Rasoolpuri:
You asked me for clarification about my contention that '…the courts' main job is to reward the cleverest arguments and not to discover truths'.
Jurisprudence assumes that there are two sides to every story. That's illogical nonsense. For example: is it true that you have a choice of two things for dinner tonight? Is it true that you can have either Chicken or Fish? No, you can have whatever is in the cupboard or whatever you can afford. With regard to this story, there are an infinity of 'sides'. There are rarely only two sides to any set of circumstances, and so if we only restrict our scrutiny to two possible choices, then we won’t be looking at what the reality might show us if we explore it, we will be looking for one of two pre-determined outcomes.
In the case of a court of law, there are usually two possible outcomes in a criminal case: guilty or innocent. That's nonsense if we look at the reality around us. There are degrees of guilt and innocence, and there are other possibilities besides the vacuum-packed arguments of ‘defence vs prosecutor’.
Let's take one of the most common examples fought in American courts today: an average American child is in court for getting caught smoking a marijuana joint. Now, lots of kids in the States are in jail for this, but let's examine the case more clearly:
Bob is sitting on a hillside with his buddies, smoking a joint at the weekend. A cop comes along, and he arrests the kids. Because Bob is holding the blunt, Bob gets arrested and pleads guilty because he has no choice. His lawyer is hired to mitigate the circumstances on his behalf and plead that Bob is guilty of an offense, but has previously not been in trouble.
However, has Bob really offended anyone? No. He was with his buddies on a hillside out of harms way, and the only person around who could have been offended was the cop. The cop may well have only arrested Bob to fill his quota of arrests this month. Maybe the cop doesn't care about the marijuana laws. If the cop hadn't been there, Bob may well have smoked up, gone about his day, and then gone home to do his homework for college on Monday. He might have grown out of the use of cannabis, he might not, but in neither case was he causing a problem to anyone.
That take is not allowed in the official record, but what is allowed is this:
Did he smoke the joint?
Yes.
Is that illegal?
Yes.
Is he guilty or innocent?
Guilty.
Therefore, he gets punished, and in many cases lives are ruined because of a blot on the record.
But essentially, the argument of guilt versus innocence in this case is a bullsh*t argument. Guilt or innocence are irrelevant - he smoked a joint for Chrissakes. To the police and the magistrates: get over it!
That's a story never told in the courts.
I am reminded of the words of the historian Howard Zinn, when he was arrested with Martin Luther King during the Civil Rights protests of the late 60's. He stood up in front of the judge, who was sending people to court for daring to advocate the rights of black people. You could argue one side or the other:
Side a: I was obstructing the police.
Side b: I wasn't obstructing the police.
That's the two sides of the argument in their entirety.
Nobody asked this question: Why were these people obstructing the police?
...Because the police were beating black people up for protesting that they should have the right to vote. In this situation I would obstruct the police too, because that's the right thing to do, period. I don't want people beaten up for being black and daring to demand their rights under the constitution, so I will stand in the way of the cops who start the violence.
But, this is not a point anyone was allowed to make in court, it was a purely techinical battle which served to establish whether people were 'breaking the law' or not. Nowhere was anyone debating about what, if anything, was right or wrong. In the subject of logic, this is what's called a 'false dichotomy,' but in my town, it's called a bullsh*t choice.
So pronounced was this bullsh*t that Howard Zinn was ruled in contempt when he said to the judge:
"Your honour, may I have permission to say something relevant?"
The law is designed to secure convictions or acquittals, but it is not designed to discover truth.
Barbara:
Talking about George Bush, you said: ‘As an American, I am ashamed’. Don’t equate America with George Bush, whatever you do!!!! America and the whole Bush family are mutually exclusive. They have nothing in common with each other. If you read the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the Federalist Papers; if you read anything written by the great philosophers who created the great American ideology - such as Thoreau, Emerson, Paine, etc. - and if you look to the words of revered leaders such as Lincoln and Jefferson, then you’ll see that they tend to warn us against despots and whores like Bush. Even Adam Smith hated what Bush stood for.
These great Americans would have hated Bush as much as you do – they talk about his kind at length, and they are not charitable about such people! The reason they would have despised him is because they are patriotic Americans, who think the American people should come first, before the American corporate elite. They advocate a Republic, which is where YOU have a say, not just the likes of Kenny Lay, Dick Cheney and those other corporate whores Bush runs the country on behalf of.
Bush is a traitor. This is because he has made America far more dangerous than it has ever been. America is a target to every extremist and his brother because of Bush. The world outside of America HATES Bush – just look at the level of protests around the world on any given day… He is the most hated man in history – he is factually less popular than Bin Laden. How hated does a man have to be to lose a popularity contest to that dude?
Because of his warmongering, he has totally squandered every last drop of empathy the world had for America after 9-11. He has slashed health provisions for the poor and the needy. He has demolished our chance to reverse climate change. He has thrown a party for his corporate friends at the expense of every hard-working American family. He is no patriot, but you are. That’s why you hate him. So be proud that you do – it means you are a REAL American! We in the UK realize that, and we know that you and millions more like you are working to get Bush out of office. It’s all good. He’ll get kicked to the kerb soon enough! So count yourself among the American people, because it’s not you we blame: it’s the Administration the world hates.
Cheers,
Ed
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