People v. State

Greg Gauthier has a thoughtful and thought-provoking post up at the Daily Anarchist titled “Who’s Your Daddy?”, wherein he questions the propensity to quote the Founding Fathers in support of this, that, and the other, and suggests it’s symptomatic of a juvenile lack of confidence in our own powers of intellect and judgment. As someone who’s quoted more than his fair share of Thomas Jefferson around here, I see his point, but have a slightly different take on the matter.

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“Among human be­ings, the judge whose words seal the fate of a man fur­thest into eter­nity is not he who merely pro­nounces the ver­dict of the law, but he, who­ever he may be, who, from a love of truth, and un­prej­u­diced by any cus­tom or en­act­ment of men, ut­ters a true opin­ion or sen­tence con­cern­ing him. He it is that sen­tences him. Who­ever can dis­cern truth has re­ceived his com­mis­sion from a higher source than the chief­est jus­tice in the world who can dis­cern only law. He finds him­self con­sti­tuted judge of the judge. Strange that it should be nec­es­sary to state such sim­ple truths! [¶23]

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I spent the time I was going to use writing this post instead re-reading Henry David Thoreau’s A Plea for Captain John Brown. Here’s an excerpt that’s particularly interesting to me as a lawyer and that explains the nature of Thoreau’s “Plea,” but read the whole thing and be reminded that great heroes have lived and died in America:

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To me, the fundamental truths of anarchism have become blindingly self-evident: The politicians and lawyers who make, interpret and enforce “the laws” are, on average and as a class, less honorable, wise and just than are people in general. The State is designed, not to protect and serve, but to steal from the poor and give to the rich. The State has no moral authority. There is no law other than the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God. The State is in its essence an usurper and an imposter. We are morally obligated to obey only those of its “laws” which happen to plagiarize the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God, and are morally obligated to disobey those of its “laws” which violate the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.

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