You Have Power Over The State — Never Forget This

Live boldly and live well, and if the state comes for you let them destroy you for what you are not what they want you to be.

These days I think often about what Solzhenitsyn said in ‘The Gulag’ about crime and punishment: He said that when the powerful come for you there will be a temptation to believe them when they say you must confess to whatever they have charged you with, even if it is untrue — or if it is true, but not morally wrong, a crime which offends only the powerful but not the righteous.

This, he says, is a mistake. Don’t believe anything they say. Don’t confess to anything. If the powerful want to destroy you, they will destroy you. That is the reality of it.

What the powers that be want from you is for you to take responsibility for their own cowardice and moral depravity. They want you to confess so they can blame you for their own compulsion to destroy and control and otherwise embody the worst possible human traits. Do not give them this. Make them destroy you for what you are. Don’t apologize, don’t confess.

Solzhenitsyn recommends you see clearly that once you’re in the jaws of the powerful you cannot save yourself. Instead, recognize that your life as you knew it is over — a bit early, to be sure, but over nonetheless. If you lived well and lived with your eyes…