A whole new story to the man who civilly disobeyed to protest a land auction

[woolfe9999]

nonlnear,

I don't suppose any debate on this issue will bring forth fruit given your view. It seems you place yourself apart from all that surrounds you. You are part of what you hate we all are.
Government is not populated by a race of zombies from Venus. It is us! We create the laws and we apply them and you are right there along side each and every one of us.
The system of government that was created works exactly how it should. IF, as a population, we are corrupt then our system will provide corruption. There is no remedy once the people divorce themselves from the system. It will flounder into an abyss and emerge a new creation at some point if all that is wrong is left to fester and feed upon the power the system enables.
Laws are created by us and it is us who live by them, or should. We have the vote and we have the power if we'd only use it. We are a divided nation. Both sides of the divide have an agenda and it may even be the same agenda. How can we move toward a truly fair and equitable system of justice and liberty if we place greed before honor or bias above love. We do this. We are greedy and we love only what suits us. We develop hate and bias to serve those needs.

As you sit and pontificate on the disaster before you and how you elevate above it all so do I.... You in your way and me in mine. I will not don the outfit of Francis Marion and hide behind trees to better deflate the objectives of the Red Coats... I'll do what I can to work within the system and maintain my sense of just behavior.

I see little difference between one giving their word under oath or not. It is my honor and integrity that I hold dear. You may find loopholes in an oath or how you utter the words or what they mean to you that enables others to proceed under the impression that you'd do as you promise. I know what the words require that I utter and I'm driven by the spirit of those words.

When a circumstance arises where one can reasonably see an injustice... reasonably as they see it... and they act to thwart that they have embarked on a path where Equal Justice is dependent on how equal each jury is to another. No group of twelve are equal to any other group of twelve. However, if each group of twelve look only to what they promised to evaluate Equal Justice has a much better chance to exist. Yes, it may be dependent on who brings a case or what their motive is but that is NOT what our responsibility is in this venue... We have another duty as well. That duty is to place in power those who also are honor bound to dispense justice and do so equally among our people.

When we get off our penguin butts and put in the effort to make our system work right it will be when we have gotten off our butts and made ourselves right. It starts with us...

Don't ever try to dispel the illusion that the state is an elemental evil, an entity that exists separate and apart from the sentient beings who populate its governed territory, or the illusion that we are living in some sort of "End Times" (be it the religious or secular version) where everything is presumed much worse than it once was. Or that we are each a unique snow flake who alone is able to see the truth. Those illusions make life so much more interesting for the people who entertain them.

 

[Moonbeam]

nonlnear,

I don't suppose any debate on this issue will bring forth fruit given your view. It seems you place yourself apart from all that surrounds you. You are part of what you hate we all are.
Government is not populated by a race of zombies from Venus. It is us! We create the laws and we apply them and you are right there along side each and every one of us.
The system of government that was created works exactly how it should. IF, as a population, we are corrupt then our system will provide corruption. There is no remedy once the people divorce themselves from the system. It will flounder into an abyss and emerge a new creation at some point if all that is wrong is left to fester and feed upon the power the system enables.
Laws are created by us and it is us who live by them, or should. We have the vote and we have the power if we'd only use it. We are a divided nation. Both sides of the divide have an agenda and it may even be the same agenda. How can we move toward a truly fair and equitable system of justice and liberty if we place greed before honor or bias above love. We do this. We are greedy and we love only what suits us. We develop hate and bias to serve those needs.

As you sit and pontificate on the disaster before you and how you elevate above it all so do I.... You in your way and me in mine. I will not don the outfit of Francis Marion and hide behind trees to better deflate the objectives of the Red Coats... I'll do what I can to work within the system and maintain my sense of just behavior.

I see little difference between one giving their word under oath or not. It is my honor and integrity that I hold dear. You may find loopholes in an oath or how you utter the words or what they mean to you that enables others to proceed under the impression that you'd do as you promise. I know what the words require that I utter and I'm driven by the spirit of those words.

When a circumstance arises where one can reasonably see an injustice... reasonably as they see it... and they act to thwart that they have embarked on a path where Equal Justice is dependent on how equal each jury is to another. No group of twelve are equal to any other group of twelve. However, if each group of twelve look only to what they promised to evaluate Equal Justice has a much better chance to exist. Yes, it may be dependent on who brings a case or what their motive is but that is NOT what our responsibility is in this venue... We have another duty as well. That duty is to place in power those who also are honor bound to dispense justice and do so equally among our people.

