While Americans generally prefer to be left alone, there are times when one cannot remain on the sidelines.
Americans famously like to be left alone. The founding fathers envisioned a minimalist federal government with states taking responsibility for most issues that might affect a citizen. “Live Free or Die” and “Don’t Tread on Me” succinctly sum up an American's view of his relationship with his government. Americans are individualists and love their cars. European governments try to push everybody onto trains and buses.
While Americans tend to mind their own affairs, there are times when both the individual and the country as a whole can no longer remain neutral or uninvolved. The US did its best to stay out of both world wars, with large percentages of the population not wanting to get involved in wars that they did not see as their own. In World War I, the US only entered after the many deaths of American citizens at the hand of German U-boats as well as a secret cable (the Zimmerman Telegram) from Germany to Mexico promising the latter parts of the US in exchange for attacking its northern neighbor. Famously, Roosevelt could not get the US involved in World War II beyond Lend-Lease and the like until the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and Hitler declared war on the United States. After those turning points, the US was fully involved in both wars with huge expenditures and the commitment of millions of soldiers.
When one reviews the events of 10/7, he will note that the 1,200 people killed were not all Jews. Thai agricultural workers were both killed and taken as hostages. Additionally, Arabs who identified themselves as such and spoke with the Hamas terrorists on camera in Arabic were also killed. The Hamas charter does not say anything specific about Thai workers, and Arabs always try to present a united face against their common enemy, the Jew. The intentional and violent murder of non-Jews could be chalked up to a chaotic attack on Israel. It presumably should be more correctly associated with guilt by association. The Thai workers worked for the Jews in the kibbutzim that were attacked. One of the Arabs killed on camera was a bus driver. They were effectively given summary executions due to their proximity to Jews with whom they lived and worked.
One sees a similar phenomenon with the pro-Hamas protests and sit-ins in the US and the West. Protesters, an unholy mix of Muslim supremacists and anti-Western lefties, do not stop with the Jews. They routinely deface local monuments, replace national flags with Palestinian flags and at times attack non-Jews like the Columbia janitors who were physically accosted. Some have come straight out and chanted, “Death to America”, not making any effort to hide their plan to go beyond Israel and the Jews and take control of a nation that has given visas to millions of Arabs and other Muslims from backward and oftentimes autocratic countries where they would be jailed for expressing their political opinions.
As Hamas showed that they will kill anyone who crosses their path and the US Hamas chapters have telegraphed their antipathy for the West and their goal of destroying it, Americans specifically and Westerners more generally can no longer spend their days going about their routine business. They need to proactively fight what is not just an antisemitic movement in the West but also a fledgling effort to conquer Western institutions and wipe out Western values.
So what can an engaged individual do? How can he or she play a role in defanging the Islamist goals of destroying Israel, killing Jews and making the West Sharia states (all things that they have said unambiguously). For starters:
*Vote. At every level: from school board to US president. The US needs politicians who are willing to send home visa recipients who use their time in the US to foment violence against Jews and local institutions. The US needs leaders who will defund research at universities that let anti-US and antisemitic orgies take place on their property. This has nothing to do with free speech; this has everything to do with promoting the defective theory of intersectionality that makes Jews and whites the bad guys independent of any actions. For example: Hamas tried to kill as many Jews as possible, while Israel goes to great lengths to reduce civilian casualties. Yet, it is Israel that is accused of genocide because Jews are inherently the bad guys.
*Send your kids to schools that share your values. I know that this is easier said than done. Already in K-12 there can be indoctrination, and one can see what the universities peddle today. Do your best that your kids will continue to use their brains and not become indoctrinated drones.
*Stand for the Truth. One hears many distortions about 10/7 and its aftermath. Nobody was really killed in Israel. Israel is trying to wipe out the Palestinians. If you hear a lie, call out the liar. There are plenty of websites with accurate historical information about these events as well as the history of the Israeli-Arab conflict. Be armed with facts and silence the liars. One source of information, if you have the stomach for it, includes first-person accounts. It is called Screams Before Silence by Sheryl Sandberg.
*Support Israel in its fight. If Israel defeats Hamas and weakens Hezbollah, the Houthis and the rest, it will only weaken the Islamist goal of taking over the West. Victory or even a stalemate for the bad guys here will give them the belief that they can conquer the West.
Americans understandably want to be left alone. But as in the past, today there is a need for Americans to be engaged to help protect the West and its freedoms from a real threat brought by Islamists and their fellow travelers at home and abroad. After victory, one can return full-time to his own affairs. But right now, no one can sit this one out.