Silently Quoting Caligula

Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, nicknamed "Caligula", was, as you may have guessed, a Roman Emperor. He has been portrayed a lot of times as a hedonistic, insane ruler given to excess.

I read up on him and found out that the first few years of his reign was actually celebrated by the populace. He removed a lot of taxes, gave prizes to the audience in the arena, and what-not. It is when the Empire went almost bankrupt that lost the people's love and he became an intolerable tyrant. Anyway, just do your own research.

I wrote this in light of the recent events in this country.

I have been trying to make sense out of all the clamor that is going on. I have read the Republic Act and I think it is good and really helpful except for a few things. And those few things are what everyone is fussing about. I am not sure if they know it when they drafted the bill, or if they knew it after it was blown out of proportion, but there is one theme prevalent amidst all the chaos.

Fear.

The thought of online freedom being curtailed makes us cringe. Every word you say can and will be used against you. Your electronically expressed thoughts may be used as prima facie evidence of violating the provisions stated in the law and without court order. While the law mostly reads harmless enough, it is the interpretation of it by those who have the power but not the discernment is what we are afraid of. We fear that the law will be abused, that even your most innocent little comment about how this country is being run will be considered libelous and can serve as your one-way ticket to jail. Underneath it all, we fear that this is the way cyber-bullied personages are getting back at us. And I think they are banking on that fear, if only to pull the reins on netizens gone wild. Hence, I imagine them silently quoting Caligula:

Oderint dum metuant.

But it is just an emotion, and as with all emotions, it clouds our better judgment. We might be tempted to answer in ways that we might regret. I have seen a lot of flaming status messages and I understand because humans' initial reaction to fear is hate. We would either fight or flee. But since it is a gruesome process to leave the country, we'd most likely choose the former.

Let them hate as long as they fear.

Hate is intense, blind hate even more. There goes your dangling bait.

I know that my fellow netizens are intelligent, discerning and creative. (Unfortunately, I am not generalizing. All baskets of society have rotten tomatoes.) I am pretty sure we will come up with a well-thought response to this seeming madness.

Oh, and by the way, Caligula is the first Roman Emperor to be assassinated. Cheers!


This is not illegal, but it is vague.