Stand Alone: Challenge Others and keep Your Beliefs
I just spent time reading the book On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder. An interesting and some what scary vision of political take over through out history. It also poses the unspoken question of whether Americans have given themselves over to a dictator-one person party ruler and actually whether we can admit that we have fallen prey to this form of take over.
The book at one point lays out steps one would need to get a large population to give their entire support without real knowledge of what is going on. First by present inventions and lies, then invoking magical thinking which is actually a brilliant why of introducing plans of action that actually contradict each other: for example saying that the plan will be to lower taxes, reducing national debt, giving more funds to both social policy and national defense. Crunching the numbers this plan of action or these promises are not possible to achieve. In fact they contratict each other most likely one would have to raise taxes to give more funds to national security.
The book studies world war two and shows how people fell into nazi thinking without actually having nazi belief. Though many didnt want to kill the Jews many people did in beleif that this was a way to either end the war, help the country finacially or whatever. Remember the nazi party really took hold after the great depression hit and it didnt just hit America, the whole world was effected.
The biggest thing I got from this book and the best message i could pass on is whatever your beliefs whatever party you align yourself with stay a stand alone thinker. Remain your own person with your beliefs and question your party whenever they cross the lines of your beliefs. The best way to keep your party on the straight and narrow is to challenge. Keep what you believe and dont bend to any official who will make you bend your beliefs for some idea that they can change the largest problem as a whole. Be youself and stay independent.
