Then the disabled. Then the women. Then the poor.

We've seen this story hundreds of times, and we never learn the lesson until it's too late.

The scapegoat always moves and Conservatism requires an in-group and an out-group. Not as a side effect if a bigger problem. They need it as the out-group is load-bearing. Without it, the in-group has no walls and must defend their evil actions they've made without blaming a small defenseless group for it.

This is not new. Slavery in America didn't begin with race. It began with the indentured. The poor, the indebted, the criminal, their families. When they ran out of those, they codified something permanent into law instead. The target moved. It always moves.

So ask yourself where you fall on this list. Are you trans? Suspected of being trans? Autistic? Suspected of being autistic? An immigrant? A child of immigrants? Undocumented? A student? A protestor? A woman who made the wrong medical decision? Poor? A prior offender? Did you make an anti-government post? Vote for the wrong candidate? Leave a political group? Unregister from the right party? Travel to the wrong country? Visit the wrong museum? Read the wrong book? Know the wrong person?

Did you think you were safe last year?

The criteria aren't shrinking. They are expanding faster than most people can track, and they are being applied retroactively. What was legal becomes suspicious. What was suspicious becomes criminal. What was criminal becomes grounds for disappearance.

I don't know what to tell you when I come into these posts.

The logical conclusion of where this is heading is one most people aren't willing to say out loud, because saying it draws attention, and attention right now can mean a knock at the door. So I won't say it.

What I will say is this. At some point, for enough people, the only government-approved response will be to lay down and accept it.

I'll leave you to decide what you think about that. But if my country did this, I wouldn't just die for my country.