When we get off our penguin butts and put in the effort to make our system work right it will be when we have gotten off our butts and made ourselves right. It starts with us...

Would you say that the right to conscious is an inalienable right? I would say that it is. Therefore, it would seem to me that any oath that precludes the use of my conscience in evaluating only evidence but not the validity of a law and to which a person is open to punishment, would of itself be criminal to swear to. You would be selling your right to your own conscience down the drain. The court may not like where my own personal conscience takes me, but I can't see how they can take my right to apply it away.

 

[nonlnear]

nonlnear,

I don't suppose any debate on this issue will bring forth fruit given your view. It seems you place yourself apart from all that surrounds you.

I have an unusual spin on things, and am generally uncompelled by notions of collective identity. However I wouldn't say I set myself apart. If I did I would be a deeply resentful person. I understand and even accept that I am put upon by authorities who have coercive power over my life. As much as I might find the current structure of things distasteful, I observe that my life is far better than it would be at most times int he past. How could I possibly be ungrateful to be under a system that most people will only see as tyranny in a couple centuries from now, when I could have been born a hapless yeoman a millenium ago? My life, under the present tyranny, is wonderful.

You are part of what you hate we all are.

I don't particularly hate it. I think most people fail to see the hilarity of the paradoxes inherent in our system, that's all. Of course, this makes my thoguhts seem otherworldly to many but I can't blame them for that any more than I can blame them for not asking why they don't strap boards to themselves to flatten their foreheads. The things we perceive as normal - including government institutions and norms of "justice" - are largely accidental.

Government is not populated by a race of zombies from Venus. It is us! We create the laws and we apply them and you are right there along side each and every one of us.
The system of government that was created works exactly how it should.

To say that there is a "should" to the functioning of government other than how some group (poosibly a goroup of 1) thinks it "should" is an overreach. Yes there is a majority opinion which contradicts mine, but why should I care about that?. I think you are infering too much. There is no more a purpose or a right way of government function than there is a specific intent behind natural selection.

People impose their wills on others. This is the story of humanity for all of history. This happens because of this self-evident truth: that people are born neither free nor equal. The reason we have a legal system built upon the opposite assertion is not because it is true, but because history has taught us that to allow a government to act in accordance with the truth is too monstrous to bear.

IF, as a population, we are corrupt then our system will provide corruption. There is no remedy once the people divorce themselves from the system. It will flounder into an abyss and emerge a new creation at some point if all that is wrong is left to fester and feed upon the power the system enables.

The notion that all political change worth achieving may be achieved by operating within "the rules" which themselves are changed arbitrarily, frequently, and maliciously is Quixotic at best, moronic at worst.

Laws are created by us and it is us who live by them, or should. We have the vote and we have the power if we'd only use it. We are a divided nation. Both sides of the divide have an agenda and it may even be the same agenda. How can we move toward a truly fair and equitable system of justice and liberty if we place greed before honor or bias above love. We do this. We are greedy and we love only what suits us. We develop hate and bias to serve those needs.

No. Laws are created by an incredibly small cadre. "Representative" institutions are erected to create a perception of participation but they are almost entirely ineffective at doing so. It's like a play steering wheel connected to your child's car seat.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-democratic. Elections are incredibly valuable, but not as a way to shape legislation. Their real value is that they allow for political catharsis without bloodshed. Prior to the innovation of elections, when the people wanted to get rid of an oppressive government they had to kill everybody. In order to have an outside chance of better rulers they had to take it upon themselves to consent to become an entire generation of murderers. Electiosn provide a way to remove despised government leaders without violence. This promotes a more civil society. The fact that the next guy is hardly better than the last is beside the point. After all, good people generally do not ask for political power.

As you sit and pontificate on the disaster before you and how you elevate above it all so do I.... You in your way and me in mine. I will not don the outfit of Francis Marion and hide behind trees to better deflate the objectives of the Red Coats... I'll do what I can to work within the system and maintain my sense of just behavior.

