Vivat Libertas

Something I've noticed more and more, and something I really should have been seeing less and less of, is that even though we're supposed to have a democracy - you know, rule by the people and all that - most people are very passive. They put faith in their elected leaders and in the unelected corporations who, directly or indirectly, run much of the world, trusting that these smart people know what they're doing. Well, the financial crisis should have put paid to that notion, but some people just don't learn... ...I've noticed something else as well. Quite a lot of these people are hung up on the notion of personal responsibility, which once upon a time used to mean acting wisely and is now an excuse to blame the oppressed for their situation. Yet they're not willing to take responsibility for themselves or their society; they're not willing to stand up for themselves or for other people, because they think that it's not their place to do so. In a...

One of the worst traps to fall into is that of elitism: they  are stupid, they  are cruel, they  are unworthy, they  do not deserve freedom as much as we , the worthy ones, the Elect, do. Let them  rot in their own filth. I understand the appeal of elitism. I understand it all too well. I've told people who have pretty much openly told me that they want to remain stupid and ignorant that they can go die in a fire, that they can rot in their own filth for all I care, that they make me ashamed of humanity. I could have said and done much, much worse, but it was neither the time nor the place. For any person, there is a temptation to see it as me, my group, the good ones, the Elect, versus the evil, stupid, ignorant masses who are beyond saving. This is the point at which I sound naive, idiotic, childish, any number of things. Throw enough insults at me and some of them are bound to stick, I guess, but all the same...if you're only going to fight for a better s...

Free your mind and your ass will follow. That's something the very wonderful @nagoul1 has said before, and the more I roll the phrase over and over in my brain, the more I realise he's right. It's doubtful whether one can have a truly free and humane society when people are brainwashed and unable to think for themselves. It's almost certain that, when those same brainwashed people live in an unfree society, they will be unable to break free of it - at least, not without freeing their minds. A free or unfree mind is in many ways a dangerous thing to talk about, because there's always a risk of mistaking "disagrees with you" for "brainwashed" (no, they're not the same thing). The key to identifying an unfree mind isn't by whether they agree with you or not, it's by how dogmatic and illogical their beliefs are, and the dishonest lengths they will go to so that they don't have to give up those beliefs. A lot of people have unfre...

I pride myself on my leftism. I'm young, so I haven't been to many protests; I spent much of my life as a capitalist sheep, so I haven't spoken up much. I plan to change that. I want to march in the streets - fight, if that's what it takes. The people (or should I say sheeple?) around me seem rather disturbed by this course of action. Ostensibly they fear for my safety - really, I think they fear for my sanity and their social standing (for the record, I'm the sanest and happiest I have ever been, and I don't give a fuck about the society game). If standing up for basic human rights, if standing up for what I think is right - as should be possible, nay desirable and encouraged in a free and humane society - means that I risk anywhere between arrest and death (while people aren't dying in the UK yet, people in other countries are), I'll stick my neck out and risk arrest and death. Someone's got to do it, after all. Someone once remarked to me ...