A man is no less a slave because he is allowed to choose a new master once in a term of years.
Interpretation
True freedom is not just the ability to choose between options, but the absence of coercion.
This quote by Lysander Spooner suggests that the existence of choice does not equate to genuine freedom. A person can be considered a slave if their options are still limited to the authority of a master, regardless of how frequently they are allowed to make that choice. It implies that true autonomy is the absence of oppressive control, rather than simply the act of choosing between different controlling figures.
In practice
In a speech about civil rights, one might cite this quote to illustrate the illusion of freedom in oppressive systems.
The principle that the majority have a right to rule the minority, practically resolves all government into a mere contest between two bodies of men, as to which of them shall be masters, and which of them slaves; a contest, that-however bloody-can, in the nature of things, never be finally closed, so long as man refuses to be a slave.
For a government to declare a vice to be a crime, and to punish it as such, is an attempt to falsify the very nature of things. It is as absurd as it would be to declare truth to be falsehood, or falsehood truth.
And the men who loan money to governments, so called, for the purpose of enabling the latter to rob, enslave, and murder their people, are among the greatest villains that the world has ever seen. And they as much deserve to be hunted and killed (if they cannot otherwise be got rid of) as any slave traders, robbers, or pirates that ever lived.
A married woman has the same natural right to acquire and hold property, and to make all contracts that she is mentally competent to make reasonably, as has a married man, or any other man.
Slavery, if it can be legalized at all, can be legalized only by positive legislation. Natural law gives it no aid. Custom imparts to it no legal sanction.
Those who deny the right of a jury to protect an individual in resisting an unjust law of the government, deny him all defence whatsoever against oppression.
Theology asserts propositions that cannot be proven true; ideologues hold stoutly to a worldview despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality. When ideology and theology couple, their offspring are not always bad but they are always blind. And there is the danger: voters and politicians alike, oblivious to the facts.
And even a liar can be scared into telling the truth, same as honest man can be tortured into telling a lie.
If I relegate impossible Salvation to the prop room, what remains? A whole man, composed of all men and as good as all of them and no better than any.
It is the most ambitious and driven among us who are the most sorely in need of having our reckless hopes dampened through immersive dousings in the darkness which religions have explored. This is a particular priority for secular Americans, perhaps the most anxious and disappointed people on earth, for their nation infuses them with the most extreme hopes about what they may be able to achieve in their working lives and relationships.
The length of a man's outspread arms is equal to his height.
To delight in war is a merit in the soldier, a dangerous quality in the captain, and a positive crime in the statesman.
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