Day: June 13, 2013

A bit of a sticky wicketA bit of a sticky wicket

“When the socialists show that the division of property among present-day mankind is the outcome of countless acts of injustice and violence, and in summa repudiate any obligation towards something having so unjust a foundation, they are seeing only one aspect of the matter.  The entire past of the old culture was erected upon force, slavery, deception, error; but we, the heirs and inheritors of all these past things, cannot decree our own abolition and may not wish away a single part of them.  The disposition to injustice inhabits the souls of the non-possessors too, they are no better than the possessors and have no moral prerogative over them, for their own ancestors were at some time or other possessors.  What is needed is not a forcible redistribution but a gradual transformation of mind: the sense of justice must grow greater in everyone, the instinct for violence weaker.” – Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human (trans. Hollingdale)

The simple pleasureThe simple pleasure

“I miss the rain.  I miss standing beneath the sky and looking up at the moon and stars.  I miss the wind.  I miss cats and dogs.  I miss wearing real clothes, having a real toothbrush, using a real pen, drinking iced tea, eating ice cream, and going for walks.

“I’m tempted to say the thing I miss most is fruit.  I haven’t had a piece of fresh fruit in about eight years, and before that I only got it once a year.  The prison used to give everyone two apples and two oranges on Christmas, but then they stopped, said it was a ‘threat to security,’ along with tea bags and dental floss.  So I haven’t had any in nearly a decade now.  They prevent scurvy by giving everyone a cup of watered-down orange juice for breakfast.  It doesn’t have much taste, but enough vitamin C to keep your teeth from falling out.

“In the end, it’s not the fruit I miss the most, though if you rolled all the deprivations into one thing, it would be this: I miss being treated like a human being.” – Damien Echols, Life After Death