>>26
Which is precisely why killing individual footsoldiers is such a massively stupid place to start.
- The surveillance picks up many, if not all, the idiots plotting and doing it
- The police mindset cements into «[dissenters] are criminals that must be found and taken out, one way or another. It's them vs us, they are the enemy»
- FauxNews spew out that precise line to the sheeple, who then turn into willing informants while continuing to march in lockstep with the Ministry of Truth
- It then becomes damn near impossible to convince the sheeple, much less the police, that non-sheeple are actually not the bad guys
- The Empire wins. Thanks to you scoring an own goal.
To put it another way:
The Empire is too powerful to assault head-on. There is no way in hell you can ever win.
Which is precisely why you need to be smart. In the words of Jello Biafra:
Don't hate the media, become the media!
One crucial way for the Empire to keep and maintain power and control, is to control what people get to hear. What they get to know. There is a reason why all dictatorships worth a damn, seize control of mass media first chance they get.
All the revolutions that have actually succeeded, have first won the hearts and minds of the people. You don't do this by first attacking people that they've been conditioned to see as heroes. The very least you must first do, is to convince them that your designated victims are actually the bad guys and deserve what they get. If you're dumb enough to skip this vital first step, then you deserve to lose.
And then there's my original point: most of the Empire's foot-soldiers are, at worst, punch-clock villains. If you assault them personally (as opposed to, say, showing them how and why they're on the wrong side in the first place), you'll only waste an absolutely perverse amount of time and energy on a needless battle that only serves to give you a bigger enemy and guarantee you'll lose.