Dangerous games

By Jim Thompson
HCP columnist

With a headline like “Dangerous Games,” there are many directions we can go.  

The WNBA is one, especially if you are a white woman playing for Indianapolis.  

Iran is another, especially if you dare believe the Iranian leaders and their promises.  

The White House Ballroom general contractor (and subs), if they don’t have a clause that covers capricious delays, can be in serious trouble.  

Military officers in charge of munitions stockpiles are another.  

Then there are the Flock Cameras.

However, let’s talk about these communists (which I will also call despots) running around, either in office or aspiring to be in office in our government (at all levels). This is a particularly dangerous game, for it can usurp all the other “games.”

The poorly informed, the weakly learned in history, may see this as an innocent exercise of constitutional provisions. It is not. It is exactly how Stalin murdered 20 million of his fellow Russians. It is how Hitler murdered 6 million Jews plus sundry non-Jewish. It is how Mao murdered countless millions of Chinese. 

It starts with grandiose speeches. The notification that you are the downtrodden. Empathy toward poor you.  

Then the promise of free stuff. And finally, elections with rampant cheating. The knives and the guns come out later, after control is seized by apparently legitimate means. This has been the sequence in every case.

Except we now have a new tool for the despotic resource bag. Actually, maybe two tools. The first is Artificial Intelligence, which can both be used by the despots to control the population and also used as an example by the despots of what may happen to the common person’s job (the empathy trick – poor you). 

Then there is the environmental movement. I believe the rabid in this movement will gladly join with the despots if they can be persuaded the despots will save the environment. (I have actually seen ideas like this promulgated in public forums.)

We have been saying for a number of election cycles that this next one is the most important. We can say it again now. The elections coming up in November are extremely important. And so are the ones after that…and the ones after that…until we let the despots win and they announce we no longer need elections. (Or, they give up.)

We can’t let the despots win. If we do, we have failed terribly at learning history and saving our country for future generations. 

Jim Thompson, formerly of Marshall, is a graduate of Hillsboro High School and the University of Cincinnati. He resides in Duluth, Ga. and is a columnist for The Highland County Press.