A Day To Reflect On Liberty

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

What does liberty mean to you? To me it seems that the wiccan rede is a good definition of liberty, though I am not Wiccan, and have no religion, this line fits the definition of liberty better than any other single sentence I have ever come across: “Do as thou will, so long as it harms none.”

I am not harming anybody, but yesterday morning, on July third, 2009, I was chased off the wharf in Santa Barbara for using an open power source to power this computer. That power is paid for by you and me. Every time I walk into a store, or get a paycheck, I get taxed. Those taxes pay for the electricity I am using, but according to the city's code, my using that power is “theft of services” and the city worker told me that if I did not leave he would call the Harbor Patrol and they would write me a ticket.

So, this morning, on the fourth of July, 2009, I am writing them a ticket. It is simply ridiculous the point that this country has come to. Honest, hardworking men and women cannot feed their families. People are losing their homes all over this country. The homeless population grows every day. While the big, multi-national corporations get bigger and join together in a spiderweb of deals and stock options. The USA is dead my friends, we have become the Corporate States of America—and we have become slaves. Slaves to the dollar, yet the dollar is slipping in the money market, so what does that make us?

It makes me angry, very angry, I don't know about you, but to me it seems that the greedheads just don't understand the story of the golden goose at all, and they are killing us. I don't ask for much really, I don't need fine china, I don't need a giant house, though I would like one, a small house on some land would be cool. I am not asking anyone to give it to me, I work, I write, I pay taxes, I should be able to acquire these things on my own. But, the fact in California, in the first decade of the third millennium is that for most people these things can only be acquired by selling your soul.
What do you think we should do about that? And, why do you suppose that ethnic animosity is encouraged by the elites? My opinion is that the term divide and conquer was made for Capitalists because as long as the ordinary folk are busy hating and killing each other, the people in charge can manipulate themselvesand milk them like cows. Do you want to be a cow? Steak on the table for Dick Cheny? Really? A year or so ago, when gas was $4.25 a gallon, Exon/Mobile declared a quarterly profit...profit...of nine billion dollars. Quarterly profit...three months...nine billion dollars...profit, after paying all labor and materiel they had nine billion extra dollars. With nine billion dollars, you could feed all the hungry people in this country, maybe even in the world, for a year. That is just one of the big companies, we could talk about Mitsubishi, or Time-Warner, or Daimler-Benz, or Haliburton, or Nabisco, or Microsoft (although you have to give Bill Gates credit for philanthropy, dude has given away a lot of money).

Instead of bitching though, take some time today to reflect on the nature of liberty, and the fact that all us poor suckers are busy hating on each other instead of on the big boys. They don't like each other, but they cooperate. If all the little people would just work together, the world would be a much different place. Like the Door's said, “they got the guns, but we got the numbers...” and what really pisses me off is that we are getting eaten alive with our own complicity. Stop saying ok to your own destruction, please.