Arbitrary rule has its basis, not in the strength of the state or the chief, but in the moral weakness of the individual, who submits almost without resistance to the domineering power. – Friedrich Hatzel
I could have started this essay with the famous Martin Niemöller “first they came for the communists” quote, but I’ve already used it; besides, this one makes an important point the other doesn’t. The apathy implied by Niemöller is only part of the reason people sit idly by while governments persecute others, and there is another, darker aspect to which Hatzel alludes with the phrase “moral weakness”: by and large, people tend to ignore evil as long as it’s being inflicted on those they don’t like. That holds true whether the perpetrator is a government, a collective group such as a religion, corporation or political party, a government actor such as a prosecutor or cop, an official of any collective group, or an individual perceived as an “authority” due to education, fame or whatever. As long as those being systematically persecuted, insulted, vilified, excluded, abused, assaulted, robbed, imprisoned or even murdered are the “bad guys”, the outsiders, the pariahs or even just “Not Our Kind, Dear,” most people are too morally weak to stand up for them even if they recognize the harm inflicted upon them as an evil.
After the legal precedent for violating a particular right is established with outcasts, it is easily extended to merely marginalized groups, and eventually to everyone (because you never know where those dirty witches/terrorists/sex traffickers/drug users/child molesters might be hiding; they look just like real people!) And by the time members of the majority group finally begin to wake up all the cops are armed with tanks and machine guns and the judges have given them carte blanche to invade, steal, assault, violate, maim and kill. The time to speak up was when the rhetoric started, when the hatemongers were still just talking and the politicians had not yet recognized the target of their venom as a “safe” one. While most of the young men being thrown into cages to rot were black and Hispanic, white America couldn’t be bothered to question the morality of mass incarceration. While most of the victims of prosecutorial overreach were businessmen and professionals on the one hand and poor minorities on the other, hardworking blue-collar folks indulged in the modern equivalent of jeering and throwing overripe fruit. While organized “feminism” was only subjecting sex workers, “rapists” and “deadbeat dads” to its aggressive smear campaigns and systematically destroying important legal principles (such as presumption of innocence, witness confrontation and equal protection) only in sex-related cases, American women cheered them on and shouted down those who questioned their actions. And when the targets of intrusive surveillance were only “criminals” and scary brown people with weird clothes, those who pointed out the growing danger were derided for “tying the hands of police”.