STATEMENT OF SUPPORT FOR DEMOCRACY AND SELF-RULE
BY THE RATIONALIST FEDERATION OF THE INDUS RIVER
It is quite well known that the 14 states of the Indus River have long been a centre of culture and science. Indeed, since the beginning of time, the people of the Indus River have pushed the boundries of human understanding. Their curiosity, upon gazing at the universe around them, has helped to illuminate it for the betterment of all peoples of the world.
Among the greatest gifts has been the gift of democratic and rationalist thought. It is a common misconception that these things came from such civilisations as the Greeks and the Romans, and indeed their contributions are important and to be celebrated. It was the Indus River peoples, however, that first touched upon the idea of representative rule and of equality. It was the Indus River peoples that first realised the ideas of tolerance of religion and tolerance of belief and of peace and tranquility and brotherhood.
These ideals spread across the entire world. After the Long Night caused by the death of the Roman Empire, democracy and people's rule once again rose up in such states as Great Britain, the United States of America, the French Republic, and even temporarily in the United Republic of Earth. It became accepted that only the people could ensure that their rights were protected and that their interests were heard in government. The ideals of liberalism or democratic socialism were honoured in all areas of Earth.
But the world, in a fit of fevered madness caused by the twin tyrannies of war and aristocracy, forgot the lessons that had been taught by ancient Indian philosophers, by Roman and Greek thinkers, and by the great teachers of Western Europe and, later, of America and Russia. In a fit of desire for security from destruction, people around the world turned to the United Nations and to the Secretary General for guidance, thus establishing the World Empire and abandoning any pretense of self-rule.
For a short time, of course, the Empire prospered. Commerce flowed freely to all parts of the world, knowledge was exchanged openly and without restriction, and people enjoyed great autonomy. Uninhibited by the petty bickering of states, people began to actualise themselves and realise their goals and desires in life. The age of discovery that followed was one unparalleled in human history, and it showed the strength of the people themselves. So long as peace and order were imposed, humans showed that such were the optimal conditions for moral and technological growth.
But like all Empires, indeed, like all despotisms, this Empire began to decay. The original brilliance that had created an age of discovery and an age of peace had turned instead to stagnation. Instead of being free to enjoy and exercise their rights, instead of being autonomous, instead it was the case that a small group of people, indeed an Emperor or King, gave all the orders. Any freedoms or any concessions were merely gifts from the palace instead of inalienable rights enjoyed by all.
And now, instead of at least a benevolent King to rule over us, it is instead proposed that a council of military men, men of war and death, impose their authority over us. Upon the examination of history, this is of course to be expected: As the moral character of the state decays toward lust and power, the state apparatus will similarly decay. We have gone from democracy to aristorcracy to military rule to the ruins of the Second Great War to a resurgent representative government to a benevolent kingdom to a corrupt aristorcracy and now we are finally back to military rule.
Our great state, instead of being founded upon the ideals of the actualisation of the people or the precepts of Confucius or even the self-interested hedonism of an autocrat, has now turned toward the much more sinister ideals of the glorification of the death of fellow humans. The National Salvation Military Council, by usurping power, now steers all of humanity back toward that cult of the state that had held us all hostage for 12 years and that nearly extinguished the great spirit of the human character in an orgy of violence and death. To this government, the people are not an end to be served for its own sake, but instead are merely a tool of the state. It reduces the relationship between the government and their people to one of master and slave, one to be exploited brutally for the benefit of another.
Humanity has flirted with this ideal before, that the state shall be above all, that it somehow has intrinsic value. Mussolini of Fascist Italy and Adolf Hitler of Nazi Germany were but two examples in a sea of failures of this ideology. Far from bringing about peace or prosperity or development, instead the fascists and nationalists have brought about absolute destruction to everything they have touched. Indeed, not even their states prospered: Humanity judged these ideologies so repugnant that all free people united against them and utterly annahilated them with the hope that they would never prove resurgent.
But now instead of being the masters of our own destiny, humanity is instead choosing to bow down before he who would destroy us all in some misguided attempt to "serve the State". We have lost control over our own lives - we are not free to do anything except by will of the King and, now, by the grace of the National Salvation Military Council. How is it that humanity, after learning these lessons about war and freedom and autonomy during the Second Great War now finds itself on the brink of destruction once more?
The people of the Indus River cannot abide it any longer. We admit that, despite our rationality and despite the collective lessons of humanity that we had been taught, the self-delusion of Imperialism blinded us to the realities of the world. Caught up in the grandeur of royal pomp and caught up in the death-fever of monarchy, we allowed ourselves to be bribed by the Empire by the glittering gifts of pointless technologies. We thanked the tyrant for every currency that he would return to us after having brutally extracted it from our hands by the point of gun and we worshipped his very presence, even knowing that any disagreement may mean a swift and cold death.
We gave up all of our rights, all those rights that are afforded to us by mere virtue of our existence, because of the lie that somehow this government secures eternal peace or eternal development or eternal freedom and ignored the common truth that our ancestors thousands upon thousands of years ago had already known: That such a government, no matter how beautiful the illusions that it blinds you with, will always in the end infringe upon your liberty and nullify your person should its arbitrary and twisted desires find that such suits its purposes. Without the vigilance of the population exercising its own power over the government, the end result has always been and will always be the continuous cycle of death.
No more! History has taught us this lesson, and today we shall realise it once more! We shall not allow this government, stronger than all other governments ever before us, to impose the final stages of the cycle of death upon us. We must rise up against it, take unto arms if need be, in order to prevent the greater infringement that is surely to come. If we do not, on this day, choose to reject tyranny in all its forms once again and forever, we shall be consigned to watching as madness and murder seep out of every pore of the government and choke off our brothers and sisters, our compatriots in all lands, to be used as a burnt offering to the psychotic Gods that we consented to rule above us. Indeed, all of humanity must join us revoking permission for this government to continue to exist and instead we must all join together in common union back toward the values of the people and of self-rule. The entirety of human existence hinges upon our efforts today.
Therefore, given the moral imperitive to action, we, the people of the Indus River give unto ourselves the Rationalist Federation of the Indus River so that we may put into reality the ideals of democracy and freedom and prosperity that were promiesd to us so long ago and that are our birthright as humans upon Earth. We furthermore call upon all willing states to join us in our struggle for freedom and against tyranny. Whether we shall continue to prosper as a species or whether we shall be forced into oblivion and the annals of history is now in all of our hands.
