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“In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousand fold in the future. When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers, we are not simply protecting their trivial old age, we are thereby ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations.”
― Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956
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The term crossing the Rubicon generally means passing the point of no return, putting into action a series of events that cannot be undone. It originated from 49 BC when Julius Caesar was at that time the governor under the Roman Empire of the region of Gaul that is now northern Italy. He had gained a tremendous amount of strength as a conquering military commander during his term. He feared that he would be prosecuted for the crimes committed during his campaigns when his term as governor ended and the Roman Senate ordered him to disband his army.
He was ordered to return to Rome with the warning that he was not to bring his army across the Rubicon River which formed the northern boundary between Rome and Gaul. To do so would be considered an act of treason and insurrection. It would amount to a declaration of war on the empire.
Julius Caesar is believed to have said, The die is cast, as he and his troops waded across the shallow river, an act that led to the Roman civil wars and eventually to his brief reign as a dictator ruling Rome. It ended, of course, with his assassination in which he was stabbed 23 times by a group of Roman senators.
Here in this country, have we crossed our own symbolic Rubicon during the past week or so? I have thought that line was crossed several times in the past three years but these most recent actions by Individual 1 seem even more outrageous and dangerous to both this nation and the safety of the world as a whole. This person sees himself and those protecting him as being above all laws and he feels free to use the vast power of this nation for his personal protection, advancement and enrichment.
This person believes himself to be a sort of omnipotent Caesar rather than a president representing all the people of this country.
The die seems cast now, for sure. There is no turning back and lines have been drawn. There is no neutrality. Those who remain silent are complicit with these actions. They are enabling the destruction of true justice in this time and in times to come. The words at the top from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in his book The Gulag Archipelago are a warning to us based on hard earned experience. It is not mere speculation.
It seems we have crossed our own Rubicon here. We are required to speak up now.
We may not get another chance.
Nor may future generations.
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