They came for the communists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a communist;
They came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a trade unionist;
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 out for me.
- Martin Niemoller
It would be quite easy to modernize this but I won't, it conveys the same deep meaning now as it did when it was written in the 1940's. Bit by bit, generation to generation our liberty has been quietly stolen. Others with no right to it have come to power under pretenses which were either noble but misguided or outright false and taken things away from us that were not theirs to take. Liberty is something that cannot be touched, tasted or smelled, but when it is gone its absence is obvious.
Think of the "evil" smokers and how they are not allowed to smoke in their own apartments in California, not because the property owner restricts it (which was their option all along) but because an overreaching state government passed a law restricting what they could do behind closed doors. And how was California able to get away with it? Because most folks don't smoke now days and don't care what is done to smokers because it doesn't affect them. An even better example is the laws in some states against sodomy. I know sodomy is still illegal in Texas and Pennsylvania to name 2. Step past the immediate thoughts of the gay rights debate and look at the larger issue... These governments are regulating what 2 consenting adults can do behind closed doors in their own home on their own property. If that is acceptable then what is to stop them from forcing us to install remote control devices in our thermostats so the state can regulate our energy use (in other words how warm or cold our homes are)? That is something the California State Assembly is actually trying to pass right now. Or to use the ridiculous to make my point why then can't the government create and enforce a law requiring the interior walls of all homes and apartments to be painted baby blue? Once we as a society allow our state and federal governments to dictate the goings-on inside our private property the sky is the limit.
Time and again these laws slip in because they seemingly only effect a small percentage of the populations and we Americans have a track record of being terribly short sighted and when it comes to our voting horribly self centered. Though I do not see a Nazi-style genocide in our future, I do fear the slow onset of a totalitarian regime as we pass law after law and regulation after regulation that mirror those put in place by dictators such as Hitler and Stalin. Don't wait until "they" come for you and there is no one left to speak out.
They came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a trade unionist;
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 out for me.
- Martin Niemoller
It would be quite easy to modernize this but I won't, it conveys the same deep meaning now as it did when it was written in the 1940's. Bit by bit, generation to generation our liberty has been quietly stolen. Others with no right to it have come to power under pretenses which were either noble but misguided or outright false and taken things away from us that were not theirs to take. Liberty is something that cannot be touched, tasted or smelled, but when it is gone its absence is obvious.
Think of the "evil" smokers and how they are not allowed to smoke in their own apartments in California, not because the property owner restricts it (which was their option all along) but because an overreaching state government passed a law restricting what they could do behind closed doors. And how was California able to get away with it? Because most folks don't smoke now days and don't care what is done to smokers because it doesn't affect them. An even better example is the laws in some states against sodomy. I know sodomy is still illegal in Texas and Pennsylvania to name 2. Step past the immediate thoughts of the gay rights debate and look at the larger issue... These governments are regulating what 2 consenting adults can do behind closed doors in their own home on their own property. If that is acceptable then what is to stop them from forcing us to install remote control devices in our thermostats so the state can regulate our energy use (in other words how warm or cold our homes are)? That is something the California State Assembly is actually trying to pass right now. Or to use the ridiculous to make my point why then can't the government create and enforce a law requiring the interior walls of all homes and apartments to be painted baby blue? Once we as a society allow our state and federal governments to dictate the goings-on inside our private property the sky is the limit.
Time and again these laws slip in because they seemingly only effect a small percentage of the populations and we Americans have a track record of being terribly short sighted and when it comes to our voting horribly self centered. Though I do not see a Nazi-style genocide in our future, I do fear the slow onset of a totalitarian regime as we pass law after law and regulation after regulation that mirror those put in place by dictators such as Hitler and Stalin. Don't wait until "they" come for you and there is no one left to speak out.
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