LiberT

A duty to be oppressed?

by Larken Rose

Do good, upstanding citizens have a moral obligation to allow themselves to be oppressed, harassed, terrorized, assaulted, and wrongfully detained or imprisoned? Most people would say “no.” But would most people actually mean it?

There are many examples of “law enforcers” treating innocent people like dirt. Random stops at “sobriety checkpoints” is a favorite of mine, since the local jackboots do that in front of my house on occasion. (In fact, they’re doing it right now, as I write this.) The border Gestapo is even worse. And a YouTube search for “police abuse” will provide you with hours of infuriating examples of fascist pigs in action.

So, do we have an obligation to put up with being treated like that? Think carefully before you answer. Because an answer of “no, we don’t,” implies that we have a right to resist it, to not cooperate. And, of course, the control freaks and megalomaniacs with the badges aren’t going to react kindly to anyone disobeying their gang. They will always escalate things to violence until they get their way.

If, for example, you believe that you have a right to not be searched without cause, a right not to be interrogated for no reason, and a right not to be detained for no reason, then logically you must also believe that you have the right to drive right through a “sobriety checkpoint” without stopping. And what if they try to forcibly stop you–as they certainly would–for exercising your rights? Do you then have an obligation to be oppressed? Or do you have the right to respond with force against force, in whatever degree it takes to overcome their attempts to detain you without just cause?

This is the horrible choice tyrants force everyone to make, on a regular basis: you either submit to their will, or you react with violence. And, unlike the badge-wearing crooks who call themselves “law enforcers,” the good people don’t like to use violence. So they almost always allow themselves to be oppressed. And that tells the tyrants that they can increase the injustice even more. The end result is … well, Frederick Douglass summed it up quite well:

“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will. Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue till they have resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they suppress.”

Let me put the point even more bluntly: Every time oppression increases, the people have only two choices: unconditionally submit, or kill the oppressors. These are the only choices, because the oppress...