When I first moved to Sacramento, just out of high school, I worked as a telephone operator and at a time when we still used boards where lights flickered and you pushed a line into the hole where the light was and said “Operator.”
I did this one rather lazy afternoon and got a request, and honestly, I cannot remember whether it was Frank Sinatra calling John F. Kennedy or vise-versa. It was before that election!
I quickly closed the circuit, listening to a call would cost you jail. But I did tell the operators on both sides of me who I had just placed a call for and to whom. They immediately plugged into the call. The board repeated itself in front of each operator. When they hung up, I heard one of the operators, under her breath, say, I thought we lived in a democracy. I will never know.
Now we have all kinds of problems with those who would like our information, and no, this isn’t about the recent foolish actions of the leaders of defense, intelligence and the state department using an unprotected means of sending classified material. But they should probably listen to Snyder.
“Establish a Private Life:
“Nastier rulers will use what they know about you to push you around. Scrub your computer of malware on a regular basis. Remember that email is skywriting. Consider using alternative forms of the internet, or simply using it less. Have personal exchanges in person. For the same reason, resolve any legal trouble. Tyrants seek the hook on which to hang you. Try not to have hooks.”
Now I don’t find any of this relevant for me at the moment. I admit that at one time I had a mailbox at the post office which I used to write for information from racist groups because I didn’t want them to know my address since I was writing articles on them at the time. The only two unsettling things I received was information that a person I was writing about was actually a lizard man—this was from another person who thought he was doing research. And then there was the empty envelope with a very large knife in it, that was troubling.
But recently I have realized that several public figures, many Christian, have and are receiving threats, and some congresspersons do not speak up about their concerns because they fear for themselves and their families. David French is one Christian in particular. When he was speaking out against Trump in the 2016 election among other threats, he and his wife received, a picture of their young Ethiopian daughter placed on a picture of a gas chamber. The point is to keep your private life separate from your public life.
There is also the horror of people being taken off the street, accused of being gang members, without the right to prove they are not. I have written of some who are very close to me who are frightened because one of them only speaks Spanish although an American citizen. They both got passports so that they would always be carrying identification with them.
As Snyder writes, “What the great political thinker Hannah Arendt meant by totalitarianism was not an all—powerful state, but the erasure of the difference between private and public life. We are free only insofar as we exercise control over what people know about us, and in what circumstances they come to know it. During the campaign of 2016, Americans took a step toward totalitarianism without even noticing by accepting as normal the violation of electronic privacy. Whether it is done by American or Russian intelligence agencies, or for that matter by any institution, the theft, discussion, or publication of personal communications destroys a basic foundation of our rights. If we have no control over who reads what and when, we have no ability to act in the present or plan for the future. …”
But Christian let me add the future is in His hands so we in our faith have reason to act or plan for the future. And part of that is caring for those who live in fear, who have needs, who seek the safe harbor.
