If We Were In a Totalitarian Society Who Would You Be?…

i dont want to start argueeing - but IMHO once dead you are DEAD, you can get up off you knees later

only start fights you can win - dying to " show them " is the dumbest thing i can immagine

surrender and oppression is not the end of the world - its the begining of the fight back

the idiot who died for naught on day one will be forgotten - the hero will be the guy who strangled the tyrant with his chains

YMMV - this is my personal view only

An interesting question which requires more than a quick ‘gut’ response.

It provides, perhaps, some understanding of why so many ordinary German people ‘turned a blind eye’ to the atrocities that were being carried out under the Nazis during World War 2. It doesn’t make it right …………. but it does help us to put ourselves in their shoes and to realise what an awful ‘no-win’ situation many of them were placed in.

So my answer to this very ‘thorny’ question is as truthful as I can possibly make it:

1st. I am afraid of pain – physical and emotional. So would I really be prepared to ‘stand up and be counted………….?

2nd. In a totalitarian state, it is not only the protestor who is arrested, tortured, maybe killed ……… it is her/his family too. Would I really want to be responsible for their demise?

But if I did nothing would they really be safe? After all, many Jews in wartime Germany thought they and their families would be safe if they ‘kept their heads down’…..but, of course, they were not………..

So, my response would be to either (a) get out of the country as quickly as I could, taking my family with me, or (b) if this were not an option, work for ‘the powers that be’ – (possibly doing whatever it took) and somehow try to ensure that, by giving in to the inevitable, I could maybe protect my family in some way, or, at least, make life a little easier for them.

I am not at all sure that (b) would work either. But if, for instance, I was a member of a cultural or racial group that was under threat, I honestly don’t think there would be any other alternative.

This would be going completely against all the political and moral codes I hold dear …… but I also know my weaknesses ………………….

None of the German people (except SS members) didn't know the Jews were being killed in the concentration camps. They were filled with propaganda to hate the Jews anyway. It's just like if a load of Islamic people were tken "back to the middle east" when they were actually being killed.

only start fights you can win - dying to " show them " is the dumbest thing i can immagine

surrender and oppression is not the end of the world - its the begining of the fight back

the idiot who died for naught on day one will be forgotten - the hero will be the guy who strangled the tyrant with his chains

YMMV - this is my personal view only

duly noted

although i am not so sure that oppression is all we'd see, i mean it's not like we could simply discard 20th century experience, can we? as i said i am realistic, i believe the chances are slim, no matter what we do as individuals (especially if you signed an anti-EU petitition like me - hey, that was before 9/11 & the surveillnace state), as for being forgotten, i have no problem with that, but i do have one with wasting your only chance you see, once a totalitarian regime is worked up it's indefinitely more difficult to topple, the next (comparably) easy chance is a lifetime later - see USSR.

so, the motto for tomorrow

you're just one kill away from a military grade weapon

how's that instead of waiting for the allies (who would that be?) to free your CC? no trying to convince you just my 2c

[edit on 14-10-2005 by Long Lance]