I see little difference between one giving their word under oath or not. It is my honor and integrity that I hold dear. You may find loopholes in an oath or how you utter the words or what they mean to you that enables others to proceed under the impression that you'd do as you promise. I know what the words require that I utter and I'm driven by the spirit of those words.

When a circumstance arises where one can reasonably see an injustice... reasonably as they see it... and they act to thwart that they have embarked on a path where Equal Justice is dependent on how equal each jury is to another. No group of twelve are equal to any other group of twelve. However, if each group of twelve look only to what they promised to evaluate Equal Justice has a much better chance to exist.

I fully agree that equal justice would be a good thing, but so would my own private island. Laws don't create justice, people do. Laws only aid in the creation of justice insofar as tehy do nto need to be enforced. Any evil (other than purely financial offenses) that breaks a law is never going to actually be put right by the exercise of legal consequences. Laws don't bring murder victims back, they dont' remove the trauma of rape, they don't fix broken lives. The application of criminal remedies never creates justice.

Yes, it may be dependent on who brings a case or what their motive is but that is NOT what our responsibility is in this venue... We have another duty as well. That duty is to place in power those who also are honor bound to dispense justice and do so equally among our people.

I commend you for your conviction but I am uncompelled. I can't bering myself to believe that, when there is an opportunity to make the world a better place through the exercise of my freedom as a juror, that the world is improved by putting blinders on and convicting people of crimes for doing the right thing.

I submit that you are overvaluing equality of justice. "Equal jsutice" is an important principle insofar as it describes the consequences imposed on convicts and the manner in which those convictions are produced. Ther ewill always be errors, and in my mind (and that of many of the founders), the biggest concern in shaping a jsutice system must be in ensureing that whenever errors occur, they are always in favor of the defendant. Jury nullification can never make the state more oppressive. I have no delusion that a nullifying jury is perfect in its judgment, but at least it does not make the law more oppressive.

When we get off our penguin butts and put in the effort to make our system work right it will be when we have gotten off our butts and made ourselves right. It starts with us...

Oh aren't you a happy little worker bee. You are the most valuable member of society - far more valuable than myself - for without you the system would collapse. I only wonder if that is such a bad thing. The future is full of awe and wonder. Who knows what societal paradigm may rise next? I want to know!

 

[LunarRay]

Would you say that the right to conscious is an inalienable right? I would say that it is. Therefore, it would seem to me that any oath that precludes the use of my conscience in evaluating only evidence but not the validity of a law and to which a person is open to punishment, would of itself be criminal to swear to. You would be selling your right to your own conscience down the drain. The court may not like where my own personal conscience takes me, but I can't see how they can take my right to apply it away.

The person holds the inalienable rights that all people ought to enjoy... The person's thinking process is guided by this conscience thing. One's conscience ought to force them toward doing right. The question before us is what is Right.

Once you've determined what is right then you are compelled to act that way.
IF there are various factors before us and each has been determined to be this Right thingi we are force to choose between those that may conflict with one or more of the other Right thingi. Are there Greater and Lessor Right thingi? Perhaps... That comes from within and is biased by what ever little gizmos live there...

So how on Earth... or in the Galaxy are we to establish the first most important sacrosanct Right thingi from which all other or at least the next most important Right follow?

For me it is easy.... What do I hold to be ME... I am a being who without honor and integrity is nothing... But that can cut many ways... What about me adds or detracts from that honor and integrity? Is it, for instance, seeking to insure justice is provided for all people to the extent I can or is it a much simpler and selfish issue like being true to my word. Can I be true to my word AND insure justice.... perhaps... perhaps not... to the extent I can then fine and to the extent I find conflict then I cannot. At least not in that manner.

I see it all much like a brick road.... each brick plays a part but it is the foundation upon which the bricks are set that secures the bricks in place.

Your foundation is what ever you will not give up for any reason... find that and you found the answer to your dilemma....

 

[nonlnear]

Would you say that the right to conscious is an inalienable right? I would say that it is.

If you mean it in the sense I think you do, I would say yes.

Therefore, it would seem to me that any oath that precludes the use of my conscience in evaluating only evidence but not the validity of a law and to which a person is open to punishment, would of itself be criminal to swear to.

