http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul68.html
Let me first say that Ron Paul is right in this essay, but that there are some minor sins of omission. I'm a Ron Paul supporter, and believe he's the only candidate worth supporting in the current GOP or Democratic races.
Ron Paul writes: "The real reason liberals hate the concept of states' right has nothing to do with racism, but rather reflects a hostility toward anything that would act as a limit on the power of the federal government."
I hate it when libertarian politicians, who ostensibly wish to generate pro-freedom votes, paint everyone who identifies themselves with a 'suitcase word' (such as "liberal," or "conservative" -words that describe many phenomena, values, conditions, or independent variables) as possessing the most hateful formulation of that suitcase word.
Paul could equally correctly have written:
"The real reason conservatives love the concept of states' right has nothing to do with limiting the power of the federal government, but rather reflects a hostility toward minorities who would benefit from an even application of the 14th Amendment and true equality under the law." (And it would be just as wrong as slamming liberals for opposing states' right. In truth, implementing states' rights is a strategy for decentralizing power, not an end goal. As an end goal, only the preservation of individual rights is valid.)
The point isn't that Paul is wrong. Generally speaking, he's not. But he'd have been a lot more correct if he didn't paint all liberals with such a broad brush. He should have qualified his statement by saying "many liberals" or even "most liberals" or "the liberal establishment." He could have singled out ranting socialists who call themselves liberals, such as Chris Matthews (who apparently believes that all decentralists are racists). This would have left a little room in his statement for the minority of well-educated libertarian-leaning liberals (many of whom support his candidacy) to not feel like they were being painted "Obama blue." Moreover: is there any reason to alienate the "socially liberal" people who mistakenly voted for Obama because they incorrectly thought he would keep his campaign promise to stop raiding state medical marijuana collectives? Those people should vote for Paul!
In one of his most famous essays, F. A. Hayek (one of Ron Paul's heroes) states that the best word to describe his libertarian political views is still "liberal," given the history of the term. From Hayek's essay "Why I am Not A Conservative, point 6:" (also at Lew Rockwell.com):
"What I have said should suffice to explain why I do not regard myself as a conservative. Many people will feel, however, that the position which emerges is hardly what they used to call "liberal." I must, therefore, now face the question of whether this name is today the appropriate name for the party of liberty. I have already indicated that, though I have all my life described myself as a liberal, I have done so recently with increasing misgivings...
...In the United States, where it has become almost impossible to use "liberal" in the sense in which I have used it, the term "libertarian" has been used instead. It may be the answer; but for my part I find it singularly unattractive. For my taste it carries too much the flavor of a manufactured term and of a substitute. What I should want is a word which describes the party of life, the party that favors free growth and spontaneous evolution. But I have racked my brain unsuccessfully to find a descriptive term which commends itself."
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/hayek1.html
I don't know this for sure, but I suspect that modern defenders of jury nullification and true equality under the law, such as Clay Conrad, David T. Hardy, and Paul Butler, might agree with Hayek.
I also wish Dr. Paul would have included more criticism of the drug laws, gun laws, and other mala prohibita that victimizes minorities in our society. You can't correct unfairness caused by government force until you identify it. To be fair, Paul has done this before on Nationwide TV, just not in this essay on the same subject. It would have made an excellent addition to the argument that in order to defeat racism, one needs to end institutionalized racism allowed by selective enforcement of mala prohibita.
Of course, that could fill ten times the space to fully explain and defend.
This criticism is minor, since Paul's main point is correct. Still, it's incomplete and too general. Now is the time for specifics, and for victory. I loved it when Paul was pointing out how racist the drug war is, on TV the other day, and how the drug war denies both property rights and equality under the law. He needs to do a lot more of that.
Every time he criticizes liberals, I'd also like to hear a criticism of conservatives. Neither position is legitimate, in its modern formulation.
Showing posts with label Paul Butler. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Paul Butler. Show all posts
Monday, December 26, 2011
Friday, August 26, 2011
Meme Programming That, Once it Reaches a Certain Threshold, Results in A Free Society:
In the middle 1600s, a generally-intelligent biological supercomputer began reproducing and serving up the jury rights programming to fellow generally-intelligent biological supercomputers known as "human brains." The supercomputer did this by speaking the programs in audible symbols, and hoping that the symbols or "words" would be translated into useful neo-cortical patterns, inside the receiving brains. The serving supercomputer's name was John Lilburne or "Freeborn John" and one of the receiving supercomputers was Richard Overton. These supercomputers called themselves "levellers" because they believed that everyone should have "level" or "equal" rights under the law.
The most powerful supercomputers on the planet are still human brains, but sometimes we forget that. Worse, we forget that what brains are programmed with are the most important software programs on the planet. They are the software programs that determine whether we will go to war, go to the gas chamber, or go to the market to purchase what we want and need, in order to live. We forget the heroic meme programming that has provided us all with the expectation of equality under the law.
