People v. State

Wendy McElroy earlier this week posted two blog posts both inspired by Henry David Thoreau — Civil Disobedience and the Business of Living, and Agents of the State Are Morally Responsible for Their Actions. They’re related to each other and I highly recommend reading both, but Wendy’s conclusion in the former particularly speaks to my condition:

Thoreau’s famous act of civil disobedience — the refusal to pay a tax that supported war — was not the act of a determined political dissident. His one night in jail came about only because the state literally knocked on his front door in the form of a tax collector. At that point, Thoreau had to make a choice; he believed the Mexican-American War was immoral, violating both decency and rights. As long as he was not forced to participate in the ‘evil’, however, Thoreau seemed content to go about the business of living. Participation, including financial support, in the oppression of others was where Thoreau drew his line. He felt no great urge to confront the State but neither could he become a partner in its wrong-doing; to do so would go against the business of living deeply and honestly.

When Thoreau was released from jail, he immediately went on a berry hunt with a swarm of young boys. No bitterness. No follow-up disobedience. (Or obedience, for that matter.) Just a return to living…and the occasion of my favorite line from Thoreau. In the quest for berries, Thoreau found himself standing at a high point in a field. He glanced about at the continuous beauty that is nature and observed “Here the state was nowhere to be seen.”

Lately, I’ve wondered if I direct too much of this blog toward confronting the State rather than toward the practice of life itself. It is not in my nature to be silent when I see injustice so I will undoubtedly remain “the loyal opposition” but I think I’ll devote more space to discussing how to live deeply and honestly so that the state is nowhere to be seen. Alas, it is a much more difficult goal these days than it was for Thoreau.

It goes without saying that living “deeply and honestly so that the state is nowhere to be seen” is an even more difficult goal for a criminal defense attorney. Indeed, it appears to be patently impossible (unless, of course, the criminal defense attorney absconds to greener pastures entirely), since the very essence of the criminal defense attorney’s job is to confront “the State.”

Or rather, it’s to confront “the State” on a case-by-case basis, in the form of a particular cop or deputy prosecuting attorney who comes knocking on a particular client’s door (like the tax collector who literally came knocking on Thoreau’s door).

Like Wendy, I’ve been wondering lately if I direct too much of this blawg, and too much of my attention in general, toward confronting “the State,” rather than toward the actual practice of law. I’ve expressed my philosophy of law on this blawg often enough already. That philosophy, which is radically anti-State, seems almost too simple and too obviously self-evident to bear repeating too many more times: There is no State; There are only People.

On second thought, in the light of this truth, even a criminal defense attorney in the midst of battle might succeed in observing honestly with Thoreau, “Here the state was nowhere to be seen,” small comfort though it might be.

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