The importance of juries in democracy is not widely understood, by design
The last few years have (for me) dispelled any notion that we in the West are living in a free societies with the rule of law and respect for human dignity. By listening to many other wise sources, I am slowly coming to appreciate how the problem of tyranny is nothing new, nor are the solutions. We have been sold a fake and fraudulent form of limited freedom by the administrative state, which is a captured operation on banking and legal interests. In order to become free again, we need to return to foundational principles, notably trial-by-jury that reserves all the power of punishment to the people.
In my telecoms work I came to learn that long term success is not making mediocre experiences slightly better, but rather making bad experiences sufficiently rare, and catastrophic experiences extremely unlikely. A “bad experience” is an unjust law being enforced. A “catastrophic experience” is the entire governmental system being captured by tyrants (by definition being criminals who violate others). Tyranny is always the result of power without divine authority from the governed, which then lacks accountability. We are having a catastrophic experience around Covid, as well as many other iniquities and wars.
“Democracy through voting” (i.e. universal suffrage) is framed as picking which is the less mediocre governing experience you wish to endure. The effect of the individual exercising choice is minuscule. It naturally lends itself to tyranny via the persuasion of the majority to trade freedoms for perceived safety. “Democracy through trial-by-jury” empowers the individual, because a single person can preclude a single punishment, effectively annulling the policies of the legislature-executive power axis. The former creates imbalance by selling one group advantage over another via influence over policy. The latter is naturally levelling, because the pauper and plutocrat have equal ability to block punishment (and of each other!) and unjust laws.
The crux of the matter seems to be one of conscience (golden rule) and (holy) morality. Tyranny flows from a false (unholy) morality, where unjust things are done “for your safety and to save the planet”; evil needs to appropriate the energy of well intentioned others to scale at low risk to itself. Equality under the law flows from conscience and “do unto others” (or more precisely, “don’t do to others that which you would not have done unto yourself” — otherwise you can end up enforcing rules that all eat broccoli for their health benefit). The scales of justice are hinged on morality, and held up by righteousness. Only a people who are “commonly” moral and righteous can be free from tyranny.
Genuine trial-by-jury puts conscience ahead of any policy of the legislature; it establishes conscience as something that cannot be modified by the whim of man. We are not to be judges of what is innately right or wrong; that is reserved to higher powers, which we each have to educate ourselves on and learn to discern. There is an implied hierarchy where equality under the law and the supremacy of morality are made permanent. The idea that a juror could or should go against their conscience, by judging only fact and not law, is literally “unconscionable”. It puts policy ahead of divinity. It is innately wrong.
Inequality arises when we allow an administrative class of “policy beneficiaries” to take advantage of “the policed” and remove their freedoms and assets. Trial-by-judge creates a small class of salaried functionaries who are relatively easy to subvert compared to socially engineering the consciousness of the entire population in trial-by-jury. Indeed, anything other that trial-by-jury is administrative justice, and embodies a false morality of adherence to rules over conscience. Hence the mess we now find ourselves in.
The foundational crime of tyranny is treason. “Ordinary” crime is when one individual impinges the sovereignty of another. Treason is when this is done at a systemic level, preventing remedy and justice, and embedding criminal government. We now have eight centuries of treasonous actions by the government, and they continue to attempt to normalise this via doppelgänger “common law” (but not Common Law) statutes, trial-by-disempowered-jury, and fake “constitutional” laws like bills of rights and treason. The cultural memory of true freedom and justice is nearly eradicated here in England.
The modern government is one gargantuan treason machine, in all three of legislative, executive, and judiciary. It has descended into a giant human farming endeavour, and we are in many ways in worse shape than the villeins and serfs of old. Fear of punishment for victimless crimes is used to subjugate the people, and mass incarceration has become the norm. If treason itself has been re-defined as going against the interests of the ruling criminals (like with the Official Secrets Act), then we are in a very degraded state indeed.
So how to turn this around? I can see perhaps three parts to this:
- To educate people that they always have final say, no matter what direction is given; no official in a process of justice involving a jury has the power to demand that you abandon your conscience, for that is a wickedness in itself. This is your innate sovereign right; don’t give it away — be a “sovereign juror”, not a “slave juror”.
- To change the language used, e.g. so we do only refer to the “convenor” and not the “judge” (or “judge-as-convenor”, “jury-as-judge”).
- To surface the full extent of the status quo, making the treachery, absurdity, and inconsistency all the more self-evident via disclosures by the system using its own rules.
The central fight is to move away from “left vs right” politics and control over the legislature to “up vs down” rule by righteous morality and a holy conscience. The receptive audience may well be more aligned to (grassroots) spiritual communities who are willing to countenance matters of holiness, divinity, and godliness. You cannot win within the existing system; only by re-framing the matter as being in the realm of the eternal, not the temporal. This is challenging as the same corrupt powers hold the churches under their sway, so progress is always made via the fringes.
We will know we have won when we no longer have administrative courts, punishment without victims, and juries directed to ignore their own conscience. May it come soon, as this modern legalised slavery system is tedious to live under!
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