Whew! This thread from Illinois's Governor JB Pritzker: 🔥
#Via Governor JB Pritzker/ govpritzker.illinois.gov‬
Feb 19, 2025, 1:44 PM
"The root that tears apart your foundation begins as a seed of distrust, hate, and blame.
The seed that grew into a dictatorship in Europe didn’t arrive overnight.
It started with everyday Germans mad about inflation and looking for someone to blame."
1/5
#Via Governor JB Pritzker/ govpritzker.illinois.gov‬
Feb 19, 2025, 1:44 PM
"I'm watching alongside Illinoisans what's happening in our country right now with dread.
The authoritarian playbook is laid bare: they point to a group of people who don't look like you and tell you to blame them for your problems.
What comes next?"
2/5
#Via Governor JB Pritzker/ govpritzker.illinois.gov‬
Feb 19, 2025, 1:44 PM
"My oath is to the Constitution of our state and of our country.
We don’t have kings in America – and I don’t intend to bend the knee to one.
I am not speaking up in service to my ambitions — but in deference to my obligations."
3/5
#Via Governor JB Pritzker/ govpritzker.illinois.gov‬
Feb 19, 2025, 1:44 PM
"It took the Nazis one month, three weeks, two days, eight hours, and 40 minutes to dismantle a constitutional republic.
When the fire starts to burn, every good person better be ready to man a post with a bucket of water if you want to stop it from raging out of control."
4/5
#Via Governor JB Pritzker/ govpritzker.illinois.gov‬
Feb 19, 2025, 1:44 PM
"Tyranny requires your fear and your silence and your compliance.
Democracy requires your courage.
So gather your justice and humanity, Illinois, and do not let despair overcome us when our country needs us the most."
5/5
I would have voted for him in a primary, if there had been an actual primary
It is not too early to begin speaking about the next leaders of this country. They will certainly emerge from the principled full throated resistance to the current madness.
If the media and the government let's them
Therein lies the challenge.
"Learning to Kill
It's odd the way that societies change. Time and time again historians and sociologists are taken aback in wonder and confusion at the sudden, dramatic, and often dangerous transformations of a people’s basic nature and identity.
When this occurs in individuals we call it insanity, and often look for psychological or biological illness to explain the anomaly. When it occurs in societies we call it inhumanity, and have yet to address its root cause.
There are of course the classic and well known transformations of good societies into those who embrace darkness, such as the Germans adopting the ideals of the madman Hitler, or the Italians adopting his lesser counterpart Mussolini. But there are unfortunately many lesser discussed and equally tragic examples of a societies transgressions against its own mores. From the ancient Greeks and Romans, to modern day Americans and Europeans, societies have shown a great propensity for suddenly abandoning their most cherished beliefs and morals, and in their stead, learning to kill.
To be sure, these transformations do not occur overnight, but are instead attended by a slow, steady, but ever increasing drumbeat of misinformation, dehumanization, beratement, and ultimate hysteria directed towards any perceived enemy. The voices of reason and dissent are routinely suppressed and discredited, the rule of law abandoned, and any possible sense of guilt muted by vague and overt appeals to absolute nationalism.
And so we find humanity today.
In the midst of the abandonment of our most basic precepts of humanity, we stand bare.
Learning to kill.
It's not as difficult as we thought."
SearingTruth
Very well said. I hope he can help put a stop to all this.
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