This afternoon, I gathered several of my favorite book-format meme programs into my hands. It was a stack of books about six inches thick. The collective page count of the stack is 1,366 pages (308-We The Jury, 311-Jury Nullification, 213-Let's Get Free, 225-Adventures in Legal Land, 309-Nullification). I thought about the contents of each book, and how they form, taken together, both a complete political philosophy and the knowledge necessary to implement that philosophy, nationwide. It struck me that, if even 10% of the USA read and absorbed the contents of these books, the resulting USA would be totally libertarian. ...We would have our freedom.
...Even if the total number of libertarians in the USA was not increased.
This would mean that you could walk down the street carrying a .308 rifle as well as a concealed side-arm in Chicago, and have little to fear from the police. You could also advertise a restaurant with no food handling license in that same currently unfree American city (being free to suffer the negative press and lawsuits if you made anyone sick). You could put a dash of cocaine on your nail, and sniff it into your nose, or relax in a hash bar smoking a marijuana cigar, and noone could or would bother you. You could legally pay for sex, and not worry that the person you were paying would then participate in your brutalization and arrest. You could open a business without any money for lawyers to wade through the bureaucracy (although it might still be good to have their services as soon as you could afford it, to avoid aggressive lawsuits from accident or controversy). You could offer to defend anyone in a court of law, without being licensed by the BAR. When politicians came by, insinuating that 'bad things might happen to your business' if you didn't contribute to their campaigns, you could simply keep your money and tell them all to go to hell. And for the more productive citizens among us? They could make us all wealthier than Bill Gates by selling currently "unapproved" (that is, prohibited) medical treatments, without begging (currently witheld) permission from the FDA and AMA for doing so. Instead of our paper money going down in value, our gold-backed money would steadily rise in value, in direct proportion to the amount of human thought and labor, planet-wide. ...We would all be living healthy lifespans beyond age 120, in something that looks like a utopia compared to what we're now experiencing.
All of this would be the result of roughly 20% of the USA's citizens being made aware of the contents of this small stack of books, now sitting on my desk. (This assumes, in the manner of Pareto's law, that roughly 20% of those 20% ---that is, 4% of the total--- would become active supporters of organized jury rights activism in some way.) A meme can be defined as "an easily-transmissible idea" or "an easily-transmissible philosophical idea." Essentially, a meme is a software virus for the mind (bad), or a useful software program for the mind (good). Hence, the title of this post. Since there are roughly 3,143 counties and county-equivalents in the USA, and the transmission of these ideas requires 2 "meme-serving" or "memenode" activists" per county courthouse (4 or more is better), if we estimate that there is one courthouse per county, we come up with a figure of 6,286 activists needed to make this plan functional.
The government school system has implanted bad memes in people's minds. The oversimplified views most people have of juries, generally constitute a "bad meme cluster." The impression that bad results emerge from juries (without the knowledge that those juries are judicially-misdirected and controlled) is another bad meme installed by government schoolteachers (or the authority and media figures they've programmed). These bad memes defend themselves, but only weakly. A presentation of the facts of history is generally enough to dislodge these views. Ultimately, a person's agreement with jury independence tends to revolve around their core beliefs: Is man always improving and making progress? Is the free individual worth protecting? If so, then the meme of jury rights clearly trumps the tyrant meme that believes judicially-instructed juries are optimal.
The book I am now in the process of writing adds strategic information to the material found in these books. It suggests a plan for getting the most useful information from those books into enough minds to result in exponentially-expanding jury nullification (to an appropriate level). (As jury nullification happens more and more frequently, it may become less necessary, because prosecutors may attempt to prosecute fewer victimless crime cases. Thus, the number of cases nullified always needs to be correlated to attempted victimless crime cases filed against defendants, in order to contain the most meaning, and be "spin proof.") This strategy will produce increases in liberty directly in proportion to activist effort. Until my book comes out, however, the following sources are the absolute most useful sources one can read.
So, if you wish to have a much greater degree of individual freedom, please seek out, purchase, and familiarize yourself with the following links:
Jury Rights Internet Links:
http://www.isil.org/resources/lit/history-jury-null.html
--An essay that condenses the history of our lost jury rights
to something that fits on a single-page tri-fold pamphlet. This pamphlet should be handed out, outside of courthouses.
http://www.fija.org
--The Fully Informed Jury Association (Comprehensive Jury Rights Information)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pA4GKG__B-s
1/3 Ron Paul presents "Power to the Jury" At Issue (NEFL)
(Congressman Ron Paul explains the power of individual members of the jury in this video. This video should be sent to anyone you know who will not read the books and online sources cited in this recommended reading list.)
http://www.jurorsforjustice.com
--Dr. Paul Butler's Jury Rights Activism website, "Jurors for Justice".
