1/ Thanksgiving was wonderful, but I cannot help with watching what is going on with shut downs, arrests, and everyone from blue checks to every day people celebrating arrests and shut downs, and actually whining about family gathering size, and think of Solzhenitsyn. I am struck

2/ by Solzhenitsyn's reference to "rabbits" in Gulag Archipelago. Rabbits is the term he uses to describe certain Soviet residents arrested by the NKVD (predecessor to the KBG). Rabbits were people arrested in the name of "security" of the State. What made "rabbits" unique was

3/ the fact that they "did nothing wrong." Rabbits were bewildered by their arrests. Disoriented. Solzhenitsyn is epic is his combination of matter of fact description and empathy for the Rabbits. Rabbits were conformists. Rabbits did their jobs. Rabbits kept their heads down.

4/ Rabbits just tried to live their lives, scratch out an existence, and find small joys in life. The State was everything. Provider of everything. Arbitor of thought and conscience. The State was the protector. However, the State demanded protection itself. Everything was

5/ provided by the State, and the State demanded everything in return. Your skills, your mind, your fealty, and your soul (not that a soul was a permitted luxury). There was another thing that the ever giving State demanded, blood. Blood, but not just blood of criminals or real

6/ threats to the State, but Rabbits as well. Every time someone says "x saves lives," or "we all need to pull together to do x for the betterment of all," or "if you do not do x, we all suffer," remember these were the exact same slogans papering the Soviet State. Your ability

7/ to conform and attempt to be absorbed into the warm bath of the State will not save you, because the State demands Rabbits. I do not know if Solzhenitsyn hunted rabbits. I do not know if he knew that when threatened, rabbits often freeze. Once frozen, they are easy prey.

The State counts on Rabbits, and counts of Rabbits to freeze when threatened. There is no rhyme nor reason to the needs, just needs. So when you receive an edict, please at least evaluate on your own whether it makes sense to you, not whether it makes sense to the apparatus.

9/ Even if you conform and follow, always evaluate what is being asked of you. That is the first line of defense to being a Rabbit. Solzhenitsyn knew this, and expressed it. I am thankful that I still live in a country where enough individuals hold fast to its once universally

10/ held ideals that I can still warn about Rabbit-hood. I want to have a world for my children and their children where Gulag Archipelago is literary, not cautionary. The crisis of COVID is a chance to be sensible citizens and neighbors, but it is also a chance to resist Statism

11/ when conformity and individual liberty are easily sacrificed to garner safety. Good night, G-d bless, and understand I do not hold myself out as anything but a provider of food for thought, reminding of the lessons of a great man, Alexander Solzhenitsyn.