How would you choose ??

Let's say there is a cause that you believe in, but many people are very against it. So much against it, in fact, that you are concerned that to support the cause might cause trouble, if not violence, against your family, either now or in the future.

What would you do?

I've been thinking about this a lot lately. Not sure what started this thought in my head, but it lingers.

In the past, I would have said "safety be damned, I will not compromise supporting what I see as a good cause". Now that I have a daughter, I think "why would I put her at risk".
Really has nothing to do with me. Kill me. I'm saved by the blood of Christ. I'll see ya in Heaven. Whatever. But my baby? I'd do anything to protect her.

I struggle with which is the best choice: supporting a cause you believe in, and showing your children what it means to be committed to something and how important it is to throw yourself behind worthy causes, or keeping your mouth shut and protecting those same babies.

I just don't know.

You know in Nazi Germany, historians believe that the reason Hitler was able to rise to power and follow thru with his gruesome plan was because the German public was complacent. But now that I have a family, I wonder if complacency is the right word. Maybe they didn't do anything to stop it not so much out of complacency, but out of fear for their own safety, and the safety of their family.
And as much as we would all like to think that in the same situation we would rise up against such atrocities, if you knew that to do so would end up in your death, and possibly the death of your family, would you really? That if you were caught protesting the leader of your country you & your family would almost certainly be killed? Would you still do it?

I've studied WWII Germany in the past, for various educational projects. And I was always baffled at how such a large number of people, as the German public, could let such a thing happen. History has largely overlooked this occurrence. How could otherwise decent, loving human beings let such atrocities occur, how could they seem to not care? It just never made sense to me.

We probably will never know for sure. There are no records as to how many people actually supported Hitler, versus how many pretended to out of fear. But I think it's something worth thinking about.

After all, those who forget history, are doomed to repeat it.

I hadn't intended to go off on that Holocaust tangent, but the idea fits, that's just an extreme example.

Anyway, I think it's worth examining ourselves and our lives and thinking about what we would do. If for nothing else than to help us understand others, and to help us understand ourselves.

Take care, and God bless.