Career Perjurers

A DAY OR TWO AGO, I heard an erstwhile U.S. attorney repeatedly describe himself as a “career prosecutor.” Presumably, this man had sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution, which guarantees to the States a republican form of government: how, then, can anyone hold any appointment beyond the next election?

Next question, what can he find to do? The only crimes Congress is authorized to punish are treason, piracy, and counterfeiting the current coin (counterfeiting numismatic coins does not threaten all of the States.) Is there enough piracy, enough counterfeiting, to provide even one attorney with a career? Or has Congress discovered some other crimes that threaten every State?

Further question, where does he go to court? The Constitution requires that any criminal trial be held in the State where the crime was committed – obviously, this means in a State court (one can hardly imagine there being enough piracy in, for instance, Pennsylvania to keep a court busy.)

Even more to the point, just whom does he prosecute? The grand jury hears only the prosecutor’s case. If the prosecutor has a case that sounds good beyond a reasonable doubt to the petit jury, even after it has heard the prosecution witnesses cross-examined and the defense witnesses give testimony, then that case must sound good beyond any imaginable doubt to the grand jury: why, then, should U.S. attorneys be allowed to assemble more than twelve jurors on their grand juries?

Another interesting question: the Constitution requires that any property forfeited by a criminal be restored upon hir death; are the U.S. attorneys monitoring all this property, to ensure that it is indeed restored? HELL, NO!

If, then, we are agreed that U. S. attorneys are public enemies, flagrantly robbing the public purse, what do we do about it? What we do not do, for certain, is complain to the Congress; Congress is avidly eager to usurp the powers of the States, for instance by pretending to admit immigrants (the Congress has power to prohibit immigration, and to naturalize immigrants, but to admit immigrants requires judgment, and is therefore reserved to the States.)

Rather, we complain to our several States; they created the Congress, the president, the courts, expressly to defend them, and if their creature rebels, it is for them to restore order. We should be demanding that, whenever anyone is prosecuted by the U. S. for any crime that does not affect the citizens of each and every State, then that person must be defended by the attorney general of the State where the crime has been alleged. For what else does the State collect taxes – by the use of the criminal law? The very function of the State is to defend the citizens: and if there is any force, more than another, from which the States are bound to defend them, it is the force that the States themselves created, the U. S. If, instead, the taxes are being used to furnish schools or parks or drinking water, then the State should sue in the civil court, just as does any other provider of services.

It’s a Republic!

These United States are guaranteed a republican form of government – not a democracy. What do we mean by this distinction? We mean that our system is NOT majority domination; all the privileges authorized by the Constitution are in favor of minorities . . . the bankrupts, the inventors, the authors. Anyone like Gore, who proclaims that more people voted for him than voted for Bush, is merely advertizing his ignorance.

Nevertheless, it is obvious that something is wrong somewhere. The Constitution insists that no U.S. officer be an elector: and this is eminently reasonable, because officers are tax-spenders, and the momentous decisions should be taken by tax-payers. But what we see, quite regularly, is that office-holders DO take part in the elections: George H. W. Bush and Al Gore were both vice president – that is, president of the Senate – when they did and did not, respectively, win the office.

What has happened is, that the States have privatized the elections! The candidates are chosen, not by the States, but by the parties. Libertarians, if no others, are all in favor of privatization – but only where the best man can be expected to win. When the parties choose the candidates, you get candidates like J.F.K.: nobody who actually knew him imagined that he was the best man – or even a good man – for the office, but he looked and sounded like a young, strong, even bright man to the masses of voters.

Obviously, what we want is that the masses choose from people they actually know. And, believe it or not, that is the system we have! The citizens of Alabama choose the electors of Alabama, from among citizens of Alabama, and the citizens of Wyoming choose the electors of Wyoming, from among citizens of Wyoming. (In Maine and Nebraska, the citizens choose their electors from among citizens of their own congressional districts.)

Then what happens? On one day, all the electors meet in their own States and vote by ballot, i.e. making a record on paper. But, we find, these many prominent, respected U.S.-tax-paying citizens make no use of their accumulated knowledge and experience; they do not discuss and debate the merits of various candidates, but merely vote for the candidate of their own party! (The exception that proves the rule is that in 1970 Roger McBride, a Republican elector in Virginia, voted for the Libertarian candidates, Prof. John Hospers and Ms. Toni Nathan – the first vote ever cast for a woman.)

