"Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed. Cruel and unusual punishments shall not be inflicted, but all penalties shall be proportioned to the offense. In all criminal cases whatever, the jury shall have the right to determine the law, and the facts under the direction of the Court as to the law, and the right of new trial, as in civil cases." (The Oregon Constitution)
"All political power is inherent in the people"
The state constitution of 40 states in these United States
Government being instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security, of the whole community, and not for the private interest or emolument of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, whenever the ends of government are perverted, and public liberty manifestly endangered, and all other means of redress are ineffectual, the people may, and of right ought to reform the old, or establish a new government. The doctrine of nonresistance against arbitrary power, and oppression, is absurd, slavish, and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind." (the New Hampshire Constitution)
All power is inherent in the people, and all free governments are founded on their authority and instituted for their peace, safety and happiness. For the advancement of these ends they have at all times an inalienable and indefeasible right to alter, reform or abolish their government in such manner as they may think proper. (the Pennsylvania Constitution)
Among the natural rights, some are, in their very nature unalienable, because no equivalent can be given or received for them. Of this kind are the Rights of Conscience.
In American legal theory, jury-power is enormous, and subject to few controls. There is a maxim of law that the jury is judge both of law and of fact in criminal cases. This idea was particularly strong in the first Revolutionary generation when memories of royal justice were fresh.
Jury nullification is therefore one of the “rights . . . retained by the people” in the Ninth Amendment. And it is one of the “powers . . . reserved . . . to the people” in the Tenth Amendment. Jury nullification is decentralization of political power. It is the people’s most important veto in our constitutional system. The jury vote is the only time the people ever vote on the application of a real law in real life. All other votes are purely hypothetical.
the Tennessee Supreme Court in Nelson v. State, 2 Swan 482 (1852), described the proper roles of the judge and jury as follows: The judge is a witness who testifies as to what the law is, and the jury is free to accept or reject his
testimony like any other.
almost ready...
"Why use up the forests which were centuries in the making and the mines which required ages to lay down, if we can get the equivalent of forest and mineral products in the annual growth of the hemp fields?" - Henry Ford
Freedom is Choice
Freedom is a quality of activity, not a condition that exists in a vaccum: it is a prize to be won daily, not a possesion that can be kept in the basement and taken out and polished up for parades. Freedom cannot be givin - the most you can hope is to free others from the forces that prevent them from finding it themselves. Real freedom has nothing to do with voting. Real freedom dosen't simply mean being able to choose between options, but actively participating in creating the options in the first place.
the burning bush
There comes a time when the mind takes a higher plane of knowledge but can never prove how it got there. ~Albert Einstein
Voting in elections is an expression of our powerlessness: it is an admission that we can only approach the resources and capabilities of our own society through the mediation of the ruling caste. When we let them prefabricate our options for us, we relinquish controll of our communities to these polliticians in the same way that we have ceeded technology to engineers, health care to doctors, and controll of our living environments to city planners and private real estate developers. We end up living in a world that is alien to us, even though our labor has built it, for we have acted like sleepwalkers hypnotized by the monopoly our leaders and specialists hold on setting the possibilities.
who shall we ask permission to exist?
we don’t care what our detractors say, so long as they refuse to tell the truth. Tell us, Where do we apply for our temporary permit to speak freely?
Democracy is the most sustainable way to maintain the division between powerful and powerless- it gives significant incentives to the greatest possible number of people to defend that division.
