Once,
Long ago,
Two twins were born;
Order and Tyranny.
Staving off chaos,
Our ancestors empowered the seemingly wise and mighty with lawmaking authority
And gave its enforcers the keys to all the cities
And all homes within them.
Oppression is as old as the law itself.
For every one hundred or one thousand people
Who fearfully have surrendered their power
To those who would provide the semblance of safety,
There is a lost, delusional child
Hungrily waiting to take the reigns of that force
And impose their will upon the flock.
The desire for control that comes from damaged self esteem,
The greed that comes from fears of instability,
The moral or racial intolerance born of every conceivable human weakness;
These are the qualities of those who would wear the mantle of “leadership”.
These are the wastrels who stage their coups and lie for votes.
They rise on the blind assent of the misguided many,
And they work to cast their shadows over the whole of the earth.
They know that if the herds are fed and kept hefty,
Their comfort will keep questions at bay.
The know that if our hands are full, just struggling to take care of ourselves,
We’ll have neither the time nor the energy to involve ourselves in the grand, obscene games they play.
They know that if they use magicians’ tricks,
Smoke and mirrors, sleight of hand and red herrings,
They can obfuscate the truth and keep us all from knowing enough to feel justified in our outrage.
The twins,
Order and tyranny have fought now for millennia.
Order has spoken with many voices, in many ways.
By the Jew who bade the Pharoh let his people go.
By the slaves of Rome, crucified by the thousands along the Apian Way,
By the freedom-seeking carpenter betrayed to his own cross,
By the little Hindu man who told the British Empire “no”.
By the woman who refused to leave her seat on the bus.
By the young men and women gunned down on college campuses, decrying a futile military engagement.
By those labeled traitors for asking to have evidence that there were weapons of mass destruction in the land of oil and corruption.
Agree or disagree with the causes or the words.
It doesn’t matter.
They are alarums raised in the hope of justice.
They are fists clenched in the struggle for peace.
They are the voices of dissent.
Those same voices of our nation’s forbears,
Crying out against the injustices of the autocracy that worked to deny this land its greater destiny.
They are the voices that should have been heard when the American Indians were sold diseased blankets by our own army.
They are the voices that should have been roused to shouting when Jews were relocated into the ghettos of Germany.
They are the voices needed when issues of Homeland Security need to be reconciled with Constitutional reality.
They are the voices of dissent,
Uttered by society’s miscreants, rebels & jail birds,
And through these mouths order speaks to the world.
Theodore Roosevelt allied with order when he said,
“A typical vice of American politics is the avoidance of saying anything real on real issues.”
“…it is unpatriotic not to tell the truth, whether about the president or anyone else.”
Jefferson spoke with this voice when he told us,
"A society that will trade a little order for a little freedom will lose both, and deserve neither."
“All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.”
Abraham Lincoln faced the chaos, and he left us with these words.
“The people of the United States are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.”
“To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.”
It takes more than a village.
It takes a people,
A nation.
A great nation.
A peoples’ national sovereignty is rooted in dissent.
It is how our great nation was born,
And it is how our nation is best nurtured.
Freedom is not safeguarded by guns and soldiers,
But by common citizens defying injustice.
Might is not wielded by kings and presidents
If it is not a mandate of the people.
I am an American,
And I am a voice of dissent.
I will not stand idly by whenever tyranny touches the world.
I am an American.
Do you see inequality?
Do you see the rights of others extinguished?
Would you safeguard your own rights as well?
Then be a voice of dissent.
Speak fearlessly.
We are Americans who tithe ourselves to liberty for all.
We are Americans who cast an educated and discerning vote.
We are Americans who vigilantly question our policy-makers.
Mine is the mind that demands my government’s accountability.
My defense of independence is in defending it for everybody.
Mine is a voice of dissent.
I am an American.