(A useful website that reveals the racism that always results from "mala prohibita," as well as a plan for its elimination.)
http://lysanderspooner.org/node/35
--Abolitionist Lysander Spooner's "An Essay On the Trial by Jury"
(The abolitionist movement was the first pro-freedom movement in the USA to take advantage of jury rights activism. This brought on the Civil War, which then freed the slaves. Although the US government could have freed the slaves peacefully, by buying and then releasing them, the presence of informed Northern abolitionist juries made enforcing the Fugitive Slave Law impossible. Northern juries refused to punish free slaves, and thereby made slavery impossible to enforce, without walls and prisons capable of preventing slaves from running away, or being smuggled away.)
http://www.strike-the-root.com/91/groves/groves1.html
--A groundbreaking essay that talks about how politicians are self-selected for sociopathy. This relates to jury rights because the jury is NOT self-selected for sociopathy --proper juries are RANDOM, and contain a random assortment of morally-normal or normally-conscienced people. This explains why juries trend toward benevolence, and politicians trend toward democide and injustice.
http://fija.org/download/40/
--"Surviving Voir Dire" by Clay Conrad (How to get seated on the jury, if you understand the importance of doing so, and don't want to be removed during the unconstitutional "voir dire" or "jury selection.")
reason.com/archives/2010/12/07/the-war-on-cameras
"The War On Cameras" --Radley Balko
(This groundbreaking article records the loss of freedom of the press in the USA. A free press [including the freedom to record video in public] is essential to the nonviolent spread of jury rights information. The state never gives up its right to record us in public, so if we don't have the equal right to record their agents, we lose the ability to prove ourselves innocent with exculpatory evidence of our own conduct. We also lose the ability to hold them accountable for incriminating evidence of their misconduct. While handing out jury rights information in front of local courthouses, it is therefore absolutely essential that you videotape what you are doing, and upload it to the net, and to interested media outlets. This amplifies your message, allowing it to reach places you cannot even imagine, online. When the police respond to you with force and threats, if they do so, they will look terrible, and lend sympathy to your cause. Since you get a free impression of credibility for dressing well while you are doing this, please wear a business suit [or nice dress if you are female] while handing out jury rights pamphlets. By presenting yourself well, in person and on video, you make the receivers of your message much more likely to engage in jury nullification, and that's the goal you are optimizing for. The more jury nullification, the more the establishment is forced to take your message seriously, and the less time they will wish to risk trying to prosecute innocent people.)
Essential Books:
The Triumph of Liberty --Jim Powell
(This book briefly covers the Lilburnian origin of English Jury Trials, and covers the major incremental advances in individual freedom through the prior 2,000 years. If you don't know history, you are doomed to repeat it.)
Jury Nullification: The Evolution of a Doctrine (1988) --Clay Conrad
(This book examines, in detail, the doctrine of jury nullification of law, also known as "jury veto." Highly recommended.)
We, The Jury: The Jury System and the Ideal of Democracy (1994) --Jeffrey Abramson
(This book examines, in detail, the doctrine of jury nullification of law, also known as "jury veto." There is significant overlap with the prior book on the same subject, but it also covers a great deal of new ground.)
Let's Get Free: A Hip-Hop Theory of Justice --Dr. Paul Butler
(Covers new ground, in terms of jury nullification and jury rights outreach and activism. Definitely worth reading for the self-educated juror. Goes further into jury veto as a tool to be used against institutionalized racism than the other books do.)
Adventures in Legal Land --Marc Stevens
(A detailed explanation of the legal theory that is compatible with jury nullification, including a step-by-step explanation of a proper legal response to aggression from the courts. ie: Directions regarding what a pro se defendant should say, if he wants to increase his chances beyond throwing himself on the mercy of the jury. Absolutely essential for people who will risk arrest by performing organized and coordinated jury rights activism.)
Nullification: How To Resist Federal Tyranny in the 21st Century --Tom Woods
(Extending the defense of individual liberty into the political structure. In short, in stead of getting individuals to refuse to punish other individuals, this book shows how States can refuse to punish their citizens by rejecting federal law. This is the political extension of a libertarian society that has already embraced jury nullification of law.)
The most powerful supercomputers on the planet are still human brains, but sometimes we forget that. Worse, we forget that what brains are programmed with are the most important software programs on the planet. They are the software programs that determine whether we will go to war, go to the gas chamber, or go to the market to purchase what we want and need, in order to live. We forget the heroic meme programming that has provided us all with the expectation of equality under the law.
This afternoon, I gathered several of my favorite book-format meme programs into my hands. It was a stack of books about six inches thick. The collective page count of the stack is 1,366 pages (308-We The Jury, 311-Jury Nullification, 213-Let's Get Free, 225-Adventures in Legal Land, 309-Nullification). I thought about the contents of each book, and how they form, taken together, both a complete political philosophy and the knowledge necessary to implement that philosophy, nationwide. It struck me that, if even 10% of the USA read and absorbed the contents of these books, the resulting USA would be totally libertarian. ...We would have our freedom.
...Even if the total number of libertarians in the USA was not increased.
