed.  If you were perceived of not being supportive enough of the Nazi movement you were condemned and either executed or imprisoned.  Was it fair?  No.  Was it effective?  Absolutely.  Millions were murdered by their own government with little to no public outcry or revolt.

Tyrants like to “make examples” of those who oppose them.  As seen in the classic Star Wars Episode 4, The Empire uses its Death Star to vaporize an entire planet in order to make an example of it to any others seeking freedom from The Empire.

Fear kept the people in line.  Fear is a powerful tool.  When an all-powerful government wields its power against its own people in an effort to intimidate, silence or destroy its perceived political enemies, look out.  That is how almost every major holocaust, purge, massacre, atrocity, (call it what you will) has taken root.  The government abuses the power given to it by the people and turns that power against the people.  It has happened time and time again by totalitarian governments all over the world.  China, The Soviet Union, Cambodia, Germany.  It is estimated that there have been over 260 million people killed by their own governments in the last 100 years.  The term for mass murder of people by government is Democide.

These atrocities usually have a few of things in common – a pattern or roadmap to tyranny:

A new government surges to power during a time of hardship by promising change.  They claim they will make things better and give the people things like security, jobs, housing, food, education, health care, etc.  They may even promise to deliver on vague concepts such as fairness, justice, status, equality, identity, pride or unity.  Whatever the people want, they will promise to deliver.

However, first the government requires additional powers in order to accomplish its goals to change things.  It may ask for new powers, or just rewrite the laws to take the power they want.  The power of the state/collective soon supersedes the rights of the individual and eventually the government no longer answers to the people.

As the rights of the people fade and the power of the state grows, speech against the government becomes taboo or even a punishable crime.

At some point along the way they (the movement or government) will claim that if it weren’t for this group or that group standing in the way of progress we could move forward and give you all the things we promised you.  Those groups become de facto enemies of the state.  If you support the state you must oppose these groups.  Those groups are targeted, isolated, harassed, mocked, intimidated, threatened, attacked, made examples of and eventually destroyed.  There is no protection from the state for these groups of people because the legal system has become a puppet of the state, as has the news media.  At this point the only hope for these groups is to go underground or flee their country before it’s too late.

Sooner or later, the whole of the people are disarmed, making tyranny feasible.  It may require (the use of) a catalyst in order to sell the idea of gun confiscation to the people.  Once the people are disarmed there is no going back.  The door to physical opposition has been shut, and all doors to peaceful opposition were already shut prior to the disarmament.

At this point the state has complete control and all opponents are hiding in fear, disarmed or dead.  That is the end game for the psychopathic control freaks.  Once this has been achieved that can get on with the business of remaking the country in their image.  Usually purges and holocausts follow.

Now, let’s transition this discussion to modern times.  It seems like humanity has evolved beyond such behavior, right?  There is no way that could happen NOW.  There is no way that could happen HERE.  We are better than that….RIGHT???

Our system is better than that.  We have learned from the mistakes of history. We have laws to protect us – a Constitution.  We trust our government.  Anyone who thinks tyranny could happen here is in the “tinfoil hat, black helicopter” club.

Well congratulations for being an obedient little sheep, that is exactly how they want you to think.  Just sit passively by, questioning nothing, accepting everything; complying with every new requirement being imposed on you.  Never refusing to follow orders, no matter how ridiculous or unreasonable.  Never stopping to ponder why it is that we are taking orders from the government, not the other way around.

Now we have a virtually unknown Barack Obama swept into office on a wave of popular support for his platform of “Hope and Change.”

We have a President who has publicly stated that he is tempted to circumvent Congress and act as a dictator in order to accomplish his agenda.  Watch the video of Obama addressing The National Council of La Raza (“the race” in Spanish.)  Also pay attention to the crowd reaction.  These third-world state worshipers applaud his desire to act as a dictator, and begin chanting “Yes you can!”  This is a good example of why we need to control our immigration.  Foreign statists come here and vote for tyrants.

We have a President that advises college graduates to reject voices warning of government tyranny.

This is the same President who has publicly said on Spanish TV channel Univision that his supporters should “punish our enemies” when referring to Americans opposed to his political agenda.

Back in 2008, then candidate Obama told a group of supporters, “I need you to go out and talk to your friends and talk to your neighbors. I want you to talk to them whether they are independent or whether they are Republican. I want you to argue with them and get in their face!”

We have a man-child for a Vice President who mocks people that fear a government gun registry by suggesting they are paranoid conspiracy theorists: “The black helicopter crowd really is upset.”

