1. Freedom of thought is the most fundamental of all human rights.
Beliefs are the definitive aspects of character and no person or group
has the right to persecute someone because of their beliefs or directly
force that person to alter their beliefs.
-if you don't think for yourself, you're not you, you're only a reflection
of someone or something else and you have the right to be you and I have
the right to be me
2. All people have the right to partake of any information which another is willing to share. In the interest of having original thoughts, all people must be able to learn whatever they want. No one, no government has the right to interfere in this process. There should be no such thing as a banned book, idea, music, or any other medium. If two or more people or organizations wish to share information, no one else can interfere in this process. A person cannot be forced to learn or accept information or ideas if they do not wish to. This means that murder, torture, physical, mental, and sexual abuse or assault are illegal.
3. All people may choose to express any ideas as they see fit, through any medium. They can not be ethically censored on any grounds, nor can they be forced to disclose any information that they do not wish to disclose. This means that murder, torture, physical, mental, and sexual abuse or assault for the purposes of censorship are all illegal.
4. All people have the right to choose the course of their own life. A person has the right to both live and die as they choose. Yes, this means that euthanasia is okay, on the premise that we have no right to force another person to remain suffering in any form on the face of this planet if they don't want to be here. Even if they are perfectly happy, a person still has the right to take their own life. Everyone else has the right to have an opinion on it, and no one is saying that you have to be apathetic about it. You just don't have the right to force someone to go on living, and no one else has the right to make you go on living when you don't want to. Think of it in terms of car accidents: would you rather be paralyzed, a vegetable or dead? If you would rather be dead you can probably see the value of this premise. If you would rather be a vegetable or paralyzed, hey, that's your choice. It's your right and no one can deny it. Also, if someone is emotionally distressed to the point where they wish to be dead they can do whatever is in their power to fulfill that desire. Sure, they might be making a mistake, but it's their decision to take that responsibility. In fact this gives the individual far more responsibility than our current society does.
5. All people have the right to be free from the oppressions of fear and physical force.
6. All people have the right to define themselves externally. This includes the use of such crutches for individuality as possession, association, and residence.
7. All people have the right to give up all or any of their rights, temporarily or permanently.
Topics of Clarification
Explanation on Statutes 1-3
Some thought provoking literature which you might be interested in
reading:
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Island by Aldous Huxley
Coming Up for Air by George Orwell
1984 by George Orwell
Keep the Aspidistra Flying by George Orwell
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Escape from Freedom by Erich Fromm
Man for Himself by Erich Fromm
Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
Franny and Zooie by J.D. Salinger
Some thought provoking movies which you might be interested in seeing
(there are so few out there):
The Godfather (all three)
Antz
Pleasantville
StarTrek: First Contact
Harrison Bergeron (it's Canadian, eh?)
The Truman Show
Patch Adams
Please feel free to visit the Canadian Insurrection Party homepage.
We support this party mainly because we created it, but we also thinkthat
it beats the hell out of any other party we've ever heard of. It's
certainly a lot more innovative and we're not focused on attaining power
or even winning the election. We just want a freer society.
We hope that we'll have enough money to get on the ballot for the next
election, so be our guest and read our platform and think about it.
“There is a time to admire the grace and persuasive power of
an influential idea,
and there is a time to fear its hold over us. The time to
worry is when the idea is so
widely shared that we no longer even notice it, when it is so deeply
rooted that it feels to
us like plain common sense. At the point when objections are
not answered anymore
because they are no longer even raised, we are not in control: we
do not have an idea; it
has us.”
More Totally Awesome Quotes (especially by romantic philosophers, they'd be great to throw out on an essay if your teacher insists that you need someone else's words to back up your own thoughts).
"Conventionality is not morality." Charlotte Bronte
"You have not converted a man because you have silenced him" John Morley
"Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted all else follows." George Orwell
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies" Nietzche (seriously)
"Every country has the government it deserves" Joseph de Maistre
"For our country wrong is right" Machiavelli (smart guy)
"I shall never act differently, even if I have to die for it many times" Plato's Apology
"Where the State begins, individual liberty ceases, and vice versa" Mikhail Bakunin
"If I am not for myself who will be for me? If I am not for
myself alone, what am I? If not now, when?
Schaupenhauer
"The strongest man in the world is he who stands most alone" Henrik Ibsen
"Man and woman should never endeavour to be completely merged in one another; on the contrary, the more intimate they are, the more strctly they should cherish their own individuality" Hermann Alexander Von Keyserling
"Follow your own bent no matter what people say" Karl Marx
"At present individuals are lost in the crowd. In politics
it is almost a triviality to say that public opinion now rules the world"
Ibid
"But I don't want comfort. I want God. I want poetry,
I want real danger. I want freedom. I want goodness.
I want sin." Aldous Huxley