Of course it is criminal, but perjury is not enforced with a standard of truth, but by whatever standard validates the system.

You would be selling your right to your own conscience down the drain. The court may not like where my own personal conscience takes me, but I can't see how they can take my right to apply it away.

I agree.

The system ensures that a jury will be sworn in. What is more evil, that a jury is sworn in who have abbrogated their consciences, or that a jury has been sworn in who are willing to lie to the Nazi guard asking if they have any Juden in their house? There are times when we are faced with two evils. At such times I take a cue from Bonhoeffer. When I sin I sin boldly.

 

[LunarRay]

I have an unusual spin on things, and am generally uncompelled by notions of collective identity. However I wouldn't say I set myself apart. If I did I would be a deeply resentful person. I understand and even accept that I am put upon by authorities who have coercive power over my life. As much as I might find the current structure of things distasteful, I observe that my life is far better than it would be at most times int he past. How could I possibly be ungrateful to be under a system that most people will only see as tyranny in a couple centuries from now, when I could have been born a hapless yeoman a millenium ago? My life, under the present tyranny, is wonderful.
I don't particularly hate it. I think most people fail to see the hilarity of the paradoxes inherent in our system, that's all. Of course, this makes my thoguhts seem otherworldly to many but I can't blame them for that any more than I can blame them for not asking why they don't strap boards to themselves to flatten their foreheads. The things we perceive as normal - including government institutions and norms of "justice" - are largely accidental.
To say that there is a "should" to the functioning of government other than how some group (poosibly a goroup of 1) thinks it "should" is an overreach. Yes there is a majority opinion which contradicts mine, but why should I care about that?. I think you are infering too much. There is no more a purpose or a right way of government function than there is a specific intent behind natural selection.

People impose their wills on others. This is the story of humanity for all of history. This happens because of this self-evident truth: that people are born neither free nor equal. The reason we have a legal system built upon the opposite assertion is not because it is true, but because history has taught us that to allow a government to act in accordance with the truth is too monstrous to bear.
The notion that all political change worth achieving may be achieved by operating within "the rules" which themselves are changed arbitrarily, frequently, and maliciously is Quixotic at best, moronic at worst.

No. Laws are created by an incredibly small cadre. "Representative" institutions are erected to create a perception of participation but they are almost entirely ineffective at doing so. It's like a play steering wheel connected to your child's car seat.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-democratic. Elections are incredibly valuable, but not as a way to shape legislation. Their real value is that they allow for political catharsis without bloodshed. Prior to the innovation of elections, when the people wanted to get rid of an oppressive government they had to kill everybody. In order to have an outside chance of better rulers they had to take it upon themselves to consent to become an entire generation of murderers. Electiosn provide a way to remove despised government leaders without violence. This promotes a more civil society. The fact that the next guy is hardly better than the last is beside the point. After all, good people generally do not ask for political power.
I fully agree that equal justice would be a good thing, but so would my own private island. Laws don't create justice, people do. Laws only aid in the creation of justice insofar as tehy do nto need to be enforced. Any evil (other than purely financial offenses) that breaks a law is never going to actually be put right by the exercise of legal consequences. Laws don't bring murder victims back, they dont' remove the trauma of rape, they don't fix broken lives. The application of criminal remedies never creates justice.
I commend you for your conviction but I am uncompelled. I can't bering myself to believe that, when there is an opportunity to make the world a better place through the exercise of my freedom as a juror, that the world is improved by putting blinders on and convicting people of crimes for doing the right thing.

I submit that you are overvaluing equality of justice. "Equal jsutice" is an important principle insofar as it describes the consequences imposed on convicts and the manner in which those convictions are produced. Ther ewill always be errors, and in my mind (and that of many of the founders), the biggest concern in shaping a jsutice system must be in ensureing that whenever errors occur, they are always in favor of the defendant. Jury nullification can never make the state more oppressive. I have no delusion that a nullifying jury is perfect in its judgment, but at least it does not make the law more oppressive.


Oh aren't you a happy little worker bee. You are the most valuable member of society - far more valuable than myself - for without you the system would collapse. I only wonder if that is such a bad thing. The future is full of awe and wonder. Who knows what societal paradigm may rise next? I want to know!

Ok... well.. fair enough.

