One Hundred Million Waldens

There comes a time when you realize that your country is run by criminals in their own interests that and you are powerless to do anything about it; moreover, you are made to be complicit with their criminality through taxation and the threat of violent reprisals if you act.

And what if you do act? The forces arrayed against you (militarized police and the compliant media) are such that you will be exterminated, quickly and effortlessly, and then publicly defamed. The criminals with whom you must deal have seen to that in advance.

If you have committed yourself to non-violence as a principled way to disassociate yourself from the criminals, you will earn their smirking appreciation; nevertheless, the path of non-violence is the only truly honorable one and, you, wishing to be nothing less than honorable, adopt it.

What then is left? How to live? What to do?

You convert your home into Thoreau's cabin in the woods. You fly the blue flag of the Invisible Whitmanian Republic. You teach your children that no man or woman of true courage or genuine honor would ever consider joining the military. You give your surplus income to righteous causes. You do not look the other way but speak rationally and in a low voice about the unfreedom that is the American way. You live frugally, refusing to enter the consumption-mad lifestyle of bread and circuses. You talk to your friends and neighbors about strategic non-voting. You make tea and love. You surround yourself, as much as possible, with beauty.

And you wait.