"Because a man stands up."
I was looking up the new star trek movie on imdb, and somehow I got sidetracked to west wing.

Anyway, one of the quotes from west wing has always stayed with me...it's when Charlie (Dulé Hill) is being threatened because he's a black guy dating the president's daughter. His response (as summarized by his boss) was "No, I won't stop it, because a man stands up."

I find that pretty compelling. The fundamental instrument of social change is... wait for it... the individual. Someone decides that *this* is too much, and stands up in the face of adversity.

This is probably the root cause of at least some major wars... When someone, or a group of people, decide that some (perceived?) injustice is worth fighting against, simply because it would be an affront to their pride to do otherwise. Somehow, they link these things with their fundamental personhood... A man stands up; because if I didn't, I would no longer be a man, but rather just a man-shaped animal.

Whether it's something as intangible as taxes on stamps or something as concrete as forced labor, there comes a point when you simply cannot push someone down any farther. Everyone has that point when they say "Enough is enough, this is not right!"

I'm not sure where I was going with this... Maybe a parallel can be drawn between our increasing willingness to sacrifice liberty for security and the gradual oppression of a people. Maybe more people need to think about at what point they become merely man-shaped animals unable to act according to their moral compass.

Maybe not, too.

Anyway, I'm off to work.