We live in a society of control. Surveillance aims its everlasting eye on our lives, waiting for us to mess up. This feeling is prevalent in our schools, workplaces, and everyday life. Free will is a virtue gifted to us at birth, but it is taken away quickly. Our leaders and politicians stay above the law they’ve created for us while they commit atrocities behind our backs. We let these people control us while they reap our rewards and earnings, and we do not revolt. We do nothing because our society is scared. We’ve lost the passion for freedom and traded it in for comfort. Our government elites and figureheads of power have such a tight grip on our lives that if we make any move, they take all our possessions and privileges away. That fear is what keeps those who want a better life in the dark, which is where they’ll stay until change and revolution are executed. Change cannot happen without force, without humans who understand the extent of their free will and change our policies. Only then can we, as humans of Earth, be free of the oppression by people of power.
In 1764, Britain imposed the “Sugar Act” on the American Colonies without their consent of these taxes, which added a tax on molasses imported into the colonies. This, along with various other acts imposed on the colonies, enraged the colonists. They began to boycott and resist these taxes (one of the most infamous acts of resistance is The Boston Tea Party, where civilians dumped over 300 chests of tea into the harbor), which prompted the British government to send troops to enforce these taxes. This spiraled into war over “Taxation without representation,” which was the motto used by the colonies, which prompted them to fight for independence and freedom from the controlling British parliament, which they won.
We call these moments in history brave, courageous, and just, but we turn a blind eye to the oppression placed on our shoulders, which our founding fathers gave their lives to prevent. Today, in the midst of technology, progress, and modernization, we are no freer than the colonies that were controlled by the British. Unlike the colonies (which only got taxes about 1% of their income), our federal government forcefully takes 24% of our profits, on top of the state tax of 9.30% (Which would be the rate of the median income of California residents, being $100,149), a local tax could also be placed on top of that. As a resident of California, we pay a minimum 33.30% of our earnings (if we make the median amount), not to mention the sales tax on everything we buy and consume. We live in a society where we let these people take our money, and we do nothing about it, while our colonial heroes died over 1%. If you refuse or even resist, you are sent to jail and fined, which is exactly what the British did to us. We say we are free, but we are far from it. We are severely punished for stepping out of line, and we are robbed by the thieves we call our politicians. While they live in luxury, so high up that the laws do not faze them, we are looked upon like ants who do all the work. They kill, create laws, donate billions to foreign nations to further the massacre that is war, while we are $39 trillion in debt, and start wars without our representation. They freely commit atrocities that would be crimes punishable by death. It is no longer a war between red and blue (which is useless because they own both sides), but a war between poor and rich, powerless and powerful. Like our founding fathers, the time is now to revolt against our sadistic oppressors.
Change will never occur without action; their reign of terror will continue forever if we let it. The American colonies were not concerned about laws or what consequences would occur if they started a war with Britain, but they only cared about the right of freedom, which every human should be granted. This dream has been forgotten when it is needed most in our current world. We live in a cowardly time where people have grown comfortable and soft, and they are scared to act because of the consequences they have been threatened with since birth. Peaceful protest is not enough, action must be enacted for change, or they will not listen. Today is the time to stop this generational cowardness and revolt to bring America and freedom to its former glory.
