A hypothetical question for everyone

Let's say that over the next 18 months that in one way or another we're stuck with martial law, and our rights (already curtailed to some degree) are completely taken from us. And just as quickly as an eye blinking, we're now stuck in a hellish country with no civil rights, with a burgeoning theocratic totalitarian government.

What are you going to do? How would you react to such a country?

Would you try to move out of the country?
Would you go underground and be part of a whole guerrilla warfare resistance?
Would you find yourself with little options and try to survive under the dictatorship?
Would you act as a spy for a reistance, but try to appear innocuous and live out in the open?
Would you willingly join up with the current leaders and laugh at the views you once held dear?
Would you attempt suicide?
Would you go nuts and try to assassinate the country's demagogic leaders?

Is there something else you would do?

I was going to be a soldier anyway, until I saw how we treated them.

Fuck all the administration; I don't care what party is in power. I will do what I can to protect and preserve the Constitution from its enemies.

That means act now. We're on the road. It's far easier to act now than it will be after martial law is declared. Action has to effect people's lives. Most people are apathetic about politics because they're too busy with other things. When politics impacts their lives they'll take notice.

Torture, suspension of rights, illegal invasions ... I still believe if people are actually forced into awareness, they'll react.

if I could get my entire family out as well. My husband and I are getting our passports and all our kids have them. I also have a contact in Canada who has offered assistance should the above scenario actually happen and you can probably tell from my plans that I think it will. Why else would * have made the executive order during the summer proclaiming himself "dictator" in an emergency. No protest or acknowledgment at all from our esteemed reps. And then he has blackwater to assist, because it is my hope that our armed forces would not support such a terrible move. And then there are all those new camps KBR built right here in the good old USA.

It's virtually impossible to put this country under martial law. Too many people, too much area.

But then, the prez would have to get all the governors to support it.

it wouldn't happen in VT- and my guv is a repuke.

GWB owns the National Guard in a case of "National Emergency" which he may declare for any or no reason.

He just needs enough troops to act as police and enough stupid people who will sit on their hands when it happens.

All too easy, in my mind.

Just sayin'.

You posted while I was writing my other response. :)

Who feels the need to self-censor your answer or not answer at all because of the climate that we live in?

No, really. You're doing their dirty work for them.

I have been reading "I Will Bear Witness" by Victor Klemperer, which is a diary of Nazi Germany 1933-1945.

During the last few years of Nazi Germany, as the Jews were being rounded up and sent off to Halliburton Homeland Security Camp, Klemperer, due to his convcersion to Christianity and his Christian (though not Bushie) wife protected him from being murdered, he still experienced the full brunt of the Bushies and write a wonderful "worm's eyes" view of life in Nazi Germany which, from 1933-37, reads so very much like Amerika 2001-07.

However, Klemperer and everyone else restricted to a Jews' House (Liberals' House?) had to deal with increasingly frequent and complete home searches by the Bushies.

Well, as these Bushies were taunting the helpless Jews, they would fequently remark ho it would be best if the Jews just hung themselves. Many did.

You shouldn't. To commit suicide is to let the Bushies and the Nazis win.

they will, someday, when they have enough votes, turn things around. Until then, I will just have to write more checks to keep them in office.

Victor Klemperer was a German-Jew, respected college professor, married to an Aryan, when Hitler came to power.

There are no death camps, no torture, no heroics, in his day to day diary of the years 1933-1945. Just the daily struggle of a patriotic, liberal, intellectual, surviving fascism.

Like most Germans, he thought that Hitler would be a flash-in-pan, popular, demagogue, who would quickly disappear because of his insane, and unworkable, policies. He thought that the "civilized" German people wouldn't stand for what Hitler did, let alone the rest of Europe.

His daily journal proves him, and the majority, of Germans wrong. When faced with totalitarianism and war, the vast majority of Germany rallied to the flag. There was, in reality, very little real resistance from anyone. Most people complained, grumbled, and made "little" acts of resistance - like the woman who spotted Klemperer's star and insisted on standing in the street and commiserating with him - which was illegal and could have got Klemperer killed and her imprisoned. He wasn't grateful for her bravery, he was terrified and tried to get away from her.

There were many Germans who probably theorized that they would do heroic things. A few did, some Communists and Socialists, some liberals, some Christians, some "ordinary" folk. But, the vast majority just tried to get by. They looked the other way, kept their voices down, did what they were told to do.

I find it hard to believe that Americans would act differently than the Germans..or, the Serbs or, the Hutus, or the Chileans, Argentinians, or any other people who found themselves crushed by a totalitarian government.

Does that mean a person cannot go to the grocery store and buy food? Does it mean they can't go to work anymore and stop by a store to buy items they want? Does that mean they get arrested for complaining to coworkers about the government?

How far are we talking about here? What are the constraints on us?

because 1) this is something I never thought we'd have to go through, and 2) because this is a hypothetical question. ;)

Actually, what WOULD we have to go through? I imagine it would have to be something less than what the people in the Soviet Union went through before its collapse, or those in East Berlin, but close enough to scare the shit out of us. Unlike those countries, however, I see far less of communism, and more like a two class system--the rich dominating over the poor and disenfranchised. There would not be a middle class. We would be denied much, and set up to fight each other at the visceral level (something we're already doing, dontcha know?).

Some people would eagerly get to be brown-nosers just for the extra perks it would give them. And more of us would be detained without habeas corpus, regardless of who we are.

This is not something I see happening exactly overnight--the whole thing could take years, but martial law would be the start of it.

When I set my mind to something I generally finish it.

Bryant
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