Thank you for this powerful excavation of history. What strikes me most is how little has changed in the behavioral script: cruelty is never incidental, it’s instrumental. From Hoover’s raids to today’s “war within,” the same pattern repeats…fear manufactured, dissent criminalized, and human beings reduced to props in a theater of control.
I’ve been writing about this for months: cruelty isn’t a byproduct of authoritarianism, it’s the point. It’s the loyalty test, the spectacle, the signal that law has been hollowed out into performance. Your piece underscores that lesson with clarity, and reminds us that silence only feeds the machinery.
— Johan
Professor of behavioral economics and applied cognitive theory
This is critical to national security. Stop what you are doing and if you are a flag officer, be in Quantico pronto to hear the TOP TWO civilian leaders of the U.S. military establish new instructions.
Thank you for this powerful excavation of history. What strikes me most is how little has changed in the behavioral script: cruelty is never incidental, it’s instrumental. From Hoover’s raids to today’s “war within,” the same pattern repeats…fear manufactured, dissent criminalized, and human beings reduced to props in a theater of control.
I’ve been writing about this for months: cruelty isn’t a byproduct of authoritarianism, it’s the point. It’s the loyalty test, the spectacle, the signal that law has been hollowed out into performance. Your piece underscores that lesson with clarity, and reminds us that silence only feeds the machinery.
— Johan
Professor of behavioral economics and applied cognitive theory
Former Foreign Service Officer
This is critical to national security. Stop what you are doing and if you are a flag officer, be in Quantico pronto to hear the TOP TWO civilian leaders of the U.S. military establish new instructions.
https://hotbuttons.substack.com/p/omg-no-bopping?r=3m1bs