Henry David Thoreau stopped by today and asked if he
might contribute a little something to my blog, and I said, “Have at it, Hank!”
This is what he had to say:
“To be strictly just, [government] must have the
sanction and consent of the governed. It
can have no pure right over my person and property but what I concede to
it. The progress from an absolute to a
limited monarchy, from a limited monarchy to a democracy, is a progress toward
a true respect for the individual. Even
the Chinese philosopher was wise enough to regard the individual as the basis
of the empire. Is a democracy, such as
we know it, the last improvement possible in government? Is it not possible to take a step further
towards recognizing and organizing the rights of man? There will never be a really free and
enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher
and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived,
and treats him accordingly. I please myself
with imagining a State at last which can afford to be just to all men, and to
treat the individual with respect as a neighbor; which even would not think it
inconsistent with its own repose if a few were to live aloof from it, not
meddling with it, nor embraced by it, who fulfilled all the duties of neighbors
and fellowmen. A State which bore this
kind of fruit, and suffered it to drop off as fast as it ripened, would prepare
the way for a still more perfect and glorious State, which also I have
imagined, but not yet anywhere seen.” –Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience (1849)
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| A black & white candid I took of Hank with my iPod. |
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