49 lines
2.4 KiB
Plaintext
49 lines
2.4 KiB
Plaintext
"To be GOVERNED is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed,
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law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached
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at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded,
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by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the
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virtue to do so. To be GOVERNED is to be at every operation, at every
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transaction noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured,
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numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented,
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forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of
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public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be placed
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under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted
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from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed; then at the slightest resistance, the
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first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harrassed,
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hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned,
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judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed, and to
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crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored. That is
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government; that is its justice; that is its morality."
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P. J. Proudhon, _General Idea of the Revolution in the
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Nineteenth Century_
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- * -
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If I had to answer the following question: _What is slavery?_
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and if in a single word I were to reply: it is murder, my
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thought would have been understood right from the start. I
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would not need to speak for long, to demonstrate that the
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power to deprive a man of thought, will, and personality, is
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a power of life and death, and that to enslave a man is to
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murder him. Why then to that other question: _What is
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property?_ could I not answer likewise: _it is theft_,
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without the certainty of being misunderstood, though this
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second proposition be but the first, transformed?
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Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, _What Is Property?_ (my translation)
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- * -
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"All men are equal and free: society by nature, and destination, is therefore
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autonomous and ungovernable. If the sphere of activity of each citizen is
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determined by the natural division of work and by the choice he makes of a
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profession, if the social functions are combined in such a way as to produce
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a harmonious effect, order results from the free activity of all men; there
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is no government. Whoever puts a hand on me to govern me is an usurper and
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a tyrant; I declare him my enemy."
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From 'Les Confessions d'un Revolutionnaire", 1849
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