Today’s Agenda
By means of analyzing the
following recent news articles, I show that we have a long way to go in order
to establish justice in America:
- "Did judge insert his religious views into case? Supreme Court refuses appeal.” - Footnote 1
- “Amish sect leader sentenced to 15 years in hair-cutting attacks” - Footnote 2
In addition, I offer
comments on these two topics:
- The Fifth Amendment’s protection against self-incrimination.
- Why I insist it should be called “America.”
The importance of establishing justice
I personally believe that
virtue (read “justice”) is its own reward. But a lot of people, in the name of
being practical, won’t be satisfied with such a belief. So to my fellow
Americans, I say:
In
the long run, it will not be enough for this country to have technical allies -
that is, supporters among the various state bureaucracies of the world. We need
to win friends and admirers among ordinary people. And that can’t happen with
our current judicial system. Only when we can show a genuine love of and
support for a justice system that consistently delivers will the common man be
impressed. It’s no longer good enough to say, “Well, at least we don’t throw
people in jail for life for stealing a loaf of bread.” Actually, we come pretty
close - too often - to doing just that.
“Did judge insert his religious views…”
QUOTE
(footnote 1):
The US Supreme Court
declined on Tuesday to hear an appeal by three young North Carolina men who
claim a judge inserted his personal religious views into their case by
sentencing them to de fact life prison terms for a robbery that netted less
than $3,000.
[and]
Judge Baker sentenced each
defendant to 53 to 71 years in prison without the possibility of parole.
:UNQUOTE.
The reason for such a stiff
sentence? Even though the State of North Carolina denies this, the irrefutable
answer is: The judge was offended that the robbery took place in a church while
services were being conducted. Even though a gun was brandished - and
accidentally went off - no one was harmed. The three robbers were caught almost
immediately after they drove off in their getaway car, and admitted what they
had done - pleading guilty in court and expressing remorse for their foolish
act.
The judge, however, saw fit
to sentence these young men according to standards that are (unbelievably) lawful
in his state:
- Josiah Deyton - 18 years old, with no prior criminal record;
- Andrew Deyton - 19 years old, with two misdemeanor drug convictions;
- Jonathan Koniak - 20 years old with no prior convictions.
According to my Footnote 1
source, this is what North Carolina’s assistant attorney general, Clarence Joe
DelForge, tried to argue - an argument supported by lower courts which ruled on
the case:
QUOTE:
“Judge Baker’s statements
regarding ‘God’s money,’ and ‘God’s people,’ referred to what the victims
reported,” he wrote.
:UNQUOTE.
However, Judge Baker’s own
words, uttered in court before sentencing, contradict Mr. DelForges’s claim
(please note my yellow highlights):
QUOTE
[source: see Footnote 3]:
Before sentencing the boys
to de facto life sentences, the judge
commented that he had read letters from some church victims:
I think it was very appropriate what one person wrote that coming in God’s house
using God as a curse and to make people give up their possessions and taking
God’s money [from the collection plate] and threatening God’s people, I can’t
imagine how evil these men are to have done this. That is the feeling of one
person and I hope you realize that’s an opinion that is or a feeling that is justified. I mean you didn’t just steal money from
people. You took God’s money. …
:UNQUOTE.
The words highlighted in
yellow above make it clear that the judge wasn’t just referring to (as Mr.
DelForge put it) “what the victims reported.” However, for some mysterious
reason or another, the lower courts didn’t see it that way. They couldn’t see
that Judge Baker was giving his own (via “I think” and “I mean…”) personal,
religiously-based justification for these stiff sentences as additionally reflected
in another comment he made to the three defendants:
“There is Scripture that
says, ‘Vengeance is mine saith the Lord,’ but every now and then I think the
judicial system has to contribute what it can.”
This judge apparently
believes courts should be in the business of helping to deliver Lordly
vengeance, even though He clearly said “Vengeance is mine.” I thought the
judicial mission was to interpret the law and sentence in an unbiased fashion.
