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We Own the Government

The oppressive society is fundamentally irrational, and all its legalities are for supporting irrationality. There is no legal way to bring about a rational society. There is no legal way to avoid war. There is no legal way to avoid being drafted and having to kill somebody when you are ordered to. There’s no legal way to not participate in oppression.

If you are in a runaway railway train that has jumped the tracks and is heading for the lake and the conductor says, “Don’t jump,” because he’s been trained to tell you not to jump (and, in general, it’s a good rule not to jump from speeding trains), then I think you need to become illegal at that point.

Lincoln [Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States from 1861 to 1865] said it well in his first inaugural address:

“This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it.”

He was right. Basically, of course, the government does not own us; we own the government.

Harvey Jackins

From The Rest of Our Lives, pages 19 to 20

(Present Time 185, October 2016)


Last modified: 2022-12-25 10:17:04+00