A Discourse on Liberty
A Discourse on Liberty
By Punkerslut
It is in the heart of every revolution, in the mind of every
Humanitarian; it is attacked by every dictator, scorned by every
politician; it is held in animosity by the enemy of the people;
held as the most sacrilige by every tyrant and the most sacred
by every freeman -- it is the dream of a lover while they sleep,
tossed and tumbled over their heart's desire -- it is the dirt
under the fingernails of a worker, writhing with pain that their
labors can feed their family -- it has been taught by
philosophers, it has been revered by wisemen... it is sought by
the heart and cherished with memories by the mind: it is liberty.
Some have argued that it is the presence of others that limits
our freedom. That it is the various wants of each man that
create conflict, which lead to fighting and wars. In heeding to
our natural instincts of survival and domination, mankind has
erected torture chambers, built prisons, put bondages on the
legs of individual thought, put chains on the hands of free
inquiry. Every new method of persecution and oppression has not
been left undone, left alone. It has been the taste of mankind
to seek wealth and glory, whether it leads others to lives of
misery and vice or not. So, it has been the argument of every
philosopher, of every statesmen, that the presence of many men,
and therefore, the presence of many interests, has been the
greatest obstacle to liberty. To some extent, my reasoning
ability must consent to this argument, that it has some merit,
that to some extent, it is true. But to tell half the story,
would be as much a lie as distorting it. A man would be a slave
if he were alone. Deprive any person from the society of their
fellows, and they will know what true pain is. For no man can be
free, when he knows that he cannot stimulate the emotions of
another, by exciting passions of either lust or affection, by
interesting another in stories and legends of times past. If a
man were to speak his heart, were to utter the memories his mind
had collected, and if there were no one to hear him, then he
would be truly a lone. The philosopher will call him free, but
he would still be a slave to pain. The statesman will call him
in liberty, but he would be in the shackles of loneliness and
depression. There are few individuals who would prefer life
without their lovers, over death with them. So, it must be
true... the man who lives with nothing but his reflection, may
very well be cursed to a miserable life. Just as the man who
lives with thoughtless and brutish persecutors, will be cursed
to a similar life.... liberty, therefore, is neither the
presence or lack of presence of persons, but your relationship
to them. It is this which cannot be denied, as it fulfills the
premises of reason, it serves the honesty of compassion.
Mankind has lost his freedom by being without company, and
being in the company of those who had the intention to exploit
him. The greatest evils of the world could be solved if
brotherly love were instituted in place of competition, if
charity was the virtue of the heart that was followed, instead
of the vice of domination being obeyed. What, then, can be said
of the liberty of women? As long as the Roman Empire existed and
Europe dissolved into Western civilization, women have been
regarded as inferior. The right to vote, something which has
been enjoyed by men for centuries, has only been acquired in
this nation in this past century. The wages between women and
men have been unequal, despite their equal capability of
productivity. In the mind of every intellectual, of every
thinker and philosopher -- except those who have arduously
followed the path of truth -- there has been a dogma, a social
idea, that women have an inferior sort of emotion, that their
thoughts are less valuable, that their affectionate is cheap,
that their love is dirty. They have been made the whores of
humanity, not on their own account, but on the account of their
oppressors. Half of the human species has been cursed with this
injustice, to be regarded as wholly inferior, in every aspect:
emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. They have relied on the
"scientific nature" and popularity of their understanding, just
to give this sort of cruelty an aura of legitimacy. I will say
this, though... Every woman ought to be free, from want, from
misery, from slavery, from everything that may inhibit true
independence.
The society of men has been ruled sometimes by savagery, other
times by domination -- one is regarded as civilized and the
other not so, but in both cases they operate on brutality,
cruelty, and a totally disrespect for the humanity of others.
