2nd Prize Winner
Age Group 16-18

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The Slave Factory

by Gabe Page, age 18

           Young people are frequent and docile victims of state aggression. Society has told them through laws and mandates that they have no rights and they have accepted this. They accept it because the adults they trust accept it and the adults do so because they are products of the same system. Some of the injustices and violations young people are subjected to include compulsory military registration, curfews, compulsory school attendance and legislated age limits. In their own right, these violations against young people are all harmful, but their sum effect is much worse. Uncontested violations of young peoples' rights teach them to accept injustice and hence, cripple their developing minds.

           Children are always asking why things are the way they are. This is an attempt by their innocent minds to understand the world around them. Adults, on the other hand, almost never make such inquiries. This is not because they understand the world, but because they have grown to accept everything that is, as a fact of reality. Proof of this can be found by asking the average adult a 'why question' and following it up with a series of further 'why questions,' as children so often do, until the adult finally admits (explicitly or implicitly) that they don't really know the answer. For example: "Why do you have to pay taxes?" "To take care of those less fortunate than us?" "Yeah, but why do you have to do that?" "Because it's the right thing to do." "But why is it the right thing to do?" "I don't know, because it just is;" or, "Why do you ask so many (stupid) questions;" or, "Go and help your mom in the kitchen," or any of the other pantomimes of evasion.

           So why do adults give up on trying to understand the world? Is it because they spent so many years seeking answers and truth, with the help and encouragement of parents, teachers, television and all the other social and cultural influences, only to discover that the world is utterly incomprehensible? No. Adults in general do not question, do not challenge, (do not think) because society is a slave factory and they have thusly been conditioned not to.

           The priming of obedient citizens begins in childhood or earlier. At this point it is the parents and baby-sitters unknowingly doing the dirty work for the state. Children are constantly told to do things without explanation. If they don't comply they are punished. A good example of this occurs in many pre-schools. Children are told that they must share their toys with others and if they don't want to, they are made to sit in the corner by themselves and take a "time out." From this children learn one thing and it is not benevolence towards others. They learn to obey grown-ups, or in a larger sense, obey authority.

           This lesson is reinforced in adolescence. Young people are made at school, at home and in society to do things, or else� Sometimes it is "in their best interest" and other times it is "for the greater good," but it is always at the threat of punishment and this is coercion. Compulsory school attendance is one example of this. The explanation behind compulsory school attendance is that it is in the best interest of young people to attend school, and in most cases, it probably is. This is very kind and caring of the legislation's writers and supporters, but as people differ, so do their best interests and hence the law is unjust. Only an individual can determine his or her best interests. Furthermore, force is not a tool of love and victims never profit from violence directed against them.

           Aside from the moral or philosophical arguments against compulsory school attendance, the fact is that it doesn't accomplish its alleged educational goal. The law may physically place those young people, who do not want to go to school behind a desk, but learning requires more than attendance, it requires the mind and the mind can't be forced. Education is very important, but the energies of its activists would be much more effectively put to use in other ways such as community outreach programs that work to emphasize education as a cultural value. Compulsory school attendance is a violation of an individual's right to make personal choices like whether or not he or she wants to attend school.

           By the time of high school graduation most people have really internalized the "facts of life" like the generations before them have. They "know" that there are some things in life, which don't make any sense and that one does not want to do, but that one must do them. They may not vocally admit to this, but their actions or lack thereof do. They accepted compulsory school attendance, mandatory volunteerism and curfews, and they will go on to face all other acts of state aggression, save for maybe the most blatantly malicious, as good, obedient subjects.

           In addition to the obvious damage conditioning an individual to accept his or her own slavery does, there is a subtler injury delivered by this system, evidence for which I draw from the common argument against the decriminalization of drugs. The argument in reference contends that if the government does not outlaw drugs then many more people will begin to use them. This may be true, but if it is, why so? Are the masses as stupid as the champions of this argument seem to suggest? I don't think so. But by depriving individuals of their right to make personal choices, society arrests the development of their independent judgement faculties. Therefore, products of this system - victims of this society - by adulthood, need the laws that limit their freedom (and that of others) because without those laws they have no framework from which to determine their best interests. And in the greatest of social tragedies, their minds are thus crippled.

           The good news is that society as a concept is not flawed and that the injustices, which work to debilitate the mind, can be ended as soon as full individual rights are recognized for everyone. As young people are the trampled victims of this system and are voiceless in the decision making process that limits their freedom, it is the adults, who perpetuate it actively or passively, that bear the responsibility for changing it. Young people, however, need not wait for the work to be done. Their potential strength lies in their greater ability to get through to other young people who may have completely forsaken all adults and begun to rebel as a rule. As for adults, they must speak up for young peoples' rights at the polls, PTA meetings and any other venues of discussion. Those who are parents have an especially great opportunity to fight these injustices and help the cause of freedom by teaching their children to think, instead of obey and to look inside for answers, instead of outside to others. At times the system may seem a mighty mountain, indomitable in its altitude and breadth, but an individual also is large and his or her lone voice is capable of precipitating an avalanche of change, as it brings consciousness to an issue.

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