Thomas A. Starks, Lisbon

Often one must ponder the ideals we collectively believe in. Freedom. Liberty. Our rights as people collectively. Our right to speak, our right to believe, our right to collectively organize a militia, our right to deny people of violence into our homes, our right to deny unreasonable arbitrary laws that would seek petty offenses to justify arrest or imprisonment, that we have a right to be tried by our peers and our property cannot be seized without compensation, that our rights dictate we should not be subjugated to cruel or unusual punishment, that it is our right as people to organize in our work place or politically, and that we are tied only to a federal government that follows its constitution, derived by the over whelming consent of the governed.

These rights as people, collectively, are addressing issues we had to face from oppressive forces. From the monarchy, from the ruling class, from people so wealthy they could buy or bury your voice with little to no resistance.

It took a collective of communities to say no more. To say we will be free from the subjugation of a small group of people who wield power through money and “royal” blood lines. Millionaires do not get to dictate reality, political families do not get to dictate reality, and those who assume power through privilege do not get to dictate reality. Inequality does not represent people, it subjugates us to the modes of power, and its uneven distribution.

We, The People, will choose our path through our vote.

One must wonder though. When the majority are ignored, corralled in cities, gerrymandered out of a voice, actively ignored and our election attempted to be over turned locally and federally, do WE THE PEOPLE actually have a voice? Against so many who invoke the same words that refuse to honor its meaning or value.

When our freedom of speech is used for hate or violent invoking actions, is this in the spirit of our ideals? Do our liberties stand against an oppressive ruling class of a wealthy elite, or are our ideals being twisted for those who seek to oppress? To condemn the disenfranchised, to encourage the hate of our BIPOC community, to encourage the hate of our LGBTQ+ community, speaks more to those who wish to maintain power through division. Those who actively dismiss, demean, and even murder dissenting voices in these communities only wish to create divides. As our natural existence and defense is condemned as divisive as opposed to those who cause the division.

I believe in freedom, to organize, to speak, to express our liberty in the form of acknowledging oppression, and most of all to be a wild one. Not to be twisted to justify hate, and oppression. Our freedom is to expand our liberation as a social species looking to exist as we have evolved to do so, collectively with respect to our individual communities.