A man is none the less a slave because he is allowed to choose a new master once in a term of years. Neither are a people any the less slaves because permitted periodically to choose new masters.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that having the ability to choose leadership does not equate to true freedom if the underlying system remains oppressive.
Lysander Spooner's quote highlights a critical perspective on freedom and choice in governance. It argues that merely allowing individuals or societies to change their leaders at intervals does not eliminate their status as 'slaves' if the structures of power and coercion remain unchanged. Thus, true freedom requires more than just the ability to choose; it necessitates a fundamental rethinking of the systems that govern society.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about the importance of true democracy.
The principle that the majority have a right to rule the minority, practically resolves all government into a mere contest between two bodies of men, as to which of them shall be masters, and which of them slaves; a contest, that-however bloody-can, in the nature of things, never be finally closed, so long as man refuses to be a slave.
For a government to declare a vice to be a crime, and to punish it as such, is an attempt to falsify the very nature of things. It is as absurd as it would be to declare truth to be falsehood, or falsehood truth.
And the men who loan money to governments, so called, for the purpose of enabling the latter to rob, enslave, and murder their people, are among the greatest villains that the world has ever seen. And they as much deserve to be hunted and killed (if they cannot otherwise be got rid of) as any slave traders, robbers, or pirates that ever lived.
A married woman has the same natural right to acquire and hold property, and to make all contracts that she is mentally competent to make reasonably, as has a married man, or any other man.
Slavery, if it can be legalized at all, can be legalized only by positive legislation. Natural law gives it no aid. Custom imparts to it no legal sanction.
Those who deny the right of a jury to protect an individual in resisting an unjust law of the government, deny him all defence whatsoever against oppression.
Always you have been told that work is a curse and labor a misfortune. But I say to you that when you work you fulfill a part of earth's furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born.
The world is a demon. It is a kingdom of which the puny ego is king. Put it away and stand firm.
Tell her this And more,— That the king of the seas Weeps too, old, helpless man. The bustling fates Heap his hands with corpses Until he stands like a child With surplus of toys.
Religion is capable of driving people to such dangerous folly that faith seems to me to qualify as a kind of mental illness.
All treaties between great states cease to be binding when they come in conflict with the struggle for existence.
To pray is to pay attention to something or someone other than oneself.
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