This would mean that you could walk down the street carrying a .308 rifle as well as a concealed side-arm in Chicago, and have little to fear from the police. You could also advertise a restaurant with no food handling license in that same currently unfree American city (being free to suffer the negative press and lawsuits if you made anyone sick). You could put a dash of cocaine on your nail, and sniff it into your nose, or relax in a hash bar smoking a marijuana cigar, and noone could or would bother you. You could legally pay for sex, and not worry that the person you were paying would then participate in your brutalization and arrest. You could open a business without any money for lawyers to wade through the bureaucracy (although it might still be good to have their services as soon as you could afford it, to avoid aggressive lawsuits from accident or controversy). You could offer to defend anyone in a court of law, without being licensed by the BAR. When politicians came by, insinuating that 'bad things might happen to your business' if you didn't contribute to their campaigns, you could simply keep your money and tell them all to go to hell. And for the more productive citizens among us? They could make us all wealthier than Bill Gates by selling currently "unapproved" (that is, prohibited) medical treatments, without begging (currently witheld) permission from the FDA and AMA for doing so. Instead of our paper money going down in value, our gold-backed money would steadily rise in value, in direct proportion to the amount of human thought and labor, planet-wide. ...We would all be living healthy lifespans beyond age 120, in something that looks like a utopia compared to what we're now experiencing.
All of this would be the result of roughly 20% of the USA's citizens being made aware of the contents of this small stack of books, now sitting on my desk. (This assumes, in the manner of Pareto's law, that roughly 20% of those 20% ---that is, 4% of the total--- would become active supporters of organized jury rights activism in some way.) A meme can be defined as "an easily-transmissible idea" or "an easily-transmissible philosophical idea." Essentially, a meme is a software virus for the mind (bad), or a useful software program for the mind (good). Hence, the title of this post. Since there are roughly 3,143 counties and county-equivalents in the USA, and the transmission of these ideas requires 2 "meme-serving" or "memenode" activists" per county courthouse (4 or more is better), if we estimate that there is one courthouse per county, we come up with a figure of 6,286 activists needed to make this plan functional.
The government school system has implanted bad memes in people's minds. The oversimplified views most people have of juries, generally constitute a "bad meme cluster." The impression that bad results emerge from juries (without the knowledge that those juries are judicially-misdirected and controlled) is another bad meme installed by government schoolteachers (or the authority and media figures they've programmed). These bad memes defend themselves, but only weakly. A presentation of the facts of history is generally enough to dislodge these views. Ultimately, a person's agreement with jury independence tends to revolve around their core beliefs: Is man always improving and making progress? Is the free individual worth protecting? If so, then the meme of jury rights clearly trumps the tyrant meme that believes judicially-instructed juries are optimal.
The book I am now in the process of writing adds strategic information to the material found in these books. It suggests a plan for getting the most useful information from those books into enough minds to result in exponentially-expanding jury nullification (to an appropriate level). (As jury nullification happens more and more frequently, it may become less necessary, because prosecutors may attempt to prosecute fewer victimless crime cases. Thus, the number of cases nullified always needs to be correlated to attempted victimless crime cases filed against defendants, in order to contain the most meaning, and be "spin proof.") This strategy will produce increases in liberty directly in proportion to activist effort. Until my book comes out, however, the following sources are the absolute most useful sources one can read.
So, if you wish to have a much greater degree of individual freedom, please seek out, purchase, and familiarize yourself with the following links:
Jury Rights Internet Links:
http://www.isil.org/resources/lit/history-jury-null.html
--An essay that condenses the history of our lost jury rights
to something that fits on a single-page tri-fold pamphlet. This pamphlet should be handed out, outside of courthouses.
http://www.fija.org
--The Fully Informed Jury Association (Comprehensive Jury Rights Information)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pA4GKG__B-s
1/3 Ron Paul presents "Power to the Jury" At Issue (NEFL)
(Congressman Ron Paul explains the power of individual members of the jury in this video. This video should be sent to anyone you know who will not read the books and online sources cited in this recommended reading list.)
http://www.jurorsforjustice.com
--Dr. Paul Butler's Jury Rights Activism website, "Jurors for Justice".
(A useful website that reveals the racism that always results from "mala prohibita," as well as a plan for its elimination.)
http://lysanderspooner.org/node/35
--Abolitionist Lysander Spooner's "An Essay On the Trial by Jury"
(The abolitionist movement was the first pro-freedom movement in the USA to take advantage of jury rights activism. This brought on the Civil War, which then freed the slaves. Although the US government could have freed the slaves peacefully, by buying and then releasing them, the presence of informed Northern abolitionist juries made enforcing the Fugitive Slave Law impossible. Northern juries refused to punish free slaves, and thereby made slavery impossible to enforce, without walls and prisons capable of preventing slaves from running away, or being smuggled away.)
http://www.strike-the-root.com/91/groves/groves1.html
--A groundbreaking essay that talks about how politicians are self-selected for sociopathy. This relates to jury rights because the jury is NOT self-selected for sociopathy --proper juries are RANDOM, and contain a random assortment of morally-normal or normally-conscienced people. This explains why juries trend toward benevolence, and politicians trend toward democide and injustice.