But, no, this judge felt it necessary to (in effect) take the lives of three
young men - again, without the possibility of parole - for robbing a church.
I wonder if any of this
church’s members, upon hearing of these drastic sentences, wrote letters of
protest citing another biblical injunction - “Thou shalt not kill.” For that’s
in effect what these sentences will do, especially the part denying the
possibility of parole. And if some might quibble about these defendants not
being literally killed, I have to ask: “What about Christian forgiveness? What
about turning the other cheek?” Or is my suspicion correct about the motives of
this church which is trying to establish God’s Kingdom on earth: Like the
Taliban, they seek to impose their own vision of what they believe to be God’s
will on everyone else.
Judge James Baker, the lower
federal courts, and the US Supreme Court don’t seem to have any problem with
this.
But I do. And so should
every USA citizen, no matter what state they call home. All Americans should be
bothered by the fact that North Carolina’s sentencing standards would permit
such drastic sentences in the first place, disregarding for a moment the fact
that this judge complicated matters with his God talk. For no matter where we
live in the United States, we’re all covered under the US Constitution’s Ninth
Amendment, which states:
The
enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to
deny or disparage others retained by the people.
And one of these
non-enumerated rights must surely be that punishment must fit the crime, to
which I add “no matter where within the United States one might happen to live.”
For the existence of gross injustice anywhere within our borders reflects badly
on all of us, giving people elsewhere who don’t like us very much anyway to
come to actually detest us. And that would make the existence of locally-based
abuses based on states’ rights a matter of national security.
Side note: I
contacted the defendants’ Counsel of Record, Hoang V. Lam, who petitioned the
US Supreme Court on behalf of these defendants. I asked him if any of these
young men were black, to which he replied that they weren’t. I’m glad he
replied to me, since I couldn’t find any answer to my question after making an
extensive internet search. If they had been black, then cynics might claim that
was the real reason for Judge Baker’s extreme sentences.
“Amish sect leader sentenced to 15
years…”
I can draw only one
conclusion from this odd case - that the federal government through its
attorneys proceeded as it did against this sect in order to send a message: “We
will come down hard on any charismatic non-mainstream group, no matter how
small, since we can’t tolerate the possibility of any leaders arising who have
even a remote chance of challenging our power.” The fact that the feds sought a
life sentence for this leader speaks volumes of this unspoken motive.
When I first read about this
case, as linked in Footnote 2, I thought: “A judge sentenced a 67-year-old man
to 15 years in prison for urging his followers to forcibly give haircuts and
beard-shearings to unwilling people who were Amish in opposition to him?” Then
I read about how his followers broke into peoples’ homes to administer these tonsorials.
Breaking into peoples’ homes is pretty serious business, so I wondered why this
leader - Samuel Mullet Sr. (yes, his name really is Mullet) - and his
clipper-wielding followers weren’t brought up that charge.
This quote is from Footnote
2’s link (note what I highlighted in yellow):
QUOTE:
The breakaway Amish were
convicted last year of multiple counts of conspiracy and hate crimes, which
carry harsher punishment than simple assault.
[and]
But in passing sentence
Judge Dan Aaron Polster told Mr. Mullet and his co-defendants that they were
being punished for depriving victims of a
constitutional right, religious freedom, whose fruits they enjoyed
themselves as Amish through exemptions from jury service and other laws.
“Each of you has received the
benefits of that First Amendment,” Judge Polster said.
The series of attacks in
2011 spread fear through Amish communities in eastern Ohio. Followers of Mr.
Mullet broke into homes, restrained men and women, and forcibly sheared their
victims, sometimes with tools used to clip horse manes.
:UNQUOTE.
Depriving victims of their
religious freedom? How so? The only thing being deprived was their hair. They
were still able to worship as they desired, unless one buys into the idea that
worship without good hair isn’t possible. Yes, it’s true what this same article
says, “For Amish…long beards and flowing women’s hair represent religious
devotion and cultural identity.” But that’s got nothing to do denying anyone
his religious freedom. But Judge Polster actually went along with such a bogus
argument without a gun to his head.
