The calf is most free when the cage opens and it’s led to the truck for slaughter.
– Ocean Vuong.

The above is an extract from ‘On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous’ by Ocean Vuong, and it is a perfect example of what it means to live under the illusion of democracy.

Heartbreakingly true, when all freedom is relative, often what we think of as freedom is not freedom at all but simply the ‘widening’ of the cage, the bars abstracted with distance but still there, always there- to control, to oppress, nonetheless…

‘Freedom, I am told, is nothing but the distance between the hunter and its prey.’

When world leaders have the power to eradicate us all, if they wanted to, with the push of a button, we live with the ever-present awareness that we are always just one step away from having it all taken away…

Like ‘freeing’ wild animals into nature preserves only to contain them again by marginally larger borders, under government leadership, we’re not free. Yet we take it anyway because sometimes not seeing the bars is enough.

Deluding ourselves into thinking that because we can’t see tyranny in plain sight, it’s not happening.

Except, it is happening. 

It does exist. 

‘Seek and you will find’ that:

Democracy is an illusion.

Every new measure that is imposed for our supposed ‘liberation’ is illusory, nothing more than the ‘widening of bars.’ People go along with it because it’s better than what they had before, but it’s not ‘better’ better.

What would be truly better is the eradication of the bars altogether…

When everyone was born equal, to gain superiority, those in power had to oppress. And to stay in power? They have to keep oppressing.

And so, for however long we have a government, of any form, we will never be free.

Anarchy is the only way.