http://fija.org/download/40/
--"Surviving Voir Dire" by Clay Conrad (How to get seated on the jury, if you understand the importance of doing so, and don't want to be removed during the unconstitutional "voir dire" or "jury selection.")
reason.com/archives/2010/12/07/the-war-on-cameras
"The War On Cameras" --Radley Balko
(This groundbreaking article records the loss of freedom of the press in the USA. A free press [including the freedom to record video in public] is essential to the nonviolent spread of jury rights information. The state never gives up its right to record us in public, so if we don't have the equal right to record their agents, we lose the ability to prove ourselves innocent with exculpatory evidence of our own conduct. We also lose the ability to hold them accountable for incriminating evidence of their misconduct. While handing out jury rights information in front of local courthouses, it is therefore absolutely essential that you videotape what you are doing, and upload it to the net, and to interested media outlets. This amplifies your message, allowing it to reach places you cannot even imagine, online. When the police respond to you with force and threats, if they do so, they will look terrible, and lend sympathy to your cause. Since you get a free impression of credibility for dressing well while you are doing this, please wear a business suit [or nice dress if you are female] while handing out jury rights pamphlets. By presenting yourself well, in person and on video, you make the receivers of your message much more likely to engage in jury nullification, and that's the goal you are optimizing for. The more jury nullification, the more the establishment is forced to take your message seriously, and the less time they will wish to risk trying to prosecute innocent people.)
Essential Books:
The Triumph of Liberty --Jim Powell
(This book briefly covers the Lilburnian origin of English Jury Trials, and covers the major incremental advances in individual freedom through the prior 2,000 years. If you don't know history, you are doomed to repeat it.)
Jury Nullification: The Evolution of a Doctrine (1988) --Clay Conrad
(This book examines, in detail, the doctrine of jury nullification of law, also known as "jury veto." Highly recommended.)
We, The Jury: The Jury System and the Ideal of Democracy (1994) --Jeffrey Abramson
(This book examines, in detail, the doctrine of jury nullification of law, also known as "jury veto." There is significant overlap with the prior book on the same subject, but it also covers a great deal of new ground.)
Let's Get Free: A Hip-Hop Theory of Justice --Dr. Paul Butler
(Covers new ground, in terms of jury nullification and jury rights outreach and activism. Definitely worth reading for the self-educated juror. Goes further into jury veto as a tool to be used against institutionalized racism than the other books do.)
Adventures in Legal Land --Marc Stevens
(A detailed explanation of the legal theory that is compatible with jury nullification, including a step-by-step explanation of a proper legal response to aggression from the courts. ie: Directions regarding what a pro se defendant should say, if he wants to increase his chances beyond throwing himself on the mercy of the jury. Absolutely essential for people who will risk arrest by performing organized and coordinated jury rights activism.)
Nullification: How To Resist Federal Tyranny in the 21st Century --Tom Woods
(Extending the defense of individual liberty into the political structure. In short, in stead of getting individuals to refuse to punish other individuals, this book shows how States can refuse to punish their citizens by rejecting federal law. This is the political extension of a libertarian society that has already embraced jury nullification of law.)
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Instruction Set For Winning Increased Individual Freedom
1) Read this essay: http://isil.org/resources/lit/history-jury-null.html
2) Print out (or order for five cents apiece) as many copies of the above pamphlet as you can, and hand them out to other people. You've achieved a minor success when you've fully communicated the following facts to even one person:
(a) America currently doesn't have proper, constitutional jury trials, and that has caused every other tyranny that once existed and currently exists, from Southern chattel slavery, to our current enslavement to fiat currency, to the drug war, to gun control, to the bailout of the big bankers and the federal debt. (A rigged federal jury recently found Bernard von Nothaus guilty of offering an alternative to paper money.)
(b) American jury trials were gradually weakened by a series of changes that allowed judges and prosecutors to punish vastly more people, in 5 major ways. (outlined below)
(c) You need to withhold information about yourself during jury selection, or be willing to give unclear answers to State prosecutors, in order to counteract the destruction of the jury system. (This is not dishonest, because the destruction of the system to its current state has made the trial system itself into a lie. Lying to avoid detection of an unjust violation of your privacy is not a lie at all --it is a failure or rejection of subjecting yourself to immoral compulsion.)
3) Spreading this information to at least 1 in 12 potential jurors is all that is necessary to reinstate justice in your local area. After your local area is secure, you can safely expand outward to additional territory, by driving to neighboring courthouses or districts.
4) #3 can be done door-to-door in your area, or it can be done in front of your local courthouse. If this activity is done in front of your local courthouse, you need to have someone videotape it, and you should also be videotaping it yourself (unless you are in one of the states where the first amendment right to gather exculpatory evidence is now illegal, such as IL, MA, or MD). When, not if, you are threatened with arrest and/or arrested, you will be much better off if you can generate a lot of public sympathy and attention with video proof that you did nothing wrong. In the states where it is illegal to videotape government employees, you risk being charged with felony violation of their right to privacy, and lacking evidence to exonerate your conduct, the witness against you will all be authority figures, and your jury will be prosecution-selected conformists. The judge and prosecutor will dismiss all independent-thinking nonconformists from your jury during "voir dire".