I found the following
statement in this article to be especially disturbing: “Many of the defendants
also asked the judge to give them all or part of Mr. Mullet’s sentence…” That
shows a level of devotion to a leader which will only serve to assure further
harassment of this sect, since they obviously don’t worship the same “gods” as
does our government. The FBI will be watching them very closely. And watching
any other groups out there which have a non-conformist agenda.
The Fifth Amendment
Here’s the entire Fifth
Amendment to the US Constitution (note the part I highlight in yellow):
QUOTE:
No person shall be held to
answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or
indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval
forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public
danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in
jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be
compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be
deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall
private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
:UNQUOTE.
However, that part I
highlighted can be circumvented. Whenever the feds, in their infinite wisdom,
decide that someone must be forced to testify, they offer him immunity from any
prosecution that might be caused by his testimony. They figure that if someone
can’t be prosecuted because of their testimony, the Fifth Amendment no longer
applies. However, such a stand conveniently overlooks how a person might be
punished or suffer loss outside of the courtroom, say, at the hands of friends,
family, and the public at large.
The highlighted part says:
“…nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.”
It doesn’t say, “…nor shall
be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself unless he’s
given immunity from prosecution for his testimony.”
I am amazed that none of the
so-called Constitutional strict constructionists in (for instance) the Tea
Party have nothing to say about this blatant abuse of the Fifth.
Calling it America
The historical and current
name of this country - the United States of America - describes an entity that
no longer exists. The original and basic idea was that this was not to be
considered one nation but, instead, a collection of independent nations (kind
of like the UN) operating as if it was one single monolithic
entity - at least as far as foreigners were concerned. However, since the
concept of states’ rights now exists only on paper - having been destroyed by
the Fourteenth Amendment and the Reconstruction Acts as well as having suffered
death by a thousand cuts at the hands of an increasingly powerful central
government - the USA is now, in effect, a single nation.
For this reason, I urge an
official change of name to (simply) “America.” We call ourselves Americans and
refer to the USA as “America” anyway, so why not formalize with an official
name change? [NOTE: You’ll be amazed at the hostility I encounter when I try to
promote this idea.]
We pay lip service to (at
least) the vestigial remains of state and local sovereignty. But when push
comes to shove, the feds get what they want at the expense of the locals. I’m
not saying that’s a good idea, but it is a fact. Although here’s another fact:
The power-sharing and checks-and-balances functions served by the states can be
better served by means of a system I invented called Cross-Sectional Representation.
This link serves as a good introduction:
In conclusion
There is no doubt that the
USA has a very materialistic culture. However, man does not live by bread (or
luxuries) alone. For, ironically, the more we have on the outside, the emptier
we come to feel on the inside. If we don’t pursue the course of establishing a
just society, simply because it’s the right thing to do, then we make a mockery
of our highest ideals. We can lie to ourselves all we want, but sooner or later
all lies catch up and demand their “just” due. We’re at a point now where even
children can see the lies and the “compromises” indulged in by their parents.
Is that the kind of legacy we want to leave in our wake?
The saddest part? Precious
few appreciate how a just society will yield economic benefits. For after the
playing field is leveled and justice is truly available to all, the Elite won’t
be able to warp the systems of justice and economy for their own gain. And that
will open up possibilities for the rest of us.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Steven Searle, Former Candidate for US President
(2008 and 2012)
Founder of The
Independent Contractors’ Party
“Establishing justice
doesn’t mean we give away the store; it means we enlarge it and ourselves at
the same time.”
Footnotes
Footnote
1:
Headline of an article by Warren Richey appearing in the Christian
Science Monitor on 1/22/13.
Footnote
2: Headline of an article by Trip
Gabriel appearing in The New York Times on 2/9/13: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/09/us/amish-sect-leader-gets-15-years-in-beard-cutting-attacks.html
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