The cruelty isn’t the point. Terror is the point. So you learn to bow down. So you shut off your brain, stop trying to process the shouts and threats and just capitulate. So you prepare yourself in advance to obey unquestioningly any shouted order. No matter how confusing.

You must fall to your knees in the face of all that power and violence. Submission is the requirement. Renounce your will and independence of mind and bodily autonomy. Obey.
It will take quite a while to break all Americans of the habit of asserting rights and questioning authority and walking upright.

But I’ve been surprised at how quickly some of you have jumped on the “just obey” bandwagon. I thought we believed in freedom and independence and rights. Apparently there was some unstated rule that we were also required to submit immediately to anyone in any sort of uniform no matter how they approach us, and unquestioningly obey them.

So many of you seem really committed to the idea that our first response to being threatened is to capitulate. Fall to our knees and obey.

Is it that easy just to turn off our critical thinking, our sense of autonomy? Do you rehearse dropping to your knees in case you’re stopped? Do you train to immediately sort out conflicting incoming information, manage your terror, and latch onto the words you’re supposed to obey?

Of course many of you advocating for obedience are also hanging on to your weapons for dear life screaming about your right to defend your space, property, bodies, families.

Make any of this make any kind of sense.