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| Joined: | Mon Nov 21st, 2005 |
| Location: | California USA |
| Posts: | 6399 |
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The means to reestablish that oh-so perishable liberty (in time and place: all “politics” is local) is rational, reasonable, logical, time-tested, agreeable (to moral people), relatively costless (compared to the inevitable alternatives), and supported with mountains of evidence including scripture.
Example:
Mathew 7:12:
Golden Rule
John 8:32:
The freedom goal is achieved by way of the truth: establishing it, acknowledging it, recording it, passing it on to the next generation, and the next, or similar message in other words.
Proverbs 1:8-19:
"8 Hear, my son, your father's instruction And do not forsake your mother's teaching ; 9 Indeed, they are a graceful wreath to your head And ornaments about your neck. 10 My son, if sinners entice you, Do not consent. 11 If they say, "Come with us, Let us lie in wait for blood, Let us ambush the innocent without cause ; 12 Let us swallow them alive like Sheol, Even whole, as those who go down to the pit ; 13 We will find all kinds of precious wealth, We will fill our houses with spoil ; 14 Throw in your lot with us, We shall all have one purse," 15 My son, do not walk in the way with them. Keep your feet from their path, 16 For their feet run to evil And they hasten to shed blood. 17 Indeed, it is useless to spread the baited net In the sight of any bird ; 18 But they lie in wait for their own blood ; They ambush their own lives. 19 So are the ways of everyone who gains by violence ; It takes away the life of its possessors."
Call that a suggestion concerning involvement and consequence, or if you can’t do something good, don’t be the problem yourself, hidden costs blow back.
There is a thread on this forum eluding to studies that suggest a physical part of absolute power corrupting absolutely. Those who gain arbitrary (absolute) power suffer from brain damage over time.
You extort, and you suffer as a result, or you pay the extortion fee, and you get what you pay for.
So…
Stop being the problem, and that is a step toward affecting a solution to the problem.
If you don’t want other people giving power to your enemies, consider what happens when you give power to their enemies, and that can be called Blowback: see for example Ron Paul’s critiques on (corporate) U.S. foreign policy. Where do the members of corporate U.S. get their power to execute what they call “Foreign Policy?” See: National (not federal) Debt Clock Real Time.
Finally, there is a tried and true method by which the people as a whole can inspire voluntary membership in a group of moral people whose participation is a process that has at least one truthful goal: such as finding any fact that matters in any case involving any controversy anywhere anytime, so as to set us free, please?
If it isn’t your duty to discover the truth that matters, then the least you can do is admit that your “contributions” to the Empire may blowback on you or posterity. Admit that to yourself, if to no one else, even if it an unwanted, ignored, fact that matters to you. If it is your duty to discover the truth that matters, including the facts concerning what is being done with your “contributions” to the Empire, then it might be a good idea to find a way to help other people reach that goal too. There is a process, and it is relatively costless.
Englishman’s Right
A DIALOGUE BETWEEN A BARRISTER at LAW AND A JURYMAN
Printed in the Year MDCCLXIII. (1762)
Barrister.
My old Client! a - good morning to you: whither so fast? you seem intent upon some important affair.
Jurym.
Worthy Sir! I am glad to see you thus opportunely, there being scace any person that I could at this time rather have wished to meet with.
Barr.
I shall esteem myself happy, if in any thing I can serve you. - The business, I pray?
Jurym.
I am summoned to appear upon a Jury, and was just going to try if I could get off. Now I doubt not but you can put me into the best way to obtain that favour.
Barr.
It is probable I could: but first let me know the reasons why you desire to decline that service.
Jurym.
You know, Sir, there is something of trouble and loss of time in it; and men's lives, liberties, and estates (which depend upon a jury's Guilty, or Not Guilty, for the plaintiff, or for the defendant) are weighty things. I would not wrong my conscience for a world, nor be accessary to any man's ruin. There are others better skilled in such matters. I have ever so loved peace, that I have forborne going to law, (as you well know many times) though it hath been much to my loss.
Barr.
I commend your tenderness and modesty; yet must tell you, these are but general and weak excuses.
As for your time and trouble, it is not much; and however, can it be better spent than in doing justice, and serving your country? to withdraw yourself in such cases, is a kind of Sacrilege, a robbing of the public of those duties which you justly owe it; the more peaceable man you have been, the more fit you are. For the office of a Juryman is, conscientiously to judge his neighbour; and needs no more law than is easily learnt to direct him therein. I look upon you therefore as a man well qualified with estate, discretion, & integrity; and if all such as you should use private means to avoid it, how would the king and country be honestly served? At that rate we should have none but fools or knaves entrusted in this grand concern, on which (as you well observe) the lives, liberties, and estates of all England depend.
Your tenderness not to be accessary to any man's being wronged or ruined, is (as I said) much to be commended. But may you not incur it unawares, by seeking this to avoid it? Pilate was not innocent because he washed his hands, and said, He would have nothing to do with the blood of that just one. There are faults of omission as well as commission. When you are legally called to try such a cause, if you shall shuffle out yourself, and thereby persons perhaps less conscientious happen to be made use of, and so a villain escapes justice, or an innocent man is ruined, by a prepossessed or negligent verdict; can you think yourself in such a case wholly blameless? Qui non prohibet cum potest, jubet: That man abets an evil, who prevents it not, when it is in his power. Nec caret scrupulo sosietatis occultae qui evidenter facinori definit obviare: nor can he escape the suspicion of being a secret accomplice, who evidently declines the prevention of an atrocious crime.