A lanky man, looking to be in his mid twenties, rises from one of the seats, just as the previous speaker finishes. He strolls towards the podium, takes the microphone and begins speaking in a calm, casual voice.
Hello.
He looks around the room, fixating people in the audience seemingly at random, before he continues.
I am not a man of words. I am a man of deeds.
But today...
His hand makes a slow, sweeping guesture, pointing at the room in general with his open palm.
...today, I am in this a temple of words. And I will adhere to its laws.
A few ideas of how the different categories of socialism work have been introduced already. However, each and every one of them carries a flaw. Something that can be exploited. I loathe the exploitation of those who are governed by those who govern.
It appears that we must choose. And choose we will.
The man's casual poise suddenly seized up, stopping mid sway.
Did you hear? We will choose. WE, will choose. I do not mean us who stand before you, the people who speak up. And neither do I mean the ones who listen calmly, taking in every word and sentence. I speak of all of us.
I do not come to present a perfect option. I come to offer you my idea of how we must brave whatever path we choose.
Each and every one of us has a talent. An ability. A passion. A life. And we each must decide what to do with it.
Why not do what we do best?
Let the bakers make bread.
Let the architects design houses.
Let the soldiers make war.
A thin smile slowly forms on his face as he speaks.
Some of you may or may not think that we do this already.
But we do not.
No. We have our life designed by others. By a market that dictates what we need. By a leadership that decides what we must fulfil.
My father was a factory worker. The world we lived on had decided that it needed parts for fighter vessels. The gears of war were to be kept spinning.
And so he built those parts. Made their war machines.
But this was not what he could do best.
My father was a warrior. A fighter. A soldier at heart. He couldn't live his life that way, but still, he fell in hand to hand combat.
What would have happened, had this man been able to live that life fully?
But no, he was deemed a cog in a machine. And he saw himself as one, thinking that he was lesser than those who decided what his work should be.
Each of us has the ability, no, the innate nature, to be able to do some things well.
We must find out what these things are and make use of them.
Still, none of them make us more or less valuable than anyone else. A ruler needs his advisor. He needs the baker to make his bread. He needs the architect to design houses. And he needs the soldiers to defend the nation. All of them are of the same importance to "us" as a whole.
To all of us.
His hand points at people in the audience.
You. You. You.
The arms are spread wide.
Every. Single. One.
We each have something that we are best at.
We each must find that thing and use it to further eachother's lives.
I am no baker. But give me flour and I will use it to set the room ablaze.
I am no architect. But give me the blueprints of a building and I will find its weak spots and blast them to pieces.
I am a soldier. A man of war.
And I wouldn't have it any other way.
But I do not look down on the man who repairs and fuels my ship.
And I do not look up to the men and women who give me commands.
He returns to his casual demeanour, as if the overly grand guestures never happened, setting his hands onto the podium.
I told you that I am a man of deeds.
In my time in space, I have broken many cogs that built the Gallic war machine. And I have split many gears that moved inside of it.
Most of them thought themselves better or worse than me. They all went into the night at the hands of the soldier.
Some quietly and accepting, others shouting, squealing, needing to be dragged. But they went all the same.
None of these parts of the machine that I broke were more or less important than me.
The man pauses briefly.
But they could never truly be human.
He looks around the room.
Because they thought themselves lesser or better. They could not accept equality. They felt they had to strive to be above or fight to not be below, when, in reality, all are equal. All must be equal. If they aren‘t, then they aren‘t humane towards eachother.
In Platon‘s Politeia, the character Sokrates was made to say that a good human may not do harm unto another human, else he would damage that human's ability to be a good human themself.
While many things that Platon wanted written in there are worthless or would even be damaging to our modern society, some are worth repeating. This is one of them.
We must do good unto other humans.
But I argue that one cannot be human unless they accept their humanity. They must accept that they are no more and no less than any other human. That they carry the same worth and weight in the world.
And if I need to break the cogs that fuel the war machine until they realize their humanity, then so be it.
If we need to split the gears that spin to move the machine, then we must do so until they realize the folly of their ways.
Until they see that they do not need a king, they need good rulers whose life is dedicated not to the state that they rule, but to its people.
They need those who are capable at ruling, not those who say that they are.
Men and women who live for the people.
Not some foul beast that sends them into their doom in the hope of conquest.
The king of Gallia formed a nation that reaches far and wide. A nation of murderers. A nation of conquerors. A nation of destruction.
What say you, fellow attendees of the congress?
What say you, fellow humans?
It this a way to rule?
Or shall we break the war machine down, make its parts see their humanity, and teach them that their own value differs not from that of a king or that of a factory worker?
If we do, then we must do it as men and women of the same worth.
I am not pleading for what kind of socialism we should follow. It will define who makes decisions for others. It will define the structure of our life.
What I come to present to you is the philosophy that, at least according to my beliefs, should define how we view eachother once that day comes,
Over the course of his speech, the lanky man had slowly begun to tense up. He shifts his shoulders and relaxes.
I have given you my words, how ever much or little that means.
He gives the audience a slow nod and goes to sit back down.
<span style="font-family:Lucida Console"><span style="color:#33CC00">*personality core activated*</span>
Science consists of stating the obvious and linking the facts. </span>
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