Is Freedom Worth Fighting For?

Shockingly it seems that the practice of slavery is on the increase again - the following is taken from Channel Four's web news: "I was prostituted by force. I was beaten with a chain, I was kept undressed, naked in the cold, outside in the cold, and chained in a dog's cage, a large one. And after they gave me food, they kept me eight weeks without eating, then I was taken away by men, raped." This is Bucharest, Romania, but it could probably be anywhere on the poorer fringes of the former Soviet empire - Moldova, Ukraine, Belarus. Trafficking in women is a growing trade and while poverty and profit-making exist side-by side, it will continue! Trafficking in women is a growing trade and while poverty and profit-making exist side-by side, it will continue.

When does Idealism clash with reality. In a world where with have the technology to take a peak at Mars while stepping over a starving child ignoring his outstretched arms. Freedom has to be worth fighting for, even if it is a freedom that is not untainted by human greed and ambition. It's the only kind of freedom we have and we elected it.

Having gone through all the bombing and devastation of the last war and seeing what this country which is supposed to belong to the people who were born and breed here who for a long time now seem to have to go to the back of the queue for their rights and a lot more things I have my doubts if it is! worth fighting for. In the last war men were proud to go and fight for their country same as we put up with all the bombing and got on with it but if we had known how it was all going to turn out ie how it is today would we have cared so much. To answer my own question NO!! I dont think so...

Formally, slaves in the Americas did have some legal rights, but, in fact, basic human rights were often disregarded. Women slaves could be subjected to persistent rape by their owners, and families were often split apart as their members were sold away to separate plantations. Brutal treatment such as mutilation, branding, chaining, and murder were, in theory, regulated or prohibited by law, but instances of cruelty were common before the 19th century. Denmark was the first European country to abolish the slave trade, in 1792. Great Britain followed in 1807, and the United States followed in 1808. At the Congress of Vienna in 1814, Great Britain exerted its influence to induce other foreign powers to adopt a similar policy, and eventually nearly all the states of Europe passed laws or entered into treaties prohibiting the traffic. The French slaves had freedom conferred on them in 1848; the Dutch slaves in 1863. In America blacks were granted citizenship in 1870, with the adoption of the 15th Amendment to the US Constitution. Most of the new republics of South America provided for the emancipation of slaves at the time of their establishment. In Brazil, however, slavery was not abolished until 1888.. An important achievement was the adoption of the International Slavery Convention in 1926 by the League of Nations. This convention provided for the suppression and prohibition of the slave trade and complete abolition of slavery in all forms. The convictions embodied in the convention were reaffirmed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations in 1948. In 1951 a United Nations committee on slavery reported that the practice of slavery was declining rapidly, with only a vestige of slavery remaining in a few areas of the world. Edited from Encarta 2000.

Strikes me as a bit of a rhetorical question, actually. Yes, freedom is worth fighting for, much more so than a lot of other things. In my view, much more so than anything else. Sadly, most fights have to do with ego and face-saving, but that doesn't mean freedom is any less worth fighting for. I will forever rebel at the notion of rolling over and playing dead for the sake of "peace." Peace at the price of surrender and slavery is no peace at all. I would personally rather be dead.