Who Owns You?

This article was featured in our weekly newsletter, the Liberator Online. To receive it in your inbox, sign up here. Me: Who owns you? Baby Anarchist (10): Me. I own me. Me: Can someone else sell you? BA: No. Me: Why not? BA: A living person is his own property. Me: Can someone else rightfully take away your life if you are being peaceful? BA: There’s no rightful way to encroach on a peaceful person. Me: Can someone else rightfully stop you from peacefully owning your rightfully acquired property? BA: No. No one can stop you from keeping the thing you have peacefully gotten. If you’ve earned it, traded for it, been given it as a gift, it’s yours. Me: Can someone else rightfully stop you from making a peaceful contract with another person? BA: Nope. You’re peacefully doing it. It’s not hurting anyone. There’s no reason they should stop you. Me: So no one is allowed to take away your right to make contracts? BA: No one is allowed to take away your right to make contracts. You own you. No one can take away your right to enter into contracts. Me: Did you know that years ago it was illegal for black persons to enter into marriage contracts with white persons? BA: During slavery? Me: After slavery. When they acknowledged that people were not the property of other people. BA: That doesn’t make sense. If you are your own property then you can enter into contracts. Me: If someone else can stop you from entering into a contract what does that make you? YS (14): A slave. Me: Is yesterday’s decision (2015 Supreme Court decision regarding marriage equality) about love, son? YS: it’s about self ownership. Me: Why did it have to be couched as a decision about love? YS: Because people won’t respond to self ownership. Me: Why don’t they want to hear that they don’t have self ownership? YS: It’s complicated and bad. Me: Love is nicer but the reality is people who own themselves are not denied the right to enter into peaceful contracts that don’t encroach on others.