We have a news media who mocks those who speak out against the state as “Tea Baggers” and other childish and offensive slurs.  They call women who speak out against the state vile slurs not worthy of print here.  This is the same news media that willfully conceals the failures and corruption of the state from the people, while publicly promoting the agenda of the state.

We recently have discovered that the Obama Administration has been snooping where it shouldn’t, perhaps in violation of the law.  They have been what can best be described as “spying on reporters” who cover anti-administration topics, or who speak to “whistleblowers” that speak to the press about the administration.

We have also seen the regime admit to and apologize for “inappropriately” using the already abusive powers of the IRS to target groups and individuals who publicly challenge the administration.  They then used the unconstitutional Department of Homeland Security to target Tea Party groups who protest the IRS for said inappropriate action.

We had “Operation Fast and Furious” in which the federal government was responsible for thousands of guns being put into the hands of violent Mexican drug cartels.  This entire operation is justifiably suspected by many to be a premeditated effort to allow the government to (incorrectly) fault our gun rights when those guns turned up at murder scenes all along the border.  After all, this is the same man who promised the anti-gun Brady Group to work the gun control issue “under the radar,” meaning he would attempt to impose gun control via alternative, stealthy and secret means – using the Executive branch and bypassing Congress.

We have the NDAA which authorizes indefinite detention of American citizens without due process and at the same time a government that defines “terrorists” as the enemy, and ordinary Americans as “potential terrorists.”

There was the Benghazi, Libya cover-up where the government has basically been caught red-handed in a blatant lie about what happened that day, and how and why our consulate and its occupants were attacked.

We see supporters of Obama declaring (in an effort to further divide and conquer) that anyone who doesn’t believe as they do must be engaging in a “war on women” because some people disagree with their views on issues like abortion and MANDATORY birth control and other coverage being paid for by employers that do not want to pay for certain things on moral grounds.  (When did we decide we wanted the government telling us what to do?)

We see the Department of Homeland Security goons expanding well beyond airports to interstate highways, bus and train stations, high school dances and sporting events.  They are also making HUGE procurements of ammunition, weapons and vehicles that they would use against the American people, since they can only operate domestically.  They are also establishing “FEMA Internment Camps” for the imprisonment of American citizens.

We see unmanned drone attacks on the soil of countries we are not at war with, killing American citizens without due process.

We see a President with a secret kill list of people, possibly even American citizens, he plans to execute without due process.

We saw the entire city of Boston put on “lockdown” into a de facto martial law because there was one 19 year old who may have been armed on the loose.

We have seen our right to privacy disappear, as now every electronic transmission over the phone, the air or the internet is being tracked, monitored, logged, warehoused and used against us.  Your financial and health care information has also been co-opted by the government.

We have seen parental rights to their own children attacked and questioned by elitists who support the state and believe the state knows better than parents how to raise children.  Melissa Harris-Perry went so far as to go on the record dismissing parental rights in favor of children belonging to the collective (AKA the state.)

With each of these disturbing developments, ask yourself “why are they doing that.”

This never-ending parade of usurpation of power and attacks on states’ and individuals’ rights has been accelerating at an alarming rate.  The tyranny ratchets up just fast enough for the people to tolerate it without a revolt.  The people have become complacent, ignorant, lazy, selfish and dependent.  In a word, children.

The people do not care if the rights of their fellow Americans are being violated, especially if they are on the other side of the political aisle.  As long as the 51% of the population that are those “children” keep getting the stuff they were promised the state can continue its march toward tyranny unabated.  

What these Americans don’t realize is that those “enemies” who are under attack today speak out for the rights of all Americans, not just their own.  By sitting idly by while those who speak out and question the actions of the government are attacked, Americans are putting their own rights at great risk.

 

 So, if we were to recalibrate that Martin Niemöller poem to 2013 America perhaps it would read something like this:

First they came for the Tea Partiers,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Tea Partier.

Then they came for the Christians,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Christian.

Then they came for the Gun Owners,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Gun Owner.

Then they came for the Businessmen,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Businessman.

Then they came for the Home Schoolers,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Home Schooler.

Then they came for the Journalists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Journalist.

Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.

Go ahead and make your own version of it if you want.  The point is they are coming.  We have provided plenty of examples of this government abusing its powers to intimidate and make examples of those who question it.  We have provided examples of the government apparently making preparations legally and logistically for the next phases of their power grab.

The path toward tyranny has been set, and the hour is late, but there is still time.

Will you speak out?

Or will you quietly wait for them to come for you?

http://www.2acheck.com/then-they-came-for-me/

--
Thomas 

It is hard to free fools from the chains they revere.  
 Voltaire

A lie told often enough becomes the truth.” 

-Vladimir Lenin

"Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God."               
-Thomas Jefferson 

"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free."

-Goethe                       

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