The people never were free; never went about their rightful and profitable affairs without molestation. Always a coterie of intriguers and their henchmen got control of the political machinery and kept it. And they have control now in every country on earth. We are told that, whatever the form of government, it is the will of the people to have it so. But even were this so, why should you be governed by the will of any body? Are you free when the power to exercise your own will depends on the will of another? The struggle of all the ages has been by the individual to free himself from external control. Freedom has always been the objective of all real revolutions. What is a revolution, anyway? It is not to push a thing along on the same old road, but to shift off on another road entirely.

You who want to get power to rule YOUR way are not revolutionists in the real sense. The opposite of rulership is freedom, and the Anarchist is the only one on [5] on the job who really and truly believes in freedom! He does not want to rule anybody; but very positively protests against being ruled by anybody, minority or majority. They who simply want to change the manner of ruling are mere pikers in the world struggle for social betterment. They are in reality not revolutionists at all, as revolving a thing is to turn it around, not to push it along in the same direction. If a thing is turned around it goes in the opposite direction from that in which it has been going. The bane of the world has been its rulership. Not this kind or that kind, but any kind, all kinds.

Freedom means to be exempt from the power and control of another, to exercise your own will without let or hindrance; to be unrestrained; capable of voluntary activity, and so on.

To invade another’s freedom is not freedom, but subjection, oppression, government. We can’t be free and practice coercion at the same time. That’s the bad thing about government: it enslaves the governor as well as the governed; the ruler as well as the ruled.