Liberty Essay

This house believes that the use of violence is permissible in the acquisition and retention of our human liberty.
Generally, I do not agree with the idea of violence in order to gain something. In this case we talk about liberty.
First of all, what is liberty? Well, this is a very ambiguous word because it may have many different meanings. For example free will, liberty of expression, orsimply the human faculty to manage our thoughts or our conduct according to our voice of reason and our will.
Furthermore, what is violence? Does it always mean physical violence? What about emotional and/ or intellectual violence?

To begin with, I would like to quote what Pope Leo XIII once said: “…the unanimous consent and judgment of men…is the trusty voice of nature, recognizes this naturalliberty in those only who are endowed with intelligence or reason…”
Being free doesn’t mean I’m going to do whatever I want to do and whenever I want to do it. It is very important to have reason. We have to know, that what we do will somehow affect others, it is the law of cause and effect.
I can be free as long as it compels me, but freedom does not mean I can bother someone else, hurt someoneelse, or deprive in any way a person’s life or way of life.
War is the first example that comes to my mind. Does it really have to come to war in order to have liberty? I don't think so, but what happens when you have tried everything else and yet nothing has worked out? Looking back at different historical times we find that there have always been fights and revolutions, many of them seeking formore power, but many of them were because that was the only way people find to finally being heard.
One example is with Mexico's independence from Spain in 1810, when heroes like Hidalgo and José Ma. Morelos y Pavón fought for the people and with the people to acquire liberty. It had practically become the only way to get things done. There was nothing left to do, if they wanted change theywould have to get it by themselves, not waiting around for things to evolve.
Wars and revolutions have never been fast nor easy, and nobody really ends up winning. The constant struggle, maybe for a few months, but in many cases for many years, eventually wear people and their countries out.
Another example, one I think is of the clearest examples into the extent of being free, is in Patrick Henry'stime.
"Mankind is, by nature, hopeful" he says, we always have faith that one day things will simply get better, so we wait and we wait expecting that day finally to come, but, when you live in a country where the government just won't listen because they do not care at all but just for themselves, one where the people have extinguished all kinds of reasonable and yet hopeless attempts onexplaining their needs and instead of being heard actually end up being punished for having the guts to speak up, I think it’s inevitable for a revolution to begin, because people's hope simply fades out.
I have no illusions that what I'm about to say will be controversial, but nevertheless I would like to say it.
Why does it always come to honoring the martyrs of liberty and things like that likeGiuseppe Mazzini said?
For me, the purpose of History is to study the past to understand the present and that way prevent and try to predict the future.
We have to learn to understand situations. If we've seen that war happens because some are greedy enough to do anything to maintain certain level of power and therefore forget of the actual needs of the people and stop listening, then why don't welearn to listen?
We should learn to do things differently this time and stop tripping with the ghosts of our pasts. We have to accomplish a better society, one that is able to resolve its issues in an appropriate way, not by wars and revolutions, which only bring sadness, expenses, and plain defeat to everybody.
I truly believe there is a way to have freedom and keep that freedom without...