Opus 2022-157: Critical Mass: When?

What does it take to begin the violence?

For a small minority only the belief that no one is looking.  I have not met many people like this but they exist.  I had a friend with a very short fuse.  There were times when a questionable look could set him off.  I think he grew out of it, sort of.  These people are on both sides of the aisle but get nasty for different reasons.  Those on the right simply have a short fuse and know they are wrong.  Those on the left plan the violence and justify it for political reasons.  

For most people it is the point where they realize that there is no other way to deal with the elites that have control.  There is a quote I have heard in different ways that is attributed to Alexander Solzhenitsyn.  

“You only have power over people as long as you don't take everything away from them. But when you've robbed a man of everything, he's no longer in your power—he's free again.”

I don’t think the elites believe this.  They look at history and see the Jews rounded up and put in boxcars.  They forget the little dispute in Warsaw.  They look at the peasants of the Ukraine and today the Uhghurs in China.  They think that Joe Sixpack can be put in the same category.  They may be right.  They intend to keep pushing until they find out.

Like any explosion there is some kind of critical mass necessary.  The term comes from nuclear reactions but the idea can be applied to almost anything that destroys.  If you have ever been trying to renew a campfire and see the sudden emergence of the flame from glowing coals you have seen it reach critical mass in temperature.  I guess you could even say that pop corn releases its energy when that point is reached.  

What will it take in our society?  Who can tell.  Will our country survive?  History does not give a lot of hope but we should remember that our first revolution also defied the odds.

homo unius libri