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A Politician
Cannot Make You Free

By Punkerslut

Image from PeaceLibertad Blog
Image: From PeaceLibertad Blog,
"Politique" Gallery

Start Date: November 22, 2009
Finish Date: November 22, 2009

"It has cost mankind much time and blood to secure what little it has gained so far from kings, tsars and governments."
          --Emma Goldman, 1940
          "The Place of the Individual in Society"

     The role of a governor is the role of a master. They pass laws and give orders; and they use force to enact their commands. Freedom is the reverse of this. It is when the subjects of governors resist and revolt where laws become unreasonable, unnecessary, and oppressive. Real liberty can only be maintained by the people watching their masters -- and doing all that they can to limit and control their leaders.

     If there is an instance where the politician gives liberty, it is not because they have the choice. It is to satisfy the cravings of the majority of the resistance -- to give as little as possible to quell the masses from revolt. When the Tzar gave the Russian people civil liberties in 1905, it was in response to their organized revolution. It was a weak offering, and it only satisfied the Liberals -- who then worked to break the strikes of Socialists and Anarchists.

     But the liberty that came to the people, it was not just handed down from the philosopher king after careful consideration. It was taken from the claws of embittered, privileged authority; it was ripped from the hands of a selfish, power beast. Liberty does not come from politicians, political parties, and those who live through the laws. It comes from the peoples' spontaneous action to defend themselves, their communities, and their rights.

     Consider if a congress or parliament suddenly decided just to give people liberty, without the demands of a revolution. For a moment, the government feels itself to be a charitable guardian, allowing the people to have some freedom. Rights to "profane" speech in public, to radical ideas in newspapers, to consume intoxicants and drugs, and to organize and associate for unpopular causes. On occasion, a ruler will become infatuated with some democratic idea, and they will hand down the liberties.

     Once they become bored with democracy, they still possess the power to withdraw the liberty. With a signature and an order, a politician can bring back any law, any enforcement, any restriction on personal freedom. Since the people did not demand the right in the first place, they will be not organized and ready to resist losing their freedom again. They will be lulled back into the darkness of the cave, after being out in the light for just a few hours. Some voices will protest, but they will be arrested, tried, and convicted.

     That is the natural character of the politician. They do not look at the people as their brothers and sisters, their fathers and mothers -- the politician looks upon the populace as their prey. They lure them in with popular slogans and a hollow substance, they make strong appeals to "dignity" and "strength" and "determination." Their abstract language never reaches topics like the homeless, or starving children, or increasing unemployment rates. It is an undefined agenda, that could mean anything to anyone, but it sounds good enough to the voters. Especially when their only other option is another politician from a different political party who sounds exactly the same.

"...legislative bodies and courts deciding what we can and can't do with your bodies. Whether they have any right to do so or not is beside the point. They have the power to do it, and when they exercise it, the result is much more likely to be repression than freedom."
          --Wardell B. Pomeroy, 1991
          "Boys and Sex," First Edition, Page 55

     The politician flirts with the people at one moment, and then floats with private interests the next. They welcome the peoples' natural hope and spontaneous goodness; but they turn on them, and feed them to their personal wars. Battles for political offices, for back door handshakes with wealthy interests, for passing legislation that offends the peoples' good sense, for the complete servility of the population. The government representative has all the power in the world to hurt those they govern; and so very little ability to actually help them.

     If we want to guarantee our liberty, we cannot rally for this or that political party. We cannot vote our freedom into existence. We cannot collect signatures to bring about liberty. Rights do not originate from the ballot box, but from organizations of the poor, the alienated, and the angry. It is the only way to create a liberty that is certain to resist the politicians' attempts to destroy it. When the workers protest for their right to organize, they'll be ready to resist the politician taking that right away. And the hawks-of-humanity will swoop in once a Capitalist has enough money to pay for their vote in congress. The workers, ready to strike and resist, will be capable of defending their liberty.

     Compare this with if the right had just been given by a political party. If the right was given to the workers by the "workers party," then they would be powerless if their party suddenly gave up support of that right. Their new master, the political lord, is not them and does not feel their interests. The politician, isolated with the power of their supporters, can grab their support with promises of liberty, and once powerful enough, to take them back.

     Real freedom is not given, it is taken. It is not allowed by an oppressor, but it is demanded by the oppressed. It can only exist where the free are ready and organized to protect their freedom when a master tries to impose their will. For those of us who are motivated by a genuine desire for liberty, our best action is to organize. To prepare ourselves into a form where we can readily resist a tyrant that seeks to take away our liberties and our rights -- to make us serfs, dominated by bosses and police officers. If you want real freedom, organize for it, and take as much as you can from the tyrants!

"...extensive conquests, when pursued, must be the ruin of every free government; and of the more perfect governments sooner than the imperfect; because of the very advantages which the former possess above the latter. And though such a state ought to establish a fundamental law against conquests; yet republics have ambition as well as individuals, and present interest makes men forgetful of their posterity."
          --David Hume, 1754
          "Idea of a Perfect Commonwealth"

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