RIGHTS AND DUTIES

An Ode For Only True Justice And Against All Authoritarian Rule


[Tyranny = "The worst of treasons." --Lord Byron.]


[A Tyrant = "Nothing but a slave turned inside-out." --Herbert Spencer.]


(Dedicated to Jesus The Christ, The Apostles, Francis of Assisi, Martin Luther and the Other Protestant Reformers, The True Founding Fathers, Henry David Thoreau, Emily Dickinson, Mahatma Gandhi, Mark Twain/Samuel Clemens, Martin Luther King, Jr., Billie Holiday, Hermann Hesse, Thelonious Sphere Monk, Pablo Neruda, Nat King Cole, William Stafford, Ray Charles, Jackson Browne, Marvin Gaye, Neil Young, Smokey Robinson, Ken Kesey, Stevie Wonder, Jack Nicholson, Quincy Jones, Gerry Spence, Ella Fitzgerald, Ramsey Clark, Noam Chomsky, Edward W. Said, Howard Zinn, Ralph Nader, Robert A. Heinlein, Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, Arthur C. Clarke, John Steinbeck, Frank Herbert, M. Scott Peck, Isaac Asimov, Sean Penn, George Orwell/Eric Blair, Daniel Ellsberg, Leonard G. Horowitz, William Thomas, John Nash, Barbra Streisand, Past-Governor George H. Ryan of Illinois, Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, and Former Representative Tom Andrews, as well as many, many others)

[Written in 1996]

I stood up for what is right,

And I was shot down.

I wanted to become an attorney,

To vindicate the rights of the oppressed,

But Social Security shut me down,

And apparently extinguished my dream.

I spoke of O.J. Simpson,

And said, "I'm one of the few white people

Who didn't (at all) presume his guilt",

And I was treated rudely,

Because I don't blindly follow the majority.

I am polite to everyone,

But others' who believe

That they supposedly deserve

Preferential treatment,

Expect me to respect their opinions

Without respecting that I have

Just as much right to mine,

And I am thoroughly vilified.

I am a fully disabled man,

But my mind is not disabled,

From standing up for the truths

That "all men are created equal!",

That "the majority is usually wrong!",

That most people "can't handle the truth!",

And that it's not only just "the Peoples'" right,

It is also their "duty" to stand up and be counted

Against all tyranny and injustice, as much as they can,

Within and without their own sphere of influence.

And who knows, perhaps they will have

A greater influence for good

Than they possibly could have imagined;

And even one man, throwing off the shackles

Of injustice and tyranny, will make it all worthwhile;

Because that is what true American democracy is all about.

So let us all throw off the bonds of ignorance, apathy

And complacency, and all take a strong stand

For true liberty and justice . . . for all!