I really enjoyed reading what you had to say in this thread. Well... I read a lot of your postings.

For years before I joined AT I would scurry to the site and read Moonbeam's latest contribution. Not many motivate me in such a manner. I count you among those folks. So, for that I thank you...

Last nite and into this morning Moonster and I argued or debated this Oath thingi... Even during the running of a WoW raid.... When I could get a word in edgewise, that is... hehehe
I say that because it IS an issue for us. Not some random thread to post a soon to be forgotten bit of typing...

All I can say now is that regardless of the greater right or wrong that I move syrupy toward when I look at my two great grand-kids I will confidently be able to say... I was always on your side.

 

[woolfe9999]

Comparing anything in the real world to a theoretical ideal that is impossible to attain is, I suppose, no more a waste of time than any of a number of other intellectual flights of fancy. So long as it isn't mistaken for an empirically valid exercise, i.e. where real world comparisons are made as among alternatives which do actually exist and are very real. For example, you can compare one legal system, or one health care system, with another that actually exists, now or at some time in the past, and you might learn something that is useful and applicable in the real world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy

 

[nonlnear]

Comparing anything in the real world to a theoretical ideal that is impossible to attain is, I suppose, no more a waste of time than any of a number of other intellectual flights of fancy. So long as it isn't mistaken for an empirically valid exercise, i.e. where real world comparisons are made as among alternatives which do actually exist and are very real. For example, you can compare one legal system, or one health care system, with another that actually exists, now or at some time in the past, and you might learn something that is useful and applicable in the real world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy

You do realize that generally when people mention standard assumptions about the legal system they are committing a form of the Nirvana fallacy, right? For example saying that people who commit crimes should be tried and sentenced according to the law (applying this principle to DeChristopher as justification for why it would be right for a juror who opposes the law to deliver such a verdict) is making a statement no less fanciful than saying they wished for world peace. 29 other people committed the exact same "offense" without any prosecutorial action whatsoever. The law as written did not really exist in practice, but was kept on ice and thawed out in this one instance as a tool for capricious political persecution.

 

[nonlnear]

Don't ever try to dispel the illusion that the state is an elemental evil, an entity that exists separate and apart from the sentient beings who populate its governed territory,

That would be ridiculous. The state is a subset of the sentient beings that populate its governed territory. And it's hardly an elemental evil; it is the embodiment of a fundamental characteristic of the story of humanity: that humans seek to impose their will on other humans. I don't see this as an evil, just a fact of life. Even dogs and ants do it.

or the illusion that we are living in some sort of "End Times" (be it the religious or secular version) where everything is presumed much worse than it once was.

You probably get the impression that this is my general world view because this thread is focusing on some specific aspects of society in which I think some things are significantly worse than they once were. Really the only thing at issue here that I think is significantly worse is the nature of grand juries, and the influence of that on the culture of state prosecutors' offices. That is a pretty narrow point though. There are MANY other aspects of justice that have improved dramatically over the last century and I will happily cheer them (for example race relations, and the various discriminatory laws that went with that). They just don't seem all that germane to this thread.

Or that we are each a unique snow flake who alone is able to see the truth.

Now that would be the height of vanity. However it is an equal vanity to think that there are truths which no individual can be trusted to elucidate on their own, but which a society as a whole is an authority.

Those illusions make life so much more interesting for the people who entertain them.

I'm sure they would, but I can't really speak to that.

It's not surprising that someone reading this thread might ascribe those notions to me, but my posts in this thread exhibit heavy sample bias. I didn't have much opportunity to write about those institutions of today that are far better than those of the past. There are serious problems with the institutions of today. Some protections that used to exist have been eroded and are contributing to the growth of... those structural problems that are growing. There are other structural problems which are being improved at the same time. For example race relations are far better than they were 60 years ago. I'm not so sure I would want to go back to the days when grand juries were truly independent and the seventeenth amendment was in force, even though those institutions provided [incredibly narrow] benefits which I think we could use today. (Although to be fair the seventeenth was hardly an ideal solution either.) Life really sucked back then. However that is no reason to ignore those institutions from the past which might still be useful today.

