Quote from Rearden Metal:
Witches. Homosexuals. Political dissidents. 'Promiscuous' females (includes rape victims). Heretics/atheists. Academics/intellectuals/teachers. Successful businessmen ('bourgeois'). Scientists and philosophers who dare to break new ground. Every type of ethnic minority. Every type of religious minority â¦and even an assortment of artificially created 'minority' groups like the Rwandan Tutsis.
The history of mankind is absolutely riddled with senseless persecutions of those who happen to have the misfortune of being slightly different from the good, upstanding citizens of mainstream society. Thankfully, modern-day America has evolved and progressed above and beyond all that senseless oppressive nonsenseâ¦. Unless you happen to use prohibited drugs. If so, you're out of luck and now it's your turn in the barrel.
Is there really any question that the imprisonment of harmless men and women by the hundreds of thousands for the 'criminal offense' of choosing to put prohibited substances in their own bodies (or helping others who wish to do so) will end up on the same history book page as all the other senseless persecutions listed above?
I agree but it's rather utopian to think that only drug prohibition is a problem. It's not just drugs. There's also:
Exchanging sex for money. If it happens under the banner of marriage, it's ok to trade thousands of fucks (ok let's be realistic - one or two a month) for millions of dollars. If it happens on craiglist or a street corner, selling a blowjob for $50 is enough to land the prostitute (but probably not the customer) in jail. If an entrepreneur helps connect the two parties, they'll go to jail and get driven to suicide by the prospect of a 50 year sentence (
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4788703&page=1). Meanwhile, thousands of broke 3rd world women are literally raped dozens of times a day after being kidnapped and smuggled into the west, whilst law enforcement and mainstream society twiddle their thumbs and in some cases actually take part in the exploitation.
Taxation and government spending. Here's the deal - you either spend 40-75% of your work time labouring for a bunch of strangers you have never met, or you get sent to jail for 5-10 years or more. Given that only a small % of tax revenue is spent on national survival and keeping order, basically you are forced into de facto slavery for 20-30% of your life (assuming you earn a decent income) for the selfish personal gain of others.
Speaking of slavery - almost all countries in the world have active slave industries, either sex slaves/trafficked whores, or bonded labourers.
Democracy - in many "democracies" such as Brazil, Belgium, Australia, it is a criminal offense not to vote, for which you can go to jail. In those where it's not mandatory, your vote is irrelevant. A democratic vote only matters when an election is tied, and otherwise has no impact whatsoever on majority opinion. Living in a democracy is basically living in a dictatorship of the masses.
Non-democracy - people are such cowards that much of the world's population lives under even more oppressive regimes than democracies. For example in China, there are over 1 billion people, and not a single one of them has the balls to assassinate their current dictator(s). Zimbabwe is being ruined by one old man, and no one has the balls to kill him.
The draft. If your country has a dumbass foreign or defence policy, you can be enslaved and sent to die for a bunch of fat bald old men for no reason at all. You are just one jingoistic politician's say-so away from your life being turned into worthless cannon fodder.
Not being a computer expert - if someone doesn't like you, for a few hundred dollars they can hire a world hacker to plant child porn on your computer, then inform the police. In all western countries you will lose at least 50k+ on legal fees, and in all countries most likely go to jail for several years no matter what the evidence.
Being female. If you are a woman, you will almost certainly be sexually harassed, sexually assaulted, and have a good chance of someone trying to rape you at least once during your lifetime. 60% of your romantic partners will lie and cheat on you, exposing you to fatal HIV risk.
Being a non-white ethnic minority. You'll most likely earn less, be insulted regularly, occasionally get assaulted, more likely to be jailed or murdered, do more time for the same offence, get shot or executed, find it harder to marry and have kids, have complete morons form snap judgements about you that are completely wrong etc. People with similar physical features to your own will also stereotype you and assume you are a mindless collectivist like them.
Being homosexual or bisexual. In many countries you will get executed for this, in most you will get beaten up at least once, in almost all you will not have the same rights or social standing as heterosexuals, and abusive terms like fag, queer, or cocksucker will get tossed around in casual conversation as commonly as words like nigger and kike were 50 years ago.
Being an atheist or minority religious believer. About 1 billion of the world's population will be executed if they admit to atheism or change their religious beliefs. About another 4 billion have no chance of important jobs if they admit to being atheist or out of the mainstream religion, and will be in trouble when it comes to things like marriage, having kids, or trying to educate children in a factual manner.
Being under 16/18. You will be imprisoned in a slave society called school, where authorities will try to brainwash you with unscientific thinking, bullshit, and totalitarian control over your time and social life. You will be forced to learn meaningless or actually false information for 90% of your time there. In much of the world you will be brainwashed with religious beliefs. Unless you are 15+ and relatively good at fighting, you can be assaulted repeatedly with impunity by gangs of other kids, and sometimes by teachers/adults too. Your parents have the power to do what they like to you, short of sexual assault/extreme physical violence (in the long-run - in the short run they can do this easily and get away with it). No one will employ you or allow you to exercise other rights until you reach their arbitrary cutoff age for adulthood. If you leave either school or home, you will quite likely be kidnapped by the social services and forced into a children's home or foster home where the same things will happen.
Wanting to defend yourself and friends/family/loved ones from violent psychopaths. In most of the world it's either a crime to own firearms or to use them. It's often de facto criminal to defend yourself unarmed - if you are actually any good at it and the perp gets maimed or killed, you'll be up on assault/murder charges.
In other words - if you are a rational, intelligent person, then you will be persecuted all your life in numerous ways by pig ignorant prejudiced lemmings who have no respect for others and can't think for themselves. Given this depressing fact, the only rational response IMO is to jettison any naive feelings of community, national pride, social responsibility, or collective morality, and just evade their oppression as best you can. De facto liberty comes from *not being caught*, or finding legal or illegal loopholes to evade or minimize the persecution. So if you want to take hard drugs, fuck a different hooker every night, or avoid being drafted, go to places where they either don't persecute those actions effectively or at all, or where you can easily bribe or talk your way out of it.
Most people do not value their liberty as much as convenience, conformity and local ties, so they avoid making this choice. People not stuck in that mindset, and who are not flat broke, always have the option to change things.
If you had committed your "crime" in Amsterdam or Switzerland, or Rio, probably no one would give a fuck, and at most you might have to pay a small bribe or make a show of going on a treatment program. The notion that you might face a serious jail term would be laughable even to the law enforcement there. If you live in an oppressive society then the first thing to do is to get money and the second is to leave the country for somewhere you can be more free in practical terms.
Whilst I think that some of these oppressive tendencies will diminish as people get richer and more educated (assuming that system & tendency doesn't break down), many of them won't. Just look at the voting patterns of wealthy blue state enclaves, or more "progressive" countries like Sweden.
