Was Thoreau's Ideas Still Relevant Today?

My jaw hit the floor with the very first sentence, which contains one of my favorite quotes “I heartily accept the motto, 'That government is best which governs least'; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically.” I was continuously stunned as I kept reading. No wonder it's considered dangerous; some sources imply that Thoreau's ideas would be dangerous if more people around the world knew about it. Thoreau definitely sounds like he would have been one of the more radical figures during his time.

It's also even more relevant today than it was right in the middle of the nineteenth century. “All men recognize the right of revolution; that is, the right to refuse allegiance to, and to resist, the government, when its tyranny or inefficiency are

great and unendurable.” Indeed, during the early years of America, all men did. In fact, it is one of the founding principles of the United States. But I'd be willing to bet that if you showed this quote without its acknowledgement, to a hundred random Americans, and probably more than half would disagree with it. (Show it to a hundred random elected officials and you might find yourself in jail.) This is one of those writings that should be read by most Americans, so that we can better understand our background and how ignorant people are who try to tell us these days where they think America came from. After all, as Thoreau himself tells us, “No man with a genius for legislation has appeared in America.”

And when one is ready to dismiss all this nonsense and go back to thinking that there's really a difference in America's two ruling parties, remember once again that it has traditionally been the right (or those who call themselves that) who have attacked this book, and then read this lovely passage:

“There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly.

I please myself with imagining a State at last which can afford to be just to all men, and to treat the individual with respect as a neighbor....A State which bore this kind of fruit, and suffered it to drop off as fast as it ripened, would prepare the way for a still more perfect and glorious State, which I have also imagined, but not yet anywhere seen.”

That's true right-wing thinking here. Note that Thoreau's “more perfect and glorious State” is peaceful anarchy, which is the end product of both post-State socialism and post-State libertarianism. According to the way the current “right” attacks it, I can't imagine most liberals would have a problem with it, either. In other words, it doesn't matter who you are. Read this. You may hate it, you may love it, but you will come away from it with a better understanding of how things have changed in this country in the past 150 years, and how terrifying those changes are, and how that cannot be a bad

thing.