RE: FATAL BLINDNESS

The war against illegal plunder has been fought since the beginning of the world.

But how is… legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply, see if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime. Then abolish this law without delay……. If such a law is not abolished immediately it will spread, multiply and develop into a system."

Martin Neimoller, who reflected upon Germany’s fall to the Nazis?

In Germany they came first for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew.

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

Then they came for Catholics, and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up."

If you are like most Americans, you didn’t bother to notice that when statists came for the owners of "public buildings," violating the property rights of these owners, that, in principle, your rights were undermined, undermining what you may do in your own home. You didn’t speak out because you are not an owner of one of these "public buildings."

When statists came for the owners of tobacco companies, infringing on their right of ownership and restricting their freedom of speech, you didn’t speak out because you are not one of the owners of a tobacco company

or you are not a smoker or you consider smoking to be an evil which must be wiped out at all costs, even at the cost of your freedom, your freedom to follow your own judgment.

When they persecuted and imprisoned innocent individuals for "abuse," you didn’t speak out because you were not the one being persecuted. When they imprisoned those individuals for disturbing the "wetlands," you said nothing because you thought it would never affect you, oblivious to the fact that your backyard is a “wetland."