On Crossing Lines and Personal Life

First off, I think I should say this is an unusual post from me and not that political a one although it may seem so at first.

I am wrestling with questions of when a political situation gets so toxic that one can no longer pretend it’s o.k. to be on the wrong side.

Allow me to spell this out. Obama with his illegal recess appointments and with his attack on freedom of religion is openly playing the tyrant and ignoring the Constitution. He has twice crossed very important Constitutional lines in recent days and willfully so. And I fear for the future. If he would do this before the accountability of an election, what would he do after?

And I’m beginning to relate to those who found themselves under the rise of Nazism and wondering what to do. Remember the road to the death camps was a gradual one. When one realized what was going on, it was too late to do anything about it. For too many, it was too late even to flee.

Yes, I know I may seem alarmist, and I am not expecting Leftist American death camps in my lifetime at least. But where does this attack on the Constitution and on our freedoms stop? If Obama is re-elected, it most certainly will not stop here. I have repeatedly warned that Obama has a totalitarian impulse, and I meant it. And events are proving me more right than I want to be.

But to the heart of my dilemma, at what point does one decide one cannot divorce the political and personal? And what does one do then?

An example: A supposedly Christian friend on Facebook openly cheered Obama’s illegal appointments. I knew he was of the Left, but I was so taken aback that he would support this that I wondered what else he was capable of. So I unfriended him. I do not want him involved in my personal life. He has broken my trust. And I pruned my friends list of a few others as well.

Yes, a small step, and I know some may find it petty. But if an evil regime crosses a line, should I ignore it and pretend it’s o. k. if someone cheerfully crosses that line as well? Remember that many apparently nice people who loved their families and were good neighbors and mowed their lawns worked for the Nazi death machine. And, again, that descent began gradually with lesser monstrosities first.

(Yes, I know some may find me violating Godwin’s Law. But what happened to Germany is the prototypical example of how a civilized people, even with a long history of the rule of law, can descend into almost pure evil. I can now very much relate to the ethical issues that confronted everyday people who lived in the midst of that darkness.)

I am wrestling with such issues. And I am having not a little trouble putting it into words. But at what point does one refuse to agree to disagree? And just how should that affect one’s personal life?

I have no easy answers. I am not even sure just what I should do. Still, I do think the current regime is so toxic and so dangerous that we are at the point where divorcing the personal and the political is becoming more and more untenable.

And, yes, even as political as I am, I hate that.