 

[woolfe9999]

You do realize that generally when people mention standard assumptions about the legal system they are committing a form of the Nirvana fallacy, right? For example saying that people who commit crimes should be tried and sentenced according to the law (applying this principle to DeChristopher as justification for why it would be right for a juror who opposes the law to deliver such a verdict) is making a statement no less fanciful than saying they wished for world peace. 29 other people committed the exact same "offense" without any prosecutorial action whatsoever. The law as written did not really exist in practice, but was kept on ice and thawed out in this one instance as a tool for capricious political persecution.

I think you are taking it as an article of faith that DeChristopher was subject to selective prosecution. There were 29 others who defaulted on bids. That, however, is a civil matter. It isn't a crime to default on a bid. It's a crime to make a bid with no present intention to follow through on it. It's the same as writing bad checks. It's a matter of civil debt unless it can be proven that the person writing the bad check knew that there were insufficient funds at the time and never had the intention to pay. Then it becomes criminal fraud.

Similarly with DeChristopher's necessity defense, decades prior to this case, the SCOTUS ruled that political necessity is not a valid defense. It's a sensible rule because no two people have the same idea of political necessity and allowing such a defense *would* be a slippery slope. In any event, DeChrisopher's defense wasn't disallowed for political reasons. Existing precedent simply would not allow it.

I'm not quite sure how you are defining the Nirvana fallacy. I don't assume that the system works in the ideal way at all times. I know for a fact that the system is not only flawed but deeply flawed. However, my perspective is not to obsess over comparing it to an ideal. Human beings are capable of imagining far better than they will in practice ever implement. Relevant comparisons are those in the real world, either over time or across geo-political boundaries. Ideals are interesting to ponder, especially when you're young, but spending too much time obsessing over them, and the extent to which reality falls short of them, either leads to fanatical ideology or else paralytic cynicism and disengagement. Neither is terribly constructive in the real world, but YMMV of course.

 

[woolfe9999]

That would be ridiculous. The state is a subset of the sentient beings that populate its governed territory. And it's hardly an elemental evil; it is the embodiment of a fundamental characteristic of the story of humanity: that humans seek to impose their will on other humans. I don't see this as an evil, just a fact of life. Even dogs and ants do it.

You probably get the impression that this is my general world view because this thread is focusing on some specific aspects of society in which I think some things are significantly worse than they once were. Really the only thing at issue here that I think is significantly worse is the nature of grand juries, and the influence of that on the culture of state prosecutors' offices. That is a pretty narrow point though. There are MANY other aspects of justice that have improved dramatically over the last century and I will happily cheer them (for example race relations, and the various discriminatory laws that went with that). They just don't seem all that germane to this thread.

Now that would be the height of vanity. However it is an equal vanity to think that there are truths which no individual can be trusted to elucidate on their own, but which a society as a whole is an authority.
I'm sure they would, but I can't really speak to that.

It's not surprising that someone reading this thread might ascribe those notions to me, but my posts in this thread exhibit heavy sample bias. I didn't have much opportunity to write about those institutions of today that are far better than those of the past. There are serious problems with the institutions of today. Some protections that used to exist have been eroded and are contributing to the growth of... those structural problems that are growing. There are other structural problems which are being improved at the same time. For example race relations are far better than they were 60 years ago. I'm not so sure I would want to go back to the days when grand juries were truly independent and the seventeenth amendment was in force, even though those institutions provided [incredibly narrow] benefits which I think we could use today. (Although to be fair the seventeenth was hardly an ideal solution either.) Life really sucked back then. However that is no reason to ignore those institutions from the past which might still be useful today.

Fair enough. I accept your clarifications on all points.

You're right about human beings desiring to exert dominance over others. As well, we desire to not be dominated by others. The trouble is when people view the state as the either the only or even the prime method that such dominance is exerted. The theory of the modern liberal state is not only that it replaces the old world totalitarian state with a more benign form of power, but that it eradicates or at least disrupts power relationships which exist in the absence of any state but are not so benign. For example, the power through strength and force of arms, or through possession of resources.

The extent to which the modern liberal state accomplishes those objectives is open for debate. However, I'm afraid the libertarian fails to see that other forms of dominance outside the state do exist and that in the absence of any state these other forms of power will necessarily go unchecked. The simplistic libertarian equation of less state = more liberty is a fallacy when applied to the real world.