When scholars and learned men look back into history, rarely, if ever, are the conditions and the rights of the teenage population singled out for study. School teachers explain the role of women in the Roman Empire, the role of minorities in the British Empire, the plight of the poor in the Soviet Union; if we’ve always existed, if we’ve always been a hefty portion of the population, where are our historians, our scholars.

The answer, however, is far from cynical. Social scientists don’t delve into discussion regarding the status of those coming-of-age simply because the conception of the teenager is recent. We’ve existed; society hasn’t always separated and segregated youth.

Although hard to believe, mankind once valued youth as a precious resource. Emperors were ushered in at young ages; as apprentices, we learned the trades of our fathers; as workers, we were the backbone progress; as thinkers, we provided fresh philosophy to the tainted images of yesteryear. However, over the course of a few centuries, and most specifically, at the turn of the Twentieth Century, the Fountain of Youth, ever renewing and ever flowing, has been corrupted, not in foundation, but in the way society deals with its certain flaws.

This pamphlet has humble origins. In an effort to expose the opinions and views of the silent demographic, I am writing a short piece to bring to light our crusade. We may not be protesting at the gates of the status quo today; however, tomorrow brings new movement. The rallying cry of your people falls into your lap, generation after generation. The notion that after an arbitrary age, rights are bestowed upon human beings in the United States is a clear example of how the hypocritical laws of this nation tend to be utterly ridiculous and capricious.

If the voice of reason has to come from our generation, then so be it. If the clear and ever present danger of authoritarian control of our liberties in opposition to our Constitution has to be overturned by our generation, then so be it. Unprepared is the establishment to deal with crisis on their hands. Liberty has no artificial boundary; the desire for liberty has no artificial boundary; the fight, ever strong and ever human, for liberty has no artificial boundary. These edges of human civil rights and human intellectual prosperity must be disintegrated and a bridge between those with and those without certain inalienable liberties must be built with the blood, sweat and tears of our generation. Our generation listen to this call: we are not subhuman, we are not excluded from the race of humanity. The liberties and the rights and the dignity are ours for the taking and the subsequent solidifying for the ages to come. Go forth and conquer injustice.

And go forth, we shall. In great numbers, let us stand up for the principle of universal dignity. The philosophy of totalitarianism is one that, although not applied in full force in the United States, gives foundation to the leading elites to slash down the propensity of its younger counterparts. There is a reason that we have few rights. It’s very simple: we disagree; we disagree with the establishment, because the establishment, in a keen effort to secure its own longevity, will instill its own self-righteousness on its people. Youth have never stood for these infringements. Youth have never stood for these invasions. Disenfranchisement through voting restrictions, limits to the choices we can make for our own bodies, and the dissolution of procedural rights to ensure ourselves against the excesses of the government-muscle are the methods through which our mouths are taped, our hands tied and our voices silenced. As long as the leading class suffocates our spirit, energy and cry, society will be on its knees to the interests of the few and the powerful, rather than the destitute, the voiceless and the have-nots. We scare Washington, DC. We scare Congress. We scare the bureaucratic mess. But we don’t scare reason and logic. In our effort against illiberalism as applied to our well-being, we have the weapons of logic and principle; ideology and reality; pragmatism and theory.

In the process of this battle, there have been and will be messengers of the machine: those who claim to represent you and me, those who claim to represent our interests. These are the people, however, that support restricting our ability to make our own decisions. If politics represented us, we’d be represented in politics. The District of Columbia is a cesspool; the cream of the cesspool, the best and brightest, are still among the worst in providing for our protection and rights. We cannot illicit a change in the system, when the system needs so desperately for a change itself. The only injection must be the introduction of a new, forceful and mighty group to revolutionize the seats that hold power. The muscle of government will eventually fall to the wit of the people. If we desire to be included in this coming upheaval, then we have only the more reason to force our interests into discussion.

When a politician claims he represents our interests, he represents how he feels we should act. When a politician claims he has our future in mind, he has only the future election in mind. But, true representatives of youth rights feel the burden of injustice on our shoulders, the weight of scandalous government and the pressing fists of responsibility.

In the memory and words of Senator Goldwater, “extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice!...moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”

I am a radical. Proudly so. Because when being a radical means pushing for liberty and humanity’s most basic principles, I’d rather be an extremist than a crony of the status quo.

We are radicals in the pursuit of youth rights and we will wage war, Washington. War against the the iron fist of tyranny in the pursuit of naturally endowed righteousness.






If not tomorrow, when?