One may be called primitive, and the other may be called
advanced, but both may as well be lost the understanding of
compassion oc goodness as the other. A society may best be
judged by the method it so decides to rear its children. As the
older generation teaches the younger generation, they are
deciding whether their minds shall soar freely and their hearts
shall genuinely follow their own desires; or they are deciding
whether they are creating filler for their cemeteries, whether
they are creating foddor for their prisons, whether they are
creating targets for iniquity and injustice -- if a society
treats its children brutally and harshly, without regard for
development or kindness, the generation will grow up, and on
their last breath, they will wonder why they did not follow
their dreams, why they did not seek out that horizon that was
shining just beyond their thoughts... but, they may wonder in
vain. And what do we do in our society? We force them into
schools, but the proper term may be prison. And how would you
define prison? As a place you are coerced into staying, without
any consent on your part? If that is a just description, then
the schools in our world are nothing different than prisons, and
it is their intent to form the social attitudes of children in
such an atmosphere, that perhaps one day they will obediently
abide by every unjust law, every decrease of their wages, every
oppressive military coup. If you were to gather up all children,
aged seven to seventeen, and if you were to ask them if they
felt that they were treated unjustly, the answers you would
receive would run the gamut. The younger ones, with less
exposure to prison life, would find greater injustice in it, but
since they were more impressionable, they would be more docile
and accepting. The older ones, with more exposure to prison
life, would find lesser injustice in it, but since they may be
more intelligent -- their reasoning faculties damaged by
schooling -- they may find more injustice in it. So, we have the
condition of the children of our western nations: imprisoned,
without hope, without dreams. Since the children have no souls,
the nation is the epitome of a slave state.
How mankind has treated his own species, how the husband has
treated his wife, how the parents have treated their children,
these are all signs that perhaps injustice will prevail before
justice can be sustained -- perhaps the battles we fight for
liberty and independence will be remember forever in the hearts
of every kind person... so that when they look at the stars in a
night sky, they can be sure that as they sleep, they will wake
to a world that does not discriminate, a world that will not ask
them to sacrifice their hopes so that they can survive. And
those mornings that they wake, the future generations, with only
the faintest memory of those dreams, of lovers, of family...
they will truly know that life is a blessing and death is a
curse. But, in all of the emancipations which have been engaged
in, one large group has been left out of the liberation: the
creatures of the world. They have, more or less, been treated
cruelly. Their persecutors will argue whatever they can, relying
on the same words of those who have oppressed men, women, and
children. "They are stupid, and have no rights!" -- "They cannot
live autonomously!" -- "They are inferior!" Every lie which has
been botched against the fragile face of the woman is now thrown
against that of the animal. As they argue against the rights of
other species, they are but echoing every voice to oppose
abolitionism. As the animals are herded, to move into slaughter
houses, to be executed, their pains of agony verbally expressed
are no different than those of a slave being whipped. Yet, while
human slaves have only been in the millions, the animals
slaughtered every year has been numbered in the billions! These
creatures, whom science have finally recognized as having their
emotions and their own society, not unlike human society, their
lives are destroyed, because they have the unfortunate genes
which made their flesh taste good to humans. No man of heart
will say they are to be without our pity, and no man of thought
will say they are to be without liberty. The creatures of this
planet must be recognized as having rights. And this ideal must
be enforced, just as men and women risked their lives to
liberate slaves, just as husbands gained the courage to treat
their wives with respect, just as parents gain the sanity to
offer only affection and gentleness to their children. The
animals of the world must be liberated. There can be no justice
while there are some suffering at the merciless exploits of
another.
It may have once been argued by a military advisor, that those
who are the strongest have the greatest success of being the
oppressors, and those who are the weakest have the strongest
chance of being the oppressed. The history of civilization will
prove this thesis to be true. It can be seen the countless
examples. First, it was man, the stronger gender of the human
species, which has more physical strength than woman. And he was
the first oppressor. But then justice came; man realized that it
was wrong to subject women to slavery, and women realized that
it was wrong to be coerced into a life of dependence --
together, the woman realized the independence of being free, and
the man discovered the duty of living a nobile life. Then there
are children, physically weaker and brought up to be mentally
submissive, who are put into submission of their elders. In only
a few countries, they have been liberated from dangerous factory
conditions. In only fewer countries, if any, they have been
allowed to pursue a free education. But much of the western
world resides in ignorance, as it believes that force is equal
to learning, that coercion is equal to education, that slavery
is the same thing is knowledge. Finally, we come to the last
class of the oppressed, those whose opinion have been given the
smallest The creatures of the world, often times deprived of
their natural habitat, and then selectively bred until they met
the needs of their oppressors. It has been argued by scientists
of ages past, that animals have no emotions, that they are
devoid of meaning, that they are not in any way worth anything.
This view has been upheld by theologians and philosophers. But
it has been these same people who oppressed the female part of
mankind, and it has been these same people who have oppressed
the younger generations of the human species. We find that
cruelty has been a distinct part of prejudice, and nothing can
make us feel so sure of this than how the minds of thinkers have
defended the injustices of society.
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