Breaking out of darkness.

Compassion and conscience cannot die.. to imply such would be to say that they could be murdered... they but sleep to nurse deep-held wounds, rest to be awakened again to their endless toil to make a way for mankind to become beyond what they are.

Compassion, conscience, love, acceptance, these are the messages of one Jesus Christ. Not the judgment, not the condemnation, but redemption for all. Love, peace, and hope are only possible so long as you hold them close. Justice is only just so long as there is mercy and compassion.

Should we ever fall so far as to forget who we are, to forget what we are, and to abandon compassion, conscience, and care beside the road, beaten and abused, we would no longer be human.

Those are the very qualities that separate us from the rocks, and trees, the caring for others of our kind, the stewardship of our rights, duties, and privileges, and the freedoms and rights of others.

For, in truth, no man can be denied of their rights. Their freedoms, perhaps, for a time, but their rights cannot be alienated from them. This is the purpose of prison, a limitation on freedoms, not to be punished, but to separate one from the society one has wronged, to allow the wounds on both sides to heal, and to attempt to make right the wrongs which were done against that society.

These laws are not about protection, they're not about preservation, they're not about society, nor about anything but condemnation and control, and maintaining that condemnation, maintaining a scapegoat for corrupt politics and broken societies.

It is compassion that creates societies.. and hardness of the heart that destroys and breaks them. It is fear and anger and hatred that destroy societies.. compassion, love, and forgiveness that allow them to heal.

Many offenders have victims, yes. But none of them have to remain so. They can rebuild their lives, even though there may be scars, they can turn their world into a thing of beauty even so. Allowing yourself to weep, allowing yourself to learn to love yourself again, and accepting that the abuse you were put through is not your fault are all steps on the process, so is anger, so is hurt, so is reconciliation with yourself. And those scars are as much against ourselves as our perpetrators, and left unhealed, the infection grows and may cause us to hurt others.

Our purpose as humans is not to get the most 'stuff'... be it power or anything else on this planet. It is to simply love, help, and heal each other and our world. Not our planet.. our world.

Because we are part of that world. And though our nation is one society, there are many.. and all make larger societies of humanity... and between members of that human race there are no differences, there are no barriers save those made by those who would remain in control.

If any person tells you that you cannot reach, you cannot strive for something that keeps and holds those rights for yourself and others.. he seeks to control. If he seeks to keep you silent, he seeks to victimize.

How many of the very 'worst of the worst' abusers had victims that were afraid to leave? How many of them could not see a way out, so never tried, and often died in captivity? How sadistic were the abusers to make ways out but not let them dare to reach for them? And to kill them when they tried to escape?

This is what madness is. This is hatred, this is fear, this is control, and external control is tyranny.

The ultimate control over the fates of mankind, over everything we are, comes from within. If we lack that control over self, lack that responsibility that comes with it to shape our destinies and by our own shaping, to lead the destinies of others, then we are doomed forever to repeat our mistakes.

That is the ultimate thing they try to deny us... the ability to shape our destinies as our conscience sees fit. The ability to rise above who we were, who they claim us to be, and the ability to burn brightly for the world to see.

Ultimately, the future is what matters.. even if we are not here to see it, and the only indication of the future is by the past, compared with the present. Judging by that past, it is a certainty that things will get worse if we do nothing. More and more bills pass by the desks of Congress making certain of this.

Do we really wish to live on the world which they shape? When personal responsibility becomes collective responsibility.. is it not true, at all times in the past, that all bear the punishments and restrictions of those few who offend? When we can no longer stand up and claim that 'THIS IS WHO I AM' and not be punished for it.. when we can no longer simply be, and create, and work toward the true good of society, where all humankind is free, and recognizes the results of their actions toward one another, and their responsibility for those actions they take...

It is a nightmare coming to pass. It is a damnation of the soul, of the spirit of humanity. It is a destruction of all that mankind holds dear, from the very right to work the ground that they have tilled, to the right to eat the food one has grown or purchased, to the right to keep the money that one has worked for, and to use it to better ourselves, our children, and our society.

That is why I fight. They claimed that I cared very little about others.. but I have learned to care perhaps too much. I see the results of action and inaction, of changes and choices, and I see my own responsibility in it. I pray and work, I dream and hope, and I will not see any person's dreams crushed and stand idly by.

That is personal responsibility, that is the trials of conscience, and that is the reasons I can do nothing else. It is why I fight abuse in all its forms, from abuse of the sexual sort, to the physical and verbal, to the governmental and regulatory, to the very abuse that is inherent in keeping people ignorant of the fact that they are being abused.

That.. is conscience. Not a shame.. not a guilt.. but a fire that burns inside us and pushes us, fuels us, consumes us to make changes in who we are, and what we do. It is not something that says 'I am bad' but something that says 'I must change'. Sometimes that is not enough.. and sometimes we cannot hear it clearly enough. That is what jails and prisons are for.. to silence the external and let the internal speak.

A temporal judgment is a temporal judgment. The greater one is that which lives inside your heart and judges you every day, and that is why so many condemn. It is what they fear in themselves that they judge. They judge not on what is true or real for each individual person, but on the fears in their own hearts, their own being, mind, and conscience, and that judgment, ultimately, is a judgment of their own being.

It's time to make an end to all of this, and neither man nor any court or entity can stop what is coming. Our nation yearns to be free from the heavy yoke that has been placed on us and weighed down so slowly we forget its very weight. We seek and hope, yearn to reach out and dare to dream again.

We yearn to be able to throw paper airplanes, and, childlike, wonder-filled and awe-struck at our world, and not have to work eighty hours a week just to make the least payments, then go further into debt on our credit cards just to eat and get to work.

And I can't ignore it any longer.

Tried By Conscience.