100% of the battle for individual liberty is the battle to reinstate proper jury trials in the USA. Most people can’t name the 6 major ways jury trials have been eroded, and hence, they are simply tools of tyranny. [[1-"voir dire" "prosecutorial jury selection" (1851-present), 2-licensing of lawyers (1832-present), 3-false judicial instruction of jurors (1895-present), 4-silencing of constitutional arguments with threat of "contempt of court" citations and "motions in limine" (gag orders) 1800s-present, 5-high pressure plea bargains combined with the threat of cruel and unusual punishment if they are not taken "carrot and stick" greatly increased from 1970s-present with the "war on (some) drugs"), 6-the loss of access to the grand jury by the general public.]]
Until we regain control of our court system (and then education system), we will be more tyrannized than the early American colonists were, under King George III. What is necessary is localized jury rights activism in all 50 states. 10% of the membership of the libertarian Party is now roughly 4,000 people (and growing, thanks to Ron Paul's 2008 presidential run). There are 3,143 counties (including “boroughs” in AK, and “parishes” in LA) in the USA.
Now, let’s say that 1/10 of that membership wanted to get serious about winning individual freedom, and –not knowing anything about how to actually win that individual freedom themselves– they decided to hire a number equivalent to 10% of themselves who did know something about that subject. That would be 40 people, paid to win individual freedom for the USA. That's a manageable number, of young single people (males are slightly less effective at outreach than females, but they are more likely to put in long hours, and stick with with the activism over the course of a year or so).
Let’s say it takes 2-3 people per courthouse to “interfere with” the prosecution of victimless crimes. (My experience has borne this out. One person must videotape the attempted violation of free speech, covertly, while the other person verbally engages the public.) Let’s say it costs around $150/month for a 4G data plan that will stream video of this interaction to a server. Let’s say it costs $3,000 for a car, $200/month in auto insurance, $40 gas per day (since this can’t happen right away, and many counties are rural, gas costs will be inflated to around $270 per week by the time this plan is put into effect, with $250 for each change of venue), and $300 per week for a motel.
OK. 40 people isn’t enough for the entire USA, all at once. But it is enough for any given low population State. A sortable list of average county populations is given here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/County_%28United_States%29
There are two ways a county’s jury rights activism can be organized:
1) selecting for people who are being tyrannized + people who show up for jury duty who are being asked to tyrannize them. (people who show up to the courthouse)
2) gradually reaching every single person in the entire county, door-to-door. (This has the added benefit that territory can be won according to political districts –from city council districts and then mayor, then county districts, and then State legislature. Once a 51% majority has been won on the state legislature, the governor’s race can be won, and nonviolent offenders can be reliably pardoned, and federal statutes can be nullified. Unfortunately, this approach costs more, and likely takes longer to reach emergent order, unless the county population is small. For ultra-low county populations, such as SD, ND, and Loving County, TX this might be the way to go.)
The “Free State Project” (a plan to move 20,000 libertarian freedom-lovers to one state, and take over its government) is therefore an admirable idea. But there are severe problems with it: NH (the state chosen) has the largest state legislature in the entire nation (over 400 seats!). Also, libertarianism is not likely to ever “take off” there, because most people are bigots who support what they (correctly or incorrectly) perceive to be “the status quo”. (And the culture of tyranny and corruption –that is, state employment– are both very great in NH.) A return to the actual jury system of the USA –upon showing people how it’s been subverted by judges and prosecutors– is somewhat more likely than a political return to individual liberty on an issue-by-issue basis at the polls (which require 51% to win, and the more pro-freedom positions a candidate has, the less likely he is to win).
But on any individual issue, at least one person in 12 is highly likely to disagree with unnecessary punishment of another individual (unless that individual actually did violate someone else’s rights).
To that end, here are some excellent websites, pamphlets, and fliers you can download and use to spread the message in your area:
http://isil.org/resources/lit/history-jury-null.html
—Again, what I consider to be the best pamphlet to show the average specimen of Boobus americanus (H.L. Mencken's term for the uninformed American submitizen) that he is no longer living under a constitutional government.
http://www.fija.org
—Comprehensive knowledge and hundreds of links about the rights, duties, and power of the jury.
http://www.jurorsforjustice.com
–An emphasis on how the openly racist “war on (some) drugs” has destroyed the African American Community, and how jury rights activism can reverse this sad, sad trend in the USA.
The United States is –like the failed German Weimar Republic– a doomed church of state. People now hold government as a solution to problems, without recognizing that government, by its nature is coercive (since you cannot "opt out" or refuse to financially support it. Even if you make no payments whatsoever, and all your transactions are black market, you still support the government with your labor, by allowing them to inflate the currency supply.). Without recognition of the prior facts, and correction of the situation those facts describe, the system will trend toward sociopathy, over time, as it has. Since we’ve had 131 years of government “education” of our young (when they tend to uncritically accept what they’ve been told), our system is now completely corrupt (history and philosophy, including jury rights, are no longer taught in the government schools).
