We cannot have individuals making their own determination of what are law and morality, then applying it to others.
For instance, consider the individual who wanted to have sexual relations with a young teenager and even younger children. We can't leave to deranged individuals to make those decisions.
That's why we have trial by jury, tyrant buttpipe.
jurors don't determine the law. they determine the facts.
THAT is what the juries are for.
man you make a lot of noise
Dear Jillian: Your statement illustrates how people have lost their sense of empowerment, where the government is SUPPOSED reflect the will and consent of the people, why people running political parties and bad govt can continue running over people for ignorance.
1. First of all, what FIJA teaches is that in criminal cases, the jury has the right to vote by conscience, to judge the law as well as the facts, and to question or even disregard instructions by the judge/lawyer if this interferes. They cite the case of Willian Penn, who by the "letter of the law" had preached an "illegal religion" and was clearly fit to be punished by the laws at that time; instead the jury refused to convict, and was sequestered and even tortured in an attempt to coerce them otherwise. But they insisted the First Amendment trumped the local laws, and refused. So all citizens have this right, but we act like we don't.
Jillian I am going to stop here.
There are two more levels I could take this idea, of people serving as the final check on govt, but I don't think you believe even in #1 much less #2 below. And where I believe in equality under #3 you already said you think that level of Peacemaking is a complete pipe dream and not even possible, so you can just stop reading here and blow off the rest....
Thanks, Jillian!
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2. Secondly, in general, laws including and especially the Constitution are a "social contract" between people and government. Contracts are not legally binding without "consent." So in truth, the people, whom the government is supposed to represent, have the "inalienable" right to defend our religious freedom and beliefs from imposition, including by govt.
We have the right to DEMAND that our consent be respected and protected under law.
However, we sell out this right all the time; every time we accept to "overrule" the consent of some other person or party, then we lose the authority to demand respect for OUR consent.
So on some level, the people RETAIN full right to check and balance govt directly; the final check on govt is ALWAYS the people, and if we forfeit this right, we deserve the govt we get.
Again, this is where we are today. We are so used to seeking majority rule to dominate the opposing side or party, we don't recognize we have just undermined our own defenses. If we don't respect the consent of others, how can we ask to enforce that standard for ourselves?
Plus the political parties use this fear to pander to voters and make the problem worse.
We depend more and more on political party leaders to rally enough support to roll over whatever dissension is threatening to us, instead of resolving the conflict causing division.
So we lose more and more power, and problems get worse and cost us more and more
NOT to solve but to sell hype, paying for campaigns or govt or lobbying WITHOUT fixing it.
There are no shortcuts to stopping this trend. It will take work to teach and train people and groups to start "taking back" responsibility for government, and fixing things ourselves.
The first step is to teach people what are the standards of govt and laws, and not tolerating anymore abuses of govt or political power outside the intended purpose of govt. Anything else should be kept private, like funding your own programs instead of imposing these as public.
Most people aren't ready to try to govern themselves completely independently.
So I would start by having people govern themselves through their respective parties,
support and fund their own programs and agenda that way.
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3. P.S. I take it a step further, like the Sheriff who decided not to enforce a law he deemed was unconstitutional by the Second Amendment (and since he had sworn to uphold the Constitution, he put that above the law he deemed was in violation). I believe in resolving conflicts between religious and political beliefs by CONSENSUS, through conflict resolution and/or separating people under the policies of their choice to support and fund so there is no imposition by one group over another. I believe this standard of respect for "consent of the governed" would restore the rule of law, and stop this trend of abusing majority rule to try to dominate over or exclude people or groups of differing beliefs, which should be equally protected by law. The greatest strength and worst weakness with this standard, is that it requires people to respect the consent of others equally as themselves in order to invoke it.
Clearly, this is almost unthinkable in an environment of competing to be the bigger bully.
In theory, it would immediately stop rewarding political bullying, since that is clearly coercion and not consent. On the other hand, so few people are able to operate by consent, it would completely flip the power structure around where decision-making ability would fall to the moderators and facilitators who can work with conflicting groups to reach a consensus.
