I think it only makes sense to seek out and identify structures of authority, hierarchy, and domination in every aspect of life, and to challenge them; unless a justification for them can be given, they are illegitimate, and should be dismantled, to increase the scope of human freedom.
Freedom and wildness, that which we were born into, is a grand mystery and miracle that creates a openness reserved not for barring us in but for keeping us out of cages. It is our ability to find the truth that has been a survival tool for our species both individually and corporately.
He who could want for nothing desires my being my essence. My fellowship. He wants my freedom for his sake and mine and it’s hard to comprehend this love. He created me for love and to love him. Yet this is not all he created me to be loved by him and to be sustained by this love.
For when everything is classified, then nothing is classified, and the system becomes one to be disregarded by the cynical or the careless, and to be manipulated by those intent on self-protection or self-promotion."[New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713 (1971) (concurring)]
The freedom we want, for ourselves and for others, is not an absolute metaphysical, abstract freedom which in practice is inevitably translated into the oppression of the weak; but it is real freedom, possible freedom, which is the conscious community of interests, voluntary solidarity.
Human freedom involves our capacity to pause between the stimulus and response and, in that pause, to choose the one response toward which we wish to throw our weight. The capacity to create ourselves, based upon this freedom, is inseparable from consciousness or self-awareness. (p. 100)
We're not mindless golems, designed to think exactly the same thing. To try to suppress those thoughts is no better than slavery, and being free to say what you want, write what you want or draw what you want, as long as it doesn't offend anyone... That's no freedom at all.
Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us."[The One Un-American Act, Speech to the Author's Guild Council in New York, on receiving the 1951 Lauterbach Award (December 3, 1952)]
I'd left them because I'd loved them. Beth and my parents and my friends and my life-my free, American life. I loved them, and if I had a chance to protect them from the people who wanted to destroy them then I had to take that chance even if it meant I would never see them again.
Yo pensaba que también podía ser heroico escaparse por gusto, sin más, por amor a la libertad y a la alegría—no a la alegría impuesta oficial y mesurada, sino a la carcajada y a la canción que brotan de una fuente cuyas aguas nadie canaliza.
I kept walking. Have you ever done that? Just walk. Just walk and have no idea where you're going? It wasn't a good feeling, but not a bad one either. I felt caged and free at the same time, like it was only myself that wouldn't allow me to feel either great or miserable.
It is not enough for a Christian to condemn evil, cowardice, lies, and use of force, hatred, and oppression. He must at all times be a witness to and defender of justice, goodness, truth, freedom, and love. He must never tire of claiming these values as a right both for himself and others.
In this place a mind was at work to negate the image of a free and intact man. It intended to rely on man power in the same way that it had relied on horsepower. It wanted units to be equal and divisable, and for that purpose man had to be destroyed as the horse had already been destroyed.
So many people spend years (and money) studying to be doctors, lawyers, actors, dancers, business executives and scientists - when you're an author, you can be any of these things, and you don't need a degree or certificate; all you need is an imagination, a dream and an open mind.
Whenever socialism appears it destroys at least one thing: diversity. Everything has to be "the best", but in reality as we know best things are scarse.. Let me remind you again, that for the Reds, "best" things are these things that they consider "the best" for us, not these that we like!!
