On the auspicious 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, in 2014 Beijing was silent.

I was in elementary school at the time and entirely unaware of what was happening. My moral compass was guided by a narrative of “us” and “them”. Of a United States that loves freedom and a China that so clearly hates its own people. A narrative which, even then, I necessarily questioned its simplicity.

I have always questioned such easy answers. Particularly when they lead to simply “they are different from us.” Something inside me has always whispered “no they are not.”

History teaches us that militaries don’t slaughter their own people out of hate; but fear. Governments don’t threaten their own people out of belief in evil but belief in control. Those students, who stood up twenty-five years ago and were so viciously condemned for it were not victims of such easy ideological scapegoats as communism, governments, or culture. They became victims when powerful men felt threatened by them.

The question for us is not whether or not our own people could be the victims of tyranny, for so many are already in more subtle ways. The true reason we aren’t massacred is that none of us is enough of a threat.

There are many individuals that pose legitimate threats. From the [redacted] mass murder in Santa Barbara to those publishing supposedly ironic hit lists of politicians to those incited to kill their neighbors to help “take the country back” to those who take their message of hate veiled in Christian doctrine to Uganda, directing others to brutalize their own people; the threats are there. But these threats, spurred on by a culture of conflict aren’t big enough. They don’t threaten our very order.

Scarier threats [to the order], like Occupy Wall Street, which continues to condemn the support of centralized wealth and reckless, unregulated finance, have resulted in our people beaten in our streets: a systematic crackdown by not only local police forces, but with federal guidance. A threat to the economic system was enough threat to be taken seriously.

But bullets and tanks? No.

The reason we don’t see bullets fired on our own people is not because it couldn’t happen here. It has. And not because whoever occupies the White House at any time may be a crypto-fascist. Because some have been.

We don’t see bullets and tanks in our streets because we aren’t a threat to our government. Your stash of guns isn’t a threat. Your buying power as a consumer isn’t a threat. Your religious tradition should actually be a threat, particularly since Jesus was about as unpatriotic a religious figure as you can get; but it isn’t a threat.

To be a threat, we’d all have to march. We’d stop what we’re doing, and we’d unite. Unite for peace, education, and hope. Unite against abuse, indignity, and squalor. We’d unite for our communities, our land, and our health. And unite against injustice, oppression, and bigotry. We would unite around the very simple idea that we all deserve to live out that creed of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” rather than be stuck with detritus of those who so easily can afford it and those inclined to direct such pursuits only toward their friends.

Our government isn’t really threatened by us at all. We’re too busy threatening one another.

May GOD have mercy on us.