In the ocean it's a fish-eat-fish world teaming with predators.
Some fish, however, feed solely on nourishing plankton and other sea vegetables which grow in abundance at their favored locales, while constantly vigilant against the more aggressive and carnivorous varieties of sea life.
There are only two laws these fish must obey, lest they soon perish, individually or as a species: survival and procreation, or survival until procreation.
Often fish of like nature band together in "schools," but there can be as little safety in numbers as there is in being all alone.
Either survival or procreation may be threatened, depending on those circumstances.
Fresh water lakes are much the same.
Where there is a lack of the predatory type of aquatic animals, there is the constant threat of man, whether from fishing for fun or food, or from polluting their living environment.
Following Nature's Noble Course
In both lake and ocean these masses of water result from the constant downward pressure and flow of water from streams and rivers, thanks to gravity.
Gently or turbulently, freely flowing or precipitously pitching headlong in free falls from mountainous crags in glorious waterfalls, the rushing path of water is always downhill, downward from elevated heights into the low-lying bodies of standing fresh or salt water that fills the lowest recesses of earth's surface.
Like other terrestrial forms of animal -- and even occasionally, human -- life, many types of aquatic life are known to migrate.
Of these, only two -- the salmon and eel (a type of aquatic snake) are known to go against the flowing water to return to their inland mating locales in fresh water streams and rivers.
And only the salmon is known to valiantly struggle against often nearly overwhelming odds of onrushing current, rapids and even minor waterfalls, to achieve its noble task of survival and reproduction, in defiance of animal and human predators and obstacles alike.
Against Nature
We do not curse the salmon for its convictions or actions, neither do we call it "stubborn" or "difficult", simply because it does not remain where we assume there is supposed to be more freedom, liberty or ease of life for this fish.
Rather, we think it a worthy and noble creature to endure, survive and fulfill its mission of procreation against such overwhelming odds.
Some, indeed most, fish will never know the freedom and liberty of spawning in such a pristine and generally predator-free environment (other than bears and man), compared to the lakes or oceans where they are born, exist and die.
Neither do other fish have the memory of being born in a different world from that to which they migrate, without which they have no desire to "return" for reproduction of the next generation.
Who are we to curse the salmon for their uniqueness, individuality and dedication?
What business would we have trying to erect barriers to prevent their nature from fulfilling its ultimate course and purpose?
By what right do we cage them in with nets, to prevent their normal and natural feeding grounds from being reached, and then feeding them an unnatural diet which fattens and sickens them, to allow us an easy access and profit from harvesting these migratory creatures (a profit that "profits" us only with sickness and illness from consuming such adulterated "food").
When you consume such farmed fish, you are also gradually sickened because there can only be real life from the freedom to follow a noble path unhindered, unimpeded and without restraints.
Who are you or I to think it should be otherwise?
Oppression and Fake Freedom or Real Liberty?
Likewise, some people -- men and women of a more noble nature than their counterparts -- were meant to live, travel, reproduce and rear their offspring free of unnatural, arbitrary and even predatory boundaries or restraints.
Man's laws are often capricious, flawed and even unjust -- in their administration, if not in their original intent -- while some are even deliberately intended to enslave, trap and stifle true freedom, and liberty; to live, move and enjoy life freely.
Unlike aquatic life forms, mankind often feeds on its own kind, cannibalistically, especially in the jealous attempt to take away or hinder each other's liberty.
Non-conformists who do no harm, but eschew licensing and identification schemes, have fallen easy prey to the mindless "terrorist" propaganda (of their own government's terrorists), intended to restrain and criminalize their Creator-granted and sanctioned liberties.
Many of these freedom-minded people are often confronted with belligerent, hostile and at times even deadly force, and are required to face confrontational, obstinate and stubborn officers, judges or juries whose only viewpoint is that their own restraints must become everyone else's; their loss of liberties voluntarily surrendered must somehow be made "mandatory" for all.
Or else, they like to enjoy freedoms they corruptly and arbitrarily deny others, whom they perceive to be in a lesser class of society from themselves!
Demands, force, restraints and predatory arrests, confiscations, fines, imprisonments and similar penalties are used to force conformity with unnatural, tyrannical and unjust legalities, often solely based in unfounded fear that freedom from these restraints might or could lead to future imagined troubles, problems or harm.
A few people, however, like the noble salmon will continue their struggle against these overwhelming odds, and every obstacle erected in their path, to fulfill the noble aim of their inborn quest for true liberty and freedom of choice.
Why would you curse or condemn their individuality, simply because you fail to understand it, or fear it unreasonably?
Overcoming Oppression
Some are so adamant in their desire to be free from predatory, hurtful and harmful attacks upon their individuality and liberties that they will even fight back violently against their real or perceived oppressors.
A few will even take their struggles to the country or state of origin of usurpations against their country, people and freedoms, violently opposing the violence visited upon them, often as a "legitimate" pretext to steal their natural resources.
It isn't that their tormentors have no wealth or such resources of their own, in their own land, or have so diminished their own unique stores of such renewable or recyclable forms of wealth.
Rather, it is often their own laws that have restrained and hampered the predatory nations' citizen's access to, or use of, these resources in an environmentally safe or profitable manner -- or merely in restraint of trade by conspiring to keep prices and profits artificially and unreasonably high -- that tends to "justify" such predatory incursions into other nations, and upon the lives and liberties of those foreign peoples.
Even though violent opposition to violent oppressions is often the chosen course for the downtrodden, it is not the best or most fruitful of ways to struggle against oppressive odds to regain freedoms lost or stolen.
Others have discovered that it is better to fight legislative words with better, more pure words, ideas and concepts; to teach, enlighten and convert their otherwise ignorant enemies or opponents, if possible, into a more inspired, knowledgeable and sane point of view.
The Penultimate Struggle
Predatory laws are like the poisoned environments that threaten all life, including our own, when blindly enforced without compassion, wisdom, or concern for other creatures or our fellow man.
Prejudices can be like the downward flow of water that sometimes floods and violently sweeps everything away, leaving a war zone of death, destruction and chaos in its wake.
Despite this natural course of flawed human nature, those of a more noble character -- with hearts not unlike the struggling salmon -- will continue their efforts to overcome blind prejudices, raging hypocrisies, jealous suppressions and unreasoning, habitual and propagandistic miseducation.
They may even inspire a few others to follow them, and join their valiant, courageous and noble struggle against such onrushing odds and difficulties as these.
Only thus can we all finally enjoy the true liberties, freedoms and blessings of a better environment and society in which to work, live and prosper, than any the present generation believes possible, or any past generation has ever known before!