First They Came For The...

Trey Smith

But that’s the point: once something is repeated enough by government officials, we become numb to its extremism. Even in the immediate wake of 9/11 — when national fear and hysteria were intense — things like the Patriot Act, military commissions, and indefinite detention were viewed as radical departures from American political tradition; now, they just endure and are constantly renewed without notice, because they’ve just become normalized fixtures of American political life. Here we have the Obama administration asserting what I genuinely believe, without hyperbole, is the most extremist government interpretation of the Bill of Rights I’ve heard in my lifetime — that the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee that the State cannot deprive you of your life without “due process of law” is fulfilled by completely secret, oversight-free “internal deliberations by the executive branch” — and it’s now barely something anyone (including me) even notices when The New York Times reports it...
~ from How Extremism Is Normalized by Glenn Greenwald ~

(Maybe I'll make this a "Glenn Greenwald" feature day.)

What Greenwald focuses on the cited column is the slow and methodical way government can brainwash its citizens. When language or laws are first adulterated, it is something of a shock to the system. There may be some initial outrage. However, if government leaders do not overreact and keep repeating their message at every turn, it begins to take on the characteristics of a new norm. In time, what was initially shocking loses its shock value altogether and people merely accept it as business as usual.

This tack is a hallmark for the destruction -- not the protection -- of freedom and liberty. It closely resembles the same blueprint utilized by Hitler and the Nazis prior to World War II. The government slowly, but continuously, pulls in the leash of protected rights and, before the citizenry is fully aware of it, those rights disappear. The people look at each other and ask, "How did this happen?"

The worst part of this insidious kind of strategy is that, at the point the majority realizes what actually is going on, it's too late! They find that they are encircled and enmeshed within a police state and any meaningful efforts to try to push back are met by the full force of that state. Fighting back becomes an exercise in professional OR personal suicide.

The only way to combat this sad state of affairs is to do what courageous writers like Greenwald is doing: expose it AS it happens in the hopes the people will stand against it before the point of no return is reached.