Although the scale of the present threat to our freedom is vast, exceeding anything that has gone before in history, it is not the first time that people have had to decide to resist, or revolt against, such a menace. During the Second World War, for instance, it was not only soldiers who had to gather their courage on the battlefield, to oppose and obliterate the threat that fascism held for the world, when six million Jews were murdered in the notorious gas chambers of Auschwitz, Dachau, and other death camps, let alone the millions of other people who perished in other countries such as Russia.

Many brave souls joined the resistance movements in the countries occupied by the Nazis, for example, knowing well that if they were apprehended, they would probably be executed. Even an individual who was a member of the Nazi Party – Oskar Schindler – had the courage to devise a scheme to save the Jews in his industrial workforce (in Poland) from probable death. His story has been captured in the film, Schindler’s List (based on an historical novel), directed by Steven Spielberg, and it conveys the risks as well as the courage it took to carry out such a daring scheme.

The list of known individuals who have risked their lives in a struggle for freedom throughout history does not end there, and it is salutary to remind ourselves of some of them. These include Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian, who revolted against the Nazis and was murdered by them, and Spartacus, the gladiator who rebelled against the might of Rome to free slaves from their inhuman yoke. Then we can add Mahatma Gandhi, Steve Biko, and many others, all of whom exemplify the willingness to fight for their freedom. What they all had in common was rebelling against an oppressor that was easy to identify, albeit not that easy to overcome.

Though I agree with his general characterization, this guy still doesnt get it.