The wise man Edmund Burke (1729 – 1797) once said, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” We suspect Burke was a reader of the Scriptures, for this is recorded for our benefit in Proverbs 24: 10-12, “If you are slack in the day of distress, Your strength is limited. Deliver those who are being taken away to death, And those who are staggering to slaughter, Oh hold them back. If you say, ‘See, we did not know this’, Does He not consider it who weighs the hearts? And does He not know it who keeps your soul? And will He not render to man according to his work?” The writer Jesse Campbell, on January 9, 2017, put it this way, “It’s always easier to do nothing in a difficult time, but it’s not what we were created for. God looks for people who will take the initiative, speak truth in hard places, say the last painful 2% that needs to be said, and cut off tragedy at the pass.” (explorethebible.lifeway.com.)
If you are not aware of KRISTALLNACHT (German, meaning “Crystal Night), or as we have come to regard it as “The Night of Broken Glass”, then let us simply state it was the beginning of the killing of around six million Jews, or over 60% of all Jews (jewishvirtuallibrary.org). The event itself began “On November 9-10, 1938, [when] Nazi leaders unleashed a series of pogroms [organized massacre] against the Jewish population in Germany and recently incorporated territories.” (encyclopedia.ushmm.org.) Why was this allowed to occur? “Fire fighters and police stood by, instructed only to intervene if neighboring ‘Aryan’ property were endangered.” “Large numbers of ordinary people, including women, were involved in looting and plundering, picking up goods thrown out onto the street and benefiting from the expropriation of Jewish property. Both young and old turned out to humiliate Jews with whole classes of schoolchildren brought by their teachers to see sites of smoldering synagogues and join the jeering crowds. While some were egged on by peer group pressure, many young people believed the Nazi view that the ‘Jews are our misfortune’ and that it was ‘time to put them in their place’.” Another reason for so few standing up to protest this atrocity was “. . . the obvious point about state-ordained terror and fear. If violence is initiated from above, in a state where active political opposition has been crushed, it is extremely difficult to engage in effective resistance.” “After years of repression, most dissenters were cowed into sullen silence.” “But there is also a more complex point to be made, about longer-term compliance with a prevailing climate of hostility toward those officially disparaged as the ‘other’.” “Others compromised less willingly, performing new roles in public and muttering disagreements privately, but fearful of being denounced if they stepped too far out of line.” “This creeping compliance in effect amounted to complicity.” “Put simply: the Nazi leadership had introduced a hostile environment and initiated practical measures, whether through legislation or violence, to establish an ethnically defined ‘people’s community.’ By being largely compliant, for whatever reasons, those who were not excluded had helped to create an even more hostile environment – one in which it was possible to carry out terror in broad daylight without significant unrest or intervention on behalf of the persecuted.” (time.com; November 9, 2018; Mary Fulbrook.) Does any of this sound familiar? If you are a conservative, believing the unchanging founding principles of our Nation, then this is currently a part of your lived experience.
The amount of anti-Israel protests world-wide, and the hostility expressed in these protests, truly baffle us. How much of this is being promulgated by social media, especially the questionable TikTok, with its connections to the CCP. Do those current government leaders in control of our political arena have the right, and do we allow them the power, to determine what limits can be dictated to our FREEDOM and LIBERTY? Be aware of the dangers of the current government’s push to establish the new “Digital Discrimination” rule which was part of the recent $1.2 Billion dollar “Infrastructure Bill.” The government has no right to legislate social outcomes. Are our schools and leaning institutions teaching accurate history in the hopes of not repeating the errs of past generations, or are they leaning in to teaching divisive, ideological propaganda?
How much is your FREEDOM and LIBERTY worth to you? How about to your family? How about to those who follow you in life, like your kids, grandkids, great grandkids, and those beyond them? If you knew for certain that your FREEDOM and LIBERTY were on the verge of being vastly reduced, or even eventually eliminated, would you respond to our questions differently today? Protect the defenseless. Uphold the righteous. Hold fast to God-given morality. Stand firm in the truth. And boldly proclaim the Will of our Creator.