On Thursday I attended a workshop/meeting/thingy put on by Adam Fletcher of the Freechild Project. Since Adam is from Washington state, and was only in town for a few days at a conference the thing was hosted by Youth Service…

Thanks for having me at your workshop, too. It was good for me to go.

Completely agreed. One thing I find lacking in many current spheres, from the inheritors of the Civil Rights movement to our own Youth Rights movement, is an understanding that work done to improve oneself does more than simply gain respect and gratitude from those holding you back. Seeing the struggle as one class holding down another may be the most pervasive, but I think it is deeply flawed. It may more be the byproduct of the competitive process. In the case of youth, I would say the lack of youth taking their own lives seriously… the absence of being strivers in their own right for their own self determination and self improvement… is a bigger cause for the lack of youth rights, than anything “big people” do to actively hold youth down. It is more that the absence of youth self responsibility leaves a gaping hole and a vulnerability that allows for the secondary effect of an oppresive older society restricting those who say and do little in their own defense.

If we look at our society today, youth have every tool imaginable at their disposal to make a difference in their own life, but more often then not it is our peers who reject their own importance and freedom well before we ever bring up the matter with the older members of society.

I do not mean to say that restriction of youth by society at large isn’t real and isn’t miserable. I just think that if we are going to be able to change it we must be strong in ourselves just as much as we must stand up and actively voice a demand for recognition of common rights.

Freedom is something we live. That must be our demand.