Revisiting "Civil Disobedience"
# Revisiting Civil Disobedience
>as I stood considering the walls of solid stone, two or three feet thick, the door of wood and iron, a foot thick, and the iron grating which strained the light, I could not help being struck with the foolishness of that institution which treated me as if I were mere flesh and blood and bones, to be locked up.
--Henry David Thoreau, "Civil Disobedience"
What an amazing quote from Thoreau, whom was imprisoned for refusing, on principle of "civil disobedience" to state overreach and the condoning of slave ownership, to pay his poll-tax. "That institution which treated me as if I were mere flesh and blood and bones, to be locked up." If reading that 180 years later doesn't make your hairs stand on ends, then what does?
Thoreau's transcendentalism resonates in these lines, reminding us that freedom is as non-tangible as your Bitcoin UTXOs.
## Freedom is relative, an ideal
I have considered the oft-lamented, anti-libertarian bane that is the social-welfare state and the exorbitant amount it costs the government, especially as I meet more-and-more people complaining about the bureaucratic buffoonery we have over here in Canadaland. Honestly, what a shit [show](https://www.google.com/search?q=chrystia+freeland+vibe+session&client=ubuntu-sn&hs=Y6o&sca_esv=3133dcedd35e4ac7&channel=fs&sxsrf=ADLYWIKZL1tDhgNn8Y3S03HcTrF5SWoU2w%3A1732664338564&ei=ElxGZ5iSIrGu5NoPr5bNyA8&oq=chrystia+freeland+vibe&gs_lp=Egxnd3Mtd2l6LXNlcnAiFmNocnlzdGlhIGZyZWVsYW5kIHZpYmUqAggAMgQQABgDMgsQABiABBiGAxiKBTILEAAYgAQYhgMYigUyCxAAGIAEGIYDGIoFMgsQABiABBiGAxiKBUinNFDFBFj_JnAEeAGQAQCYAboBoAH2CqoBAzMuOLgBA8gBAPgBAZgCDqACgwzCAhEQABiABBiRAhixAxiDARiKBcICCxAAGIAEGJECGIoFwgIFEAAYgATCAg4QABiABBiRAhixAxiKBcICBhAAGBYYHsICBxAAGIAEGA3CAggQABgIGA0YHsICBRAhGKABwgIKEAAYgAQYFBiHApgDAIgGAZIHBDMuMTGgB-Q9&sclient=gws-wiz-serp#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:5157d50f,vid:hWeTH4z3C8U,st:0).
But over here, in my line of work (picture: inner city school), I hear a lot about developing countries, where folks lack a lot of the so-called _freedoms_ we enjoy. Where they don't have freedom to worship a God of their choosing, women must cover their heads in public and cannot pursue an education, and where they'll cut off your hands for stealing.
I am told of places where schools pack 60+ kids into a classroom, most of them showing up just only because they don't want to go to work, or, because they get biscuits on Tuesdays. Some of these places, the teachers are expected to chase after children if they don't attend class, go into their homes and reprimand them over dinner tables of rice, plantains and coca-cola. Yet other places, teachers shame parents by @-ing them public group chats, using their when their sons or daughters don't complete the homework as expected, 'everything apps'; and yes, in China, so I am told, parents _are_ expected to work on their child's homework projects.
Some of these places you cannot own property.
From some of these places, people walk 365 days a year on worn out shoe-soles across continents in search of some glorified idyllic 'freedom,' out of fear of tyrannical government regimes who have devalued currencies so as not even to be worth the paper it is printed on. I talk to folks every day escaping _real_ tyranny, the kind we are told lay crouching in the darkness, seething and desiring and plotting to take away _your_ freedom.
To them, tyranny is familiar as their first cousin. And yet, they can see the contradiction in the claim that they escaped tyranny to enjoy 'free society.' They are not fools, some, I would argue posess a special kind of discernment when it comes to spotting a tyrant. They confide in me their complaints and I find, to my chagrin, they despise much I do, government overreach, bureaucratic skulduggery and taxes.
What I have begun to tell them, besides the empathizing platitudes: freedom is relative, an ideal.
# A freedom state of mind
And to you, dear freedom-loving reader. You might have your BTC in self custody, your property, your guns, your free speech, your off-grid power sources. You might be free from the arms of government power and well protected, ready to defend your family and property from some listless refugee wandering onto your property in the cover of darkness. I'm not fear mongering. I am illustrating the point that there, you see, freedom is an ideal, a relative state that needs protecting. It cannot be fully realized, because, to the libertarians the inalienable freedom to own property means that that property faces the threat of being taken, pillaged or otherwise violated.
I don't imagine that Thoreau could have anticipated the world we live in today, nor that his words would be construed this way. I beg forgiveness from any Americans who think I have missed the point. But, take heed of his words:
>"I saw that, if there was a wall of stone between me and my townsmen, there was a still more difficult one to climb or break through before they could get to be as free as I was."
Don't be one of those townsmen.
Freedom is a relative state, and it is a mindset. If you are completely self-soverign, independent, self-reliant, off-grid, self-custodying; all of these thigs and, still, you might be paranoid of losing it all - then, are you really free? Similarly, people flee oppression, understandably, but I fear that what they find is the same velvet tongued tyrant, dressed in different garb.
I think we need to adopt freedom as a state of mind, and seek it constantly. And be as tranquil as Thoreau,
> I could not but smile to see how industriously they locked the door on my meditations, which followed them out again without let or hindrance, and they were really all that was dangerous.
And yet, I challenge you, to reflect: over what continents you have traversed, over hill and dale, to be free?
