We are masters of self-indulgence, and slaves of self-interest.
Quite the contradiction: but quite the truth.
For the most part, we Americans - seem to have changed the definition of personal freedom to a constitutional battering ram.
We're enslaved by foods, lifestyles, and fetishes, to name a few.
Whatever controls us is our master, and we are its slaves.
Recently a young man on a high school campus stood outside of the school with his friends displaying a sign which read "Bong hits 4 Jesus," an apparent reference to and support of marijuana usage.
The teenager was ordered to cease displaying the sign, to which he responded by filing for certiorari to the U.
S.
Supreme Court citing a violation of his First Amendment right to free speech.
What drivel! Why does every Tom, Dick, and Jane believe that they have a personal right and personal "freedom" to impose their subjective views on everyone else? It's simple.
They're slaves, and slaves do: what they're told to do.
If the only voice of "reason" we listen to is our own voice we are bound to begin believing that anything we say or do in public is acceptable solely on the basis of that personal belief and hubris.
Why couldn't the young man express and discuss those particular sentiments in a private setting and proper forum? Frankly, he did what he did because he couldn't help himself.
He, like many others, is a slave to our growing culture of self-interest.
Staunch self-interest usually dictates that "I" matter more than anyone else around "me," including all of "my" thoughts, opinions, desires, and beliefs.
How could this type of existence ever be right? More and more we are becoming spellbound by and acclimated to our own self-indulgence and exaggerated sense of importance.
Where do we find permanent solutions when we are both master and slave of our own condition? What about the Californian slaves who are crying foul every time their personal and private enjoyment of cigarette smoking is limited to something more personal and private? Am I expected to give up my right to breathe air free of dried, nicotine rich, burning tobacco leaves, to make way for the slave who believes his personal enjoyment trumps my personal health? By the way, in case none of the slaves have looked it up, nicotine is a poisonous alkaloid that is the chief active principle of tobacco and is used as an insecticide.
Sure...
I'll just move right on over for you.
True liberty takes into account the masses, and not just self.
There's a time and place for everything.
But as long as we remain enslaved by self-interest, the time and place for everything will be perpetually here and now.