Luckily, as tech-philosopher Kevin Kelly notes, “A system is anything that talks to itself”. Systems tend to self-correct, or self-destroy. They remain in motion, (or cycle in motion, as even a stupid system such as a toilet does) caused by continual communication (feedback). The smarter the system, the more complex the interaction of the system nodes. (Flocks of birds with birds reacting to the birds around them, are intelligent. Human brains’ neocortices reacting to neurons around them are vastly more intelligent still, especially when they are highly-self-educated with directed feedback. Superhuman intelligences modeled on neocortices will be vastly more intelligent still, since they will not be limited by cranium space.)
The Lilburnian (Jeffersonian, in the USA) jury system exhibits a wonderful emergent order. It is an emergent order that allows human compassion and forgiveness. It is anarchic, because it places the government below optimal human intelligence and judgment (See movie: “12 Angry Men”). Proper juries exhibit remarkable intelligence.
But right now, in the USA, proper juries don’t exist. That’s the one single problem that allows all other manners of tyranny and oppression to exist. When we solve that problem, all the other problems will solve themselves.
Do you really think that if juries existed, for instance, not one in 12 people would sympathize with peaceful ownership of firearms or marijuana? The USA currently has 2.4 million people in prison, with 73% of them there for first time nonviolent drug offenses (according to former NM governor Gary Johnson, in his radio interview with Free Talk Live).
2) Print out (or order for five cents apiece) as many copies of the above pamphlet as you can, and hand them out to other people. You've achieved a minor success when you've fully communicated the following facts to even one person:
(a) America currently doesn't have proper, constitutional jury trials, and that has caused every other tyranny that once existed and currently exists, from Southern chattel slavery, to our current enslavement to fiat currency, to the drug war, to gun control, to the bailout of the big bankers and the federal debt. (A rigged federal jury recently found Bernard von Nothaus guilty of offering an alternative to paper money.)
(b) American jury trials were gradually weakened by a series of changes that allowed judges and prosecutors to punish vastly more people, in 5 major ways. (outlined below)
(c) You need to withhold information about yourself during jury selection, or be willing to give unclear answers to State prosecutors, in order to counteract the destruction of the jury system. (This is not dishonest, because the destruction of the system to its current state has made the trial system itself into a lie. Lying to avoid detection of an unjust violation of your privacy is not a lie at all --it is a failure or rejection of subjecting yourself to immoral compulsion.)
3) Spreading this information to at least 1 in 12 potential jurors is all that is necessary to reinstate justice in your local area. After your local area is secure, you can safely expand outward to additional territory, by driving to neighboring courthouses or districts.
4) #3 can be done door-to-door in your area, or it can be done in front of your local courthouse. If this activity is done in front of your local courthouse, you need to have someone videotape it, and you should also be videotaping it yourself (unless you are in one of the states where the first amendment right to gather exculpatory evidence is now illegal, such as IL, MA, or MD). When, not if, you are threatened with arrest and/or arrested, you will be much better off if you can generate a lot of public sympathy and attention with video proof that you did nothing wrong. In the states where it is illegal to videotape government employees, you risk being charged with felony violation of their right to privacy, and lacking evidence to exonerate your conduct, the witness against you will all be authority figures, and your jury will be prosecution-selected conformists. The judge and prosecutor will dismiss all independent-thinking nonconformists from your jury during "voir dire".
100% of the battle for individual liberty is the battle to reinstate proper jury trials in the USA. Most people can’t name the 6 major ways jury trials have been eroded, and hence, they are simply tools of tyranny. [[1-"voir dire" "prosecutorial jury selection" (1851-present), 2-licensing of lawyers (1832-present), 3-false judicial instruction of jurors (1895-present), 4-silencing of constitutional arguments with threat of "contempt of court" citations and "motions in limine" (gag orders) 1800s-present, 5-high pressure plea bargains combined with the threat of cruel and unusual punishment if they are not taken "carrot and stick" greatly increased from 1970s-present with the "war on (some) drugs"), 6-the loss of access to the grand jury by the general public.]]
Until we regain control of our court system (and then education system), we will be more tyrannized than the early American colonists were, under King George III. What is necessary is localized jury rights activism in all 50 states. 10% of the membership of the libertarian Party is now roughly 4,000 people (and growing, thanks to Ron Paul's 2008 presidential run). There are 3,143 counties (including “boroughs” in AK, and “parishes” in LA) in the USA.
Now, let’s say that 1/10 of that membership wanted to get serious about winning individual freedom, and –not knowing anything about how to actually win that individual freedom themselves– they decided to hire a number equivalent to 10% of themselves who did know something about that subject. That would be 40 people, paid to win individual freedom for the USA. That's a manageable number, of young single people (males are slightly less effective at outreach than females, but they are more likely to put in long hours, and stick with with the activism over the course of a year or so).
