Lysander Spooner Quote 

"A man is none the less a slave
because he is allowed to choose
a new master once in a term of years."

by:
Lysander Spooner
(1808-1887) Political theorist, activist, abolitionist
Source:
The Constitution of No Authority (Boston: 1870), p. 28. Available on the Lysander Spooner website at www.lysanderspooner.org.
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Reader comments about this quote:
... but even MORE a slave since we elect the same masters to each new term.
 -- Joel, Rochester, MI		 
A B S O L U T E L Y ! ! !
 -- Mike, Norwalk		 
I love Spooner's, "No Treason." It's a must read for lovers of freedom and justice.
 -- Bryan Morton, Stuart, FL		 
Anarchy is not freedom.
 -- warren, olathe		 
Main Entry: slave Pronunciation: \slāv\ Function: noun Etymology: Middle English sclave, from Anglo-French or Medieval Latin; Anglo-French esclave, from Medieval Latin sclavus, from Sclavus Slavic; from the frequent enslavement of Slavs in central Europe during the early Middle Ages Date: 14th century 1 : a person held in servitude as the chattel of another 2 : one that is completely subservient to a dominating influence
 -- J Carlton, Calgary		 
Anarchy is the opposite of hierarchy. The word has been terribly bastardized by those who would have you believe that Anarchy is Chaos.
 -- J Carlton, Calgary		 
We get to elect another in November.
 -- jim k, austin		 
Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha......This quote made me laugh! That's one way to look at the process of election of government officials and to a point, I agree. To a point. I would re-phrase this quote, though, in reference to slavery. I would say: "Man is none the less a slave because of Time. Time is THE master of All people". It is up to each person how to make the best of their time, and if that involves electing or re-electing government officials, so be it. There are alternatives to most anything. When you Change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.
 -- Me Again		 
Anarchy is the road to freedom and most democracies are subject to it. What is this thing we call FREEDOM -- for an individual it can be so elusive and yet so easy to acquire; it means so many different outcomes depending on your state. What is slavery but submission? Freedom will always endure the wrath of dictators, oligarchies, fundamentalists and theocratic ideologies. I believe there is one primary precondition for Freedom and that is simply to be left alone. I suggest all should be free from the process of state obligation, and until that moment Freedom will allude us. We do not have the right to call ourselves a free people, if our nation stifles the individual right to freedom with obligation. As many great minds have expressed, the first to go in a totalitarian state is their biggest threat 'free thinkers.' It is they that ignite the fire for freedom. Government and corporate America doesn't want you to think (give as little as possible to education) they just want you to accept and be their slave. Max Eastman said it best of all: "The real guarantee of freedom is an equilibrium of social forces in conflict, not the triumph of any one force."
 -- RobertSRQ		 
Lysander is a liar. At least people who get to vote think and feel that they are free. Just ask the Iraqis. If having the ability to dump your master is not freedom I don't know what is.
 -- Waffler, Smith, Arkansas		 
Said well, RobertSRQ! Waffler says, "At least people who get to vote think and feel that they are free. Just ask the Iraqis." LOL! This from a guy who values democracy above freedom -- obviously the most important thing to him is the illusion rather than the reality -- as long as people think and feel that they are free, then everything is fine -- that is EXACTLY what the de facto rulers are hoping for. American elections have devolved into choosing between 2 party leaders -- candidates pre-chosen and groomed by the same shadow government. We have no choices but the ones they give us -- those beholden to the ones that hold the purse strings. And boy what choices they have given us this time! All we know for certain is that America is really screwed. We could have chosen one of thousands of brilliant minds, but we are conditioned to braying jackasses and pompous fat cats. I'll take anarchy until we get representatives that honor and obey the rules set forth in the Constitution. As always was the intent, State governments were supposed to play the more dominant role -- the federal government was subservient to them, too. We perhaps ought to focus on our local and state elections and re-empower them to take back the reins.