Observe that both in Art. II, Sec. 1 and in Amendment XII we see that the lists of votes are to be sent “sealed,” and the president of the Senate is to “open” the lists: the reason why is obvious – so that the candidates do not know how many votes they received, and thus cannot go around the representatives trying to persuade the States to vote for one or another. It is because the electors merely follow the popular vote that we see fierce, irresolvable disputes over questionable ballots and hanging chads, over who is to program the electronic voting machines. Instead of elections affording us domestic tranquility – ballots instead of bullets – they arouse resentment and bitterness. And they tempt aspiring candidates to appeal to the masses by promising special privileges, such as pensions or “free” health care.

As I write this, it is fifteen months before the State elections and four months before the first primary election. Already, candidates are spending money lavishly, and the media are devoting space and time to the campaigns. Privatizing the presidential election has not saved the taxpayers money, but has made it easier for a vulgar panderer to be chosen.

But there is a remedy: any State could enact a statute demanding that its electors meet in closed session, and say nothing about their proceedings until after the president of the Senate has opened the lists and counted the votes. Why should any State do this? Because it would find that would-be candidates visiting the State would talk about the COMMON defense and the GENERAL welfare, instead of appealing to one or another block of voters (for instance, members of labor unions.)

An Unenviable Eminence.

A British newspaper has just published an article remarking that these United States have the unenviable distinction of the largest prison population, convicts per million population, in the world; second is Russia, where the president is an ex-police-chief, and third is China, which does not even pretend to be a free country.

Americans are highly ethical people; why else does this country always have the safest highways, approached only by two other common-law countries, Britain and Canada? Thus the prison-population phenomenon must have a sociological, rather than a psychological, explanation.

And this explanation is not hard to find; think back a few weeks to the Duke University lacrosse team furore. The entry level to the political theater is the district or county prosecutor, and the prosecutors get their names in the papers, and on the screen, by accusing people and, if possible, trying them.

The voters are, obviously, mistaken in voting for exhibitionist prosecutors; convicting someone means that se will suddenly cease to collaborate with hir equals in the market place, and instead become an expense to them. However, the prosecutors are, somehow, getting away with the ridiculous pretence that they do not need a unanimous grand jury to indict: this is the most pathetic, most transparent of lies – if the prosecution case is good beyond a reasonable doubt after the defense has contested it, then it must be beyond even unreasonable doubt to a jury that has not heard the defense.

Also, the distinction between a misdemeanor and a felony has become obscure. Arizona has, or rather had, an incriminating statute holding that a misdemeanor committed in disguise is a felony: if it had also held that a felony committed in one’s own name is only a misdemeanor, there would have been a plausible criterion establishing what crimes can incur imprisonment.

However, what we really need is a system that eliminates indiscriminate prosecution. What happens at present is that county, or district, prosecutors try cases before county, or district, courts, but the convicts are imprisoned in state prisons: the cost of “correcting” them is shared by all the taxpayers of the state. If, instead, the prison would accept convicts only if the county, or district, sent also a U.S. bond, good for the duration of the sentence and yielding a dividend sufficient to pay the cost of imprisonment, then the citizens of the county, or district, would suffer the expense of their conviction. Jurors would go in fear of the wrath of their neighbors, as well as that of God.

Science and Ignorance

Do any of you live near New York? Perhaps you saw that in last Sunday’s Times (August 12th.) Book Review the editor remarked that Christopher Hutchins had written a book entitled God Is not Great, which can only deny the existence of God-as-we-know-Him (it was third in the NON-FICTION table!)

But, strange to relate, in a review on page 10 Hutchins himself quotes a fictitious character saying “How can I possibly prove it doesn’t exist?”
This character, a mere schoolgirl, has grasped the essential principle of science: one cannot prove any theory about the real world to be true. You can only make a conjecture, and test to see whether it is affirmed or refuted. And if the result is FALSE, then you admit that the theory has been disproved, and you look for a better conjecture.

Hutchins quotes the girl just as if he found her rhetorical question well-considered – as indeed it is. But if he accepts her reasoning, how can he claim to have proved that God, or the unicorn, or the Loch Ness Monster, does not exist?

But, you will surely say, some truths are self-evident! They are indeed: for instance, if you have a six-faced die that comes up with a 6 just one-sixth of the time, then the odds against throwing a 6 twice in succession must be 35 to 1. Again, Galileo did not drop a musket ball and a cannon ball from the Leaning Tower, he said to himself, “What would happen if I tied the two balls together; would the musket ball slow the cannon ball down, or would the combined mass fall even faster? Reductio ad absurdum!”

Thus a theory that governs both the real world and the ideal world -- one which can be both worked out mentally and applied experimentally -- is indeed true beyond contradiction; you may say that you don’t understand it, but only the determined unbelievers (the bigots) can deny such a theory.