“In the Halls of Justice the only justice is in the halls.”

--Lenny Bruce

What is the necessary provocation for the rejection of the State as arbiter of Justice and defender of Freedom?  When does the sleeper waken from the dreamy ether of “noble lies,” to the searing sunlight of awareness?  For my own part, the beatings of years were needed, the continual harassment of the State and its interference in my life, and my own misguided “service” to it in its armed forces.  Being pulled over for not wearing a seatbelt, despite the fact I had taken no other illegal action, I now take in stride, as the natural product of a system of oppression spiraling out of control. 

One may say, “Well, it was just a seatbelt ticket, no harm done, just pay it and get it over with.”  I will never pay that ticket.  That ticket was a violation of my rights.  It was not a measure taken for my safety, nor was it to spare the poor taxpayers the burden of paying for my health care should I have an accident without being firmly belted to my cartwheeling and flaming Cage of Death.  It was an exertion of authority over my life, pure and simple.  It was the State saying, “You have no rights in your own property, you are the chattel of the System, and you cannot escape it.” 

“But,” says the reader, “it’s for your own Good.  I mean, surely you can see that it is safer wearing a seatbelt.”  So?  I do not wish to wear a seatbelt.  I do not wish to wear a helmet while riding a motorcycle or bicycle.  I want to own firearms.  I do not wish my children, should I ever have any, to go to school, nor do I wish to be accountable for “home schooling” them.  Should I contract an incurable disease which will kill me slowly and in great pain, I want to die at a time of my own choosing.  If, at any time, I suddenly crave feline meat, I want the right to kill and eat my cat, which I have for some reason fed, watered, and loved lo these many years, without fear of animal control officers knocking on my door after a tip from a nosy neighbor.  I want to discipline my (hypothetical) children as I decide is best, without worrying about a teacher calling some misguided “social service” organization.  I want to water my lawn when I please, put up a fence where I like on my own property, and build an addition to my house without worrying about seeing a code enforcer tooling up my driveway because I did not take out some pettifogging permit.  I want to buy liquor and tobacco without paying some sort of “sin” tax which implies I have to pay to poison myself.  I want to smoke cannabis or anything else I decide to without let or hindrance so long as I do no harm.  I want to keep what I earn, and look after my own retirement, rather than having my money extorted from me for one reason and then put to a different use I disapprove of.  I do not wish to pay rent to the State to keep my property or use the public roadways, nor conform to their codes of behavior while doing so.

The sad fact is, I have all these rights.  I have always had them, and so has everyone else.  It is the State which infringes on them, putatively in the name of the “public good,” whatever that is, but truly in the name of the extension of its own power.

After all, how can a State be considered a defender of freedom when those who look to its own validating document for protection from its excesses are explicitly labeled its enemies? [1]  Or when legal observers are ejected from a court of law observing the administration of “justice” for no other cause than “security.” [2]  Or when the supposed “supreme” court of the land refuses to hear cases of constitutional law for reasons it is not required to supply? [3]  The answer is, it cannot.

In short, the “justice” system is nothing but a tissue of lies supported by a profession of liars, obfuscators, and demagogues whose only interest is not in “justice,” but in power for themselves and their cronies at the expense of individual rights. 

Many statists would say my ideas are deranged, and some have done so.  I would even be called insane by many, including our “defenders of freedom,” the police and military.  The definitions of insanity are:

1. 1.  Persistent mental disorder or derangement. No longer in scientific use.

2. 2.  Law.

1. Unsoundness of mind sufficient in the judgment of a civil court to render a person unfit to maintain a contractual or other legal relationship or to warrant commitment to a mental health facility.

2. In most criminal jurisdictions, a degree of mental malfunctioning sufficient to relieve the accused of legal responsibility for the act committed.

3. 3.  

1. Extreme foolishness; folly.

2. Something that is extremely foolish. [4]

While a case could be made for the ideas of personal liberty and individual responsibility and self-reliance being “foolishness,” or “folly,” this is not what these enforcers would mean when they spoke of me as insane.  Quite definitely, I would be seen as dangerous, subversive, wicked and depraved by those working to restrict my freedom.

This view, which has been inculcated into this nation’s enforcement establishment for generations, makes me and those like me the easiest targets for censorship and incarceration without trial or charge.  When one is deemed insane by the State, one may be disposed of without all the legal niceties the State will from time to time observe to reinforce the mental conditioning most of the populace was given in school in order to convince them the system is “fair.”  The lack of widespread public outcry over certain “detainees” currently being held by this and other governments without even the paltry legal justification a citizen would receive shows the depth and endurance of this mindset.

An excellent example of the contempt those in power in the “justice” system have for the documents spelling out the limitations of the State is the recent refusal of the Supreme Court to hear an important issue of constitutional law to which I alluded earlier.  The most concise and compelling refutation of the rightness of the law and the State which administers it reads:

“Why is the U.S. Supreme Court’s rejection of Silveira [vs. Lockyer] really important?

Answer: it is not about guns. It never was about guns. It is really about this: 1) liberty; 2) ordinary citizens retaining a legally enforceable right to retain the most efficient, pragmatic means to enforce the rest of their rights enshrined in the U.S. Constitution—privately owned, registered or unregistered, firearms; 3) holding government accountable; 4) keeping government from indefinitely blowing through Constitutional red lights, violating the Constitution’s commands; 5) forcing government to wear its Constitutional collar, connected to a Constitutional chain, staked firmly into the bedrock of Constitutional law.” [5]

No clearer assertion of the hypocrisy of the legal system may be found than the stand of the courts on the right of the people to own and carry guns, versus its stand on freedom of speech or sodomy, both of which it has upheld and neither of which is the government’s business in the first place.  The whole point of a bill of rights is to tell the government what is and is not its business.

But governments do not see this.  They do not see that there is anything which could, conceivably, not be their business.  The law is the means of their interference, and the courts are the tool of their enforcement.  The rights of the individual are no longer of any moment whatever, and never will be again, until the system is altered or abolished, as, indeed, it must be.  The task will be perilous and unenviable, but the reward reaped is integrity itself, and the very realest incarnation of freedom. 

That seatbelt ticket will, indeed, be paid one day.