 -- E Archer, NYC		 
All it took to enslave the world was to convince the majority that dollars are things. Quarts are not things, inches are not things. Dollars are not things, they are measures of silver. If you receive no silver coins, you have no income of dollars. There are only two possible economic systems; barter and slavery, Money is not found in a barter system. God commanded a barter system with: "thou shalt not steal." Our Constitution mandates a barter system of gold and silver coins art.1.Sec.10 but this is one law that our "law enforcers" will not enforce or even read. "None are so hopelessly enslaved as those who falsely believe that they are free"--Johann W. vonGoethe. "That you vote does not prove you are free, it just shows you are a slave who votes" -- anon. When government takes everything without paying for anything, a state of slavery exists. The sole function of legal tender is to take labor and property sans payment. When most slaves were black, they were controlled with fear of beatings. Now when most slaves are white, all are controlled with fear of jail and loss of property. The Bill of Rights has been replaced with Marx's communist Manifesto of which the first three planks are real estate, income and inheritance taxes and the 4th calls for the confiscation of property of (tax) rebels and the 5th saddled us in 1913 with the Federal Reserve system. Can there be masters with no slaves? President James A. Garfield was shot fatally shortly after he said: "Whoever controls the volume of money in any country (or world) is absolute master of all commerce and industry." The Fed said that they control the volume of money, page 3, Modern Money Mechanics where they admit that they operate a confidence game and that the history of banking is a history of fraud. It maters none what they admit when less than one per cent read it and the few who recite it are subject to ridicule and jail. You can sing "land of the free" til donkeys fly but if you beg or labor for strips of paper that the first users get in unlimited amounts for zilch, you are a slave to those who first get all of the paper first for nothing. Thank dishonest Abe for our legal tender slavery of which his contemporary, Horace Greeley said: the system is no less cruel than than the old system of chatel slavery." Free people do not fear their servants, they FIRE them. Tell us why you waive your rights on tax returns and on applications for licenses when no law requires most to file and license laws are unconstitutional. PLEASE pass this on or at least the link.
 -- Dave Wilber		 
Anarchy is chaos.
 -- warren, olathe		 
Why must I have a job?
 -- A Free Man, Anywhere, USA		 
Actually, all you are electing every four years is a new front man for the same master. Your master is the man who holds your debt.
 -- Ken, Allyn, WA		 
Archer the Liberty-Tree thought cop always picks on me. I stopped reading him as soon as he mentioned my name. Lysander said "a man is none the less a slave". I called him a liar not because a man might still be a slave to some system, the system of the constitution for example, but he is certainly more free than he is under a dictatorship. I wish Chitty would chme in here because there is nothing in this quote to really know what the hell Lysander is talking about. A slave on a plantation that could choose his master would certainly be more free than the one on the next plantation without this choice. It is sad that Archer cannot understand that democracy and freedom are the same thing except for the factor of numbers. The ultimate freedom of course is in a world of one person. Adam was thus the only totally free man. Eve cramped his style a little bit. Our style is now cramped by the number 300 million. So pure freedom is a function of smaller population but the most realtive amount of freedom in a large population which considers each individual equally free, if not absolutely free, is democracy which is one man/woman one vote. If someone can name an election in which we had "quality" candidtes I would like to hear from them. If they think being President of the United States is about being qualified they have been asleep for a long long time. There is only one qualification other than the Constitutional ones and that is: get the votes and win the electoral college. Archer claims to love the Constitution and here wishes to subvert it by apparently inserting qualifications of his own, totalitarian that he is.
 -- Waffler, Smith, Arkansas		 
Waffler, you do oops again. If a slave on a plantation could choose his master, it would not make him any less a slave, it would at best only change the despot. When you vote for an individual to represent the collective (democracy), as is averse to the individual, the only thing that changes for the slave is the face of the slave master.
 -- Mike, Norwalk		 
Mike you are right! We are in this country slaves to the constitution, except we also have power to also change the constitution. If you don't like the constitutional system I believe it in effect makes you a "man without a country" which is what I think you are really looking for anyway. Freedom of choice is a form of liberty or freedom Mike. He may still be a slave but he has obviously more freedom in his slavery.
 -- Waffler, Smith, Arkansas		 
Waffler, your oops here is, I may be a man without a country but that's because I revere the Constitution, the principles it was based on, and the law that supported it. That Constitutional land of liberty no longer exists anywhere on the planet. I am doing all I know how to return to a free and just land.
 -- Mike, Norwalk		 
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