Defiance, defiance, defiance
There’s a natural mystic
Blowing through the air
If you listen carefully now you will hear
This could be the first trumpet
Might as well be the last
Many more will have to suffer
Many more will have to die
Don’t ask me why
Things are not the way they used to be
I won’t tell no lie
One and all got to face reality now
Though I try to find the answer
To all the questions they ask
Though I know it’s impossible
To go living through the past
Don’t tell no lie
— “Natural Mystic,” Bob Marley & The Wailers
Spencer Tracy played Chief Judge Dan Haywood in the 1961 classic “Judgment at Nuremberg.” At the end of the film, Haywood agrees to meet Ernst Janning, the distinguished German jurist he has sentenced to life imprisonment for crimes against humanity.
Played by Burt Lancaster, Janning offers an explanation that has echoed across generations:
Herr Haywood, believe me, we didn’t know it would come to that.
Haywood’s answer is one of the most profound lines ever delivered in an American film:
Herr Janning, it came to that the first time you sentenced a man to death whom you knew to be innocent.
I’ve thought about that exchange repeatedly over the past week.
Not because America is Germany. It isn’t — but because every constitutional democracy faces the same test.
The question is never whether liberty can disappear overnight. It can’t.
The question is how many people, entrusted with authority, will decide that loyalty is more important than law, power more important than principle, and ambition more important than honor.
It never comes to that all at once.
It comes to that one compromise at a time.
One act of cowardice at a time.
One rationalization at a time.
One public lie after another until what once would have shocked the conscience becomes routine.
This week, Americans watched a nominee for attorney general appear before the United States Senate, while simultaneously confronting extraordinary ethical questions arising from a federal judge’s referral for disciplinary proceedings.
Think about what that says.
Not merely about one lawyer, but about us. About what we’ve become willing to tolerate.
The rule of law isn’t an abstraction. It’s the foundation upon which every other American freedom rests. If it collapses, every constitutional protection becomes contingent upon the whims of whoever possesses power at any given moment.
The right to speak.
The right to worship.
The right to dissent.
The right to protest.
The right to vote.
The right to criticize those who govern.
These rights are not gifts bestowed by presidents. They belong to the American people.
Yet everywhere one looks, there are pressures designed to convince citizens that constitutional liberty exists only so long as it doesn’t inconvenience those in authority.
That’s the language of authoritarianism.
It’s always been the language of authoritarianism.
What we’ve witnessed in America this week wasn’t just preposterous, it was exceedingly dangerous.
It’s perfectly clear that Donald Trump and his ranking Little Eichmann Stephen Miller believe it is time to turn on ICE’s license to kill wantonly and randomly.
And there’s another development that should concern every American.
The military profession is built upon discipline. Not politics. Not ideology.
Discipline.
Every officer swears an oath to the Constitution of the United States — not to a president, not to a political party, and not to a movement.
That distinction is among the most important safeguards ever devised by free people.
When it begins to erode, republics become vulnerable.
This week, Americans watched a Blue Angels F/A-18 streak so low over a crowded Florida beach that beach chairs, umbrellas and startled families were caught in the aircraft’s wake. Whatever explanation ultimately emerges, professionalism exists precisely to prevent unnecessary risks and lapses in judgment.
The larger concern isn’t a single flyover. It’s the culture surrounding it.
The Pentagon should be the guardian of military professionalism, not another stage upon which partisan politics is performed.
Military excellence requires humility, discipline, restraint and accountability.
Those virtues can’t co-exist with a culture that prizes ideological performance over professional standards.
The danger is subtle at first.
Rules become optional.
Standards become negotiable.
Professional judgment gives way to political calculation.
Officers begin to wonder whether pleasing powerful politicians matters more than exercising independent military judgment.
History offers many examples of where that road leads.
None end well.
The American military is among the greatest institutions ever created by a free people because generation after generation understood a simple truth: its loyalty belongs to the Constitution.
Not to any man. Not to any faction. Not to any political movement.
The same principle applies to judges, prosecutors, federal agents, and to every public servant entrusted with authority over another citizen.
Their duty is to the Constitution. Nothing else.
The American experiment isn’t being tested by foreign armies.
It’s being tested by whether Americans still possess the moral courage to defend constitutional government against corruption, intimidation, political fanaticism and the seductive temptation to excuse abuses of power when committed by people they happen to support.
Some will insist this is alarmism.
History teaches otherwise. History teaches that free societies are rarely conquered before they first surrender their confidence in themselves.
They lose the habit of insisting upon standards. They normalize conduct they once would have condemned. They become accustomed to the unacceptable.
That’s how it comes to that. Not suddenly, but gradually — until one day people awaken and wonder how everything changed.
Some of us have never wondered. We’ve watched it unfold in plain sight. We knew where contempt for the rule of law would lead. We knew where contempt for truth would lead. We knew where the celebration of political violence, intimidation and corruption would lead.
It has come to that.
There’s no longer any honest reason to pretend otherwise.
The answer can’t be despair. It can’t be submission. It can’t be silence.
The answer is peaceful, relentless constitutional resistance.
Vote.
Organize.
Speak.
Protest.
Persuade.
Defend the truth.
Defend the courts.
Defend the Constitution.
Defend the republic.
Because no generation inherits America’s freedom permanently.
Every generation earns it.
Now it’s our turn.
I dissent.
Such an outstanding post. I can still see Spencer Tracy’s and Burt Lancaster’s faces in my mind’s eye saying the words you quote in your post. It was powerful. I talk to almost everyone I come in contact with about the ICE murders. Every American should be up in arms about this. This innocent people are gone. Their families will never see them again and for absolutely no reason. What the hell? You say we aren’t Nazi Germany, but aren’t we? If the arm of the president can kill with impunity in the streets of our country, how would you describe us then?
Last night, I watched the Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell. Rep. Jim Himes and Andrew Weissmann discussed tRump's deranged speech about our elections. They both said that he is setting the stage to seize ballots in places like Georgia when he looses in November. I tossed and turned all night, thinking about this terrifying possibility.