Posts tagged freedom

Freedom is natural. It exists on it’s own, an immortal drive and need that comes from the very nature of our beings.  Domination, on the other hand, must be imposed.  Domination requires someone to pursue it, to make it happen.

Ultimately those who wish to dominate cannot outlast the drive to be free.  This is why freedom will always win in the end.  Dictators will die, but the drive for freedom never will.

But, just as night must follow day, and shadow is cast by the light, there will always be those who wish to dominate.  But I pity them, the petty dictators.  For all their works they are doomed to death.  For all their bloody minded hatred and destruction, they crumble even as they would claim victory, as age withers their body and minds and they cast away from themselves the very people who would preserve them.

It may be that we will not see the day, nor our children, or our children’s children, but to that we have the power in our own hands.  To pull together, to build our strength and bring close those who seek liberty.  We have unity.  We have brave hearts and like minds.  Our hands stretch around the world and our cries are echoed a thousand fold.  We cannot be held back forever.

I cannot abide the idea that there is no such thing as freedom of will and that we are all victims of cause and effect.  People who make such statements worry me.  I wonder how they cope with life.  For while it is true that there is much outside our will that occurs, that doesn’t change our capacity to choose how to deal with it.  These people must be fatalists at heart, already believing that everything is set in stone before they are ever born.

Perhaps there is some perspective on will that I am missing.  Some other meaning that eludes me, but I simply refuse to accept that freedom of will does not exist.  Of course there are contesting wills.  I do not live in a vacuum.  Other people take actions outside of my ability to control and fate itself does not move at my whim.  But resistance does not equal non existence.  Failure does not equal impossibility. 

For my own part, I make my own choices.  I do not see the obstacles of reality as proof that we are victims, but proof that we have the power to choose.  For nowhere is it better seen - this power of choice - than in the choices we make when our wills are contested.

PIPA, SOPA, it is not a question of if they would fail, but only a question of when.  Such attempts at blanket control, especially of a people who have tasted freedom, are never going to be successful, if for no other reason than humanity cannot be indefinitely subdued.  Freedom is an innate desire, built into our very being.  It cannot be wholly removed or suppressed.  Countless times throughout history, the tale repeats itself in the fall of mighty kingdoms and the bloody revolution of the enslaved.  Humanity cannot be repressed.  We will have freedom, if not given now, then taken later.

Even if the laws were to be passed, they would come into being with a numbered life, counted by the toes stepped on and the voices silenced.  Because they cannot really silence our voices, only muffle them, contain them.  But, like any force, once contained the voices of the oppressed become more powerful, more explosive.  And the more voices they stuff into containment the more explosive, the more powerful the protest would become and the more marked the resistance.  The very powers that would have capitalized on the abuse of power would find themselves suffering, as they face countless angry and vindictive citizens demanding their rights restored.

So, in this way, we should not fear these laws.  They are doomed.  But their doom is forged by our hands, and it is in our choices that the when of their failure is determined.  Sooner or later?  But don’t fight them out of fear.  Fight them out of pride, out of dignity, out of honor.  Because we are humanity and we will not be oppressed.