"If I Can't Dance..." by Jac

Here is something written by "Jac" at The Claire Files that I ran across recently. I think it is pretty good.

If I Can't Dance... or A Certain Person's Manifesto

"I did not believe that a Cause which stood for a beautiful ideal, for
anarchism, for release and freedom from convention and prejudice, should demand
the denial of life and joy."--Emma Goldman

When tyranny reaches a certain level in a society, as it always does (which
may sound strange coming from an anarchist, but hey, I'm a realist), the freedom
lover has a number of choices, which, in essence, are really three: he can
commit suicide, he can hide, or he can fight.

Suicide in the face of tyranny is, I think, more frequent than any of us
care to imagine. How many "stress-related" heart attacks and strokes in the
United States do you think have more to do with a simple lack of will to live? A
society such as we have today is truly a killer, and whether it's through
cowardice, lack of direction, or simply a lack of physical or emotional stamina,
many people succumb with little resistance. Even some who live a "full" life
commit a form of suicide, if they repress their desire for liberty; if one
allows his passion to die, can his continued physical existence
truly be called a life?

On to hiding. As often as some of the "hard core" types dismiss it as
cowardly, I see hiding as a very valid option for the liberty lover. Indeed, my
own goal is to run away (which is a subset of the hiding choice). In fact, this
continent was largely settled by those who fled tyranny rather than fighting it.
As my friend George Potter says, statism is largely a function of population
density. It is always around but, like any parasite, requires certain conditions
to truly flourish. And often, when so many people are subject to such a
parasite, quite a lot of them actually form a symbiotic
relationship with it, and rely on its survival for their own. And when a
despotic government commands such support, and has access to the resources of a
large civilization, what recourse is left to the liberty lover but flight?

Which brings us to fight. The favorite of novelists (some of them quite
good) and die hard patriots (some of them quite sane). But really, the reason I
saved fighting for last is because, despite the romance toward it felt by some,
or the terror others imagine it with, fighting tyranny is the one thing that every liberty lover does at some point along their chosen path.
The "quiet one" who goes toe-to-toe with the cops before eating his gun; the CEO
who struggled with her principles in school before accepting her "inevitable"
fate; the gulchers who fight in court for their right to homeschool, or keep
goats; the expatriates who dodge Uncle Sugar's taxes. The computer geek who
posts rambling screeds to the internet. Ahem. All of them choose their path, and
all of them fight their battles against the same enemy. In fact, the only real
difference is the weapons they choose, which is what this piece is really about.
Specifically, it's about that most potent of weapons: laughter, and those who
wield it.

Throughout history, one of the greatest banes of kings and presidents,
princes and popes, has been laughter. Whether inspired by subtle satire or
dick-and-fart jokes, tyrants cannot stand to be laughed at. Jokesters have been
the cause of revolutions and the target of book burnings and press smashings
(and people hangings).

So, I stand before you today (actually, I'm hunched over a legal pad in bed
writing this, but you're reading it on a computer, so I'll go with some dramatic
license)... I stand before you and proudly join (as an acolyte, of course... I
could only ever dream of attaining the satirical summits
reached by some) the ancient and noble line of Certain Persons, members of which
include: Tom Lehrer, Groucho Marx, H.L. Mencken, Emma Goldman, Samuel Clemens,
Ben Franklin, Jonathan Swift, Aristophones... so many more.

As one of our wiser contemporary members recently wrote (actually, he's not
really all that wise; kind of a goof really, but he's the best writer of us all
and, as a writer, needs an ego boost now and again): "I am convinced, now more
than ever, that the best action against the enemies of freedom, the enemies of
all that is best about being human, is to be human. Inconquerably human.
Unapologetically joyful."

So, if you are offended by our smart-assed smirks, or our immature sounding
attacks against statists, or our seeming lack of regard for The Cause or The
Party or The Mission, perhaps you should think twice before admonishing
us.

Because if you can't have fun in the pursuit of liberty, what, really, is
the point?