Let’s say it takes 2-3 people per courthouse to “interfere with” the prosecution of victimless crimes. (My experience has borne this out. One person must videotape the attempted violation of free speech, covertly, while the other person verbally engages the public.) Let’s say it costs around $150/month for a 4G data plan that will stream video of this interaction to a server. Let’s say it costs $3,000 for a car, $200/month in auto insurance, $40 gas per day (since this can’t happen right away, and many counties are rural, gas costs will be inflated to around $270 per week by the time this plan is put into effect, with $250 for each change of venue), and $300 per week for a motel.
OK. 40 people isn’t enough for the entire USA, all at once. But it is enough for any given low population State. A sortable list of average county populations is given here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/County_%28United_States%29
There are two ways a county’s jury rights activism can be organized:
1) selecting for people who are being tyrannized + people who show up for jury duty who are being asked to tyrannize them. (people who show up to the courthouse)
2) gradually reaching every single person in the entire county, door-to-door. (This has the added benefit that territory can be won according to political districts –from city council districts and then mayor, then county districts, and then State legislature. Once a 51% majority has been won on the state legislature, the governor’s race can be won, and nonviolent offenders can be reliably pardoned, and federal statutes can be nullified. Unfortunately, this approach costs more, and likely takes longer to reach emergent order, unless the county population is small. For ultra-low county populations, such as SD, ND, and Loving County, TX this might be the way to go.)
The “Free State Project” (a plan to move 20,000 libertarian freedom-lovers to one state, and take over its government) is therefore an admirable idea. But there are severe problems with it: NH (the state chosen) has the largest state legislature in the entire nation (over 400 seats!). Also, libertarianism is not likely to ever “take off” there, because most people are bigots who support what they (correctly or incorrectly) perceive to be “the status quo”. (And the culture of tyranny and corruption –that is, state employment– are both very great in NH.) A return to the actual jury system of the USA –upon showing people how it’s been subverted by judges and prosecutors– is somewhat more likely than a political return to individual liberty on an issue-by-issue basis at the polls (which require 51% to win, and the more pro-freedom positions a candidate has, the less likely he is to win).
But on any individual issue, at least one person in 12 is highly likely to disagree with unnecessary punishment of another individual (unless that individual actually did violate someone else’s rights).
To that end, here are some excellent websites, pamphlets, and fliers you can download and use to spread the message in your area:
http://isil.org/resources/lit/history-jury-null.html
—Again, what I consider to be the best pamphlet to show the average specimen of Boobus americanus (H.L. Mencken's term for the uninformed American submitizen) that he is no longer living under a constitutional government.
http://www.fija.org
—Comprehensive knowledge and hundreds of links about the rights, duties, and power of the jury.
http://www.jurorsforjustice.com
–An emphasis on how the openly racist “war on (some) drugs” has destroyed the African American Community, and how jury rights activism can reverse this sad, sad trend in the USA.
The United States is –like the failed German Weimar Republic– a doomed church of state. People now hold government as a solution to problems, without recognizing that government, by its nature is coercive (since you cannot "opt out" or refuse to financially support it. Even if you make no payments whatsoever, and all your transactions are black market, you still support the government with your labor, by allowing them to inflate the currency supply.). Without recognition of the prior facts, and correction of the situation those facts describe, the system will trend toward sociopathy, over time, as it has. Since we’ve had 131 years of government “education” of our young (when they tend to uncritically accept what they’ve been told), our system is now completely corrupt (history and philosophy, including jury rights, are no longer taught in the government schools).
Luckily, as tech-philosopher Kevin Kelly notes, “A system is anything that talks to itself”. Systems tend to self-correct, or self-destroy. They remain in motion, (or cycle in motion, as even a stupid system such as a toilet does) caused by continual communication (feedback). The smarter the system, the more complex the interaction of the system nodes. (Flocks of birds with birds reacting to the birds around them, are intelligent. Human brains’ neocortices reacting to neurons around them are vastly more intelligent still, especially when they are highly-self-educated with directed feedback. Superhuman intelligences modeled on neocortices will be vastly more intelligent still, since they will not be limited by cranium space.)
The Lilburnian (Jeffersonian, in the USA) jury system exhibits a wonderful emergent order. It is an emergent order that allows human compassion and forgiveness. It is anarchic, because it places the government below optimal human intelligence and judgment (See movie: “12 Angry Men”). Proper juries exhibit remarkable intelligence.
But right now, in the USA, proper juries don’t exist. That’s the one single problem that allows all other manners of tyranny and oppression to exist. When we solve that problem, all the other problems will solve themselves.
Do you really think that if juries existed, for instance, not one in 12 people would sympathize with peaceful ownership of firearms or marijuana? The USA currently has 2.4 million people in prison, with 73% of them there for first time nonviolent drug offenses (according to former NM governor Gary Johnson, in his radio interview with Free Talk Live).
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