Note: Given what we see in NC and around the rest of America and in Europe, E.M. Burlingame has an answer.
You have heard me before—on the edge of the field of battle, when the ache in your chest was the only truth left. You heard me again in the quiet of your home, when the weight of the fathers who came before you settled on your shoulders. Now, at the end of all our speaking, I must speak of the instrument by which the enemy has stolen what our fathers built: the corrupted courts, the unaccountable enforcement, the institutions that were meant to limit power have become the weapons of those who would make themselves powerful.
Throughout our history the pattern is the same. The courts of law and the officers who enforce them, the institutions that sit in judgment and the men who wield that judgment, become corrupted. They overreach. They cease to be servants of the law and become powers unto themselves. They do not only abuse the poor and the weak—they turn, in time, on the very nobles and kings who empowered them or looked away while the rot took hold. Unaccountable judiciary and enforcement always become political tyrants and malevolent agents. They abuse the people first, then they consume or undermine the hands that thought they held the leash. This is not theory. It is the most ancient of fights.
When a judge acquits a violent criminal, that judge is not merely making a legal error. He is making a choice—a choice that endangers every man, woman, and child in that community. When that criminal goes on to harm another, the blood is on the judge’s hands as surely as if he had wielded the weapon himself. When a jury fails to convict the guilty, they are not exercising their independence; they are failing in their duty to protect the innocent. When an officer enforces an unjust law or turns a blind eye to the guilty, he is not serving the law; he is serving the corruption. What, then, does this hard reset demand? Let us be specific—for vagueness serves the enemy, and clarity serves the Common Man.
First: That every judge who has demonstrated bias—who has twisted the law to serve faction, who has acquitted the guilty or convicted the innocent on the basis of favor, who has shown that he cannot be trusted to judge evenly—be removed from the bench. Not reformed. Removed. The seat is not a right; it is a trust, and it has been broken.
Second: That no foreigner—no one who has not been born to the soil, who has not deep ties to the history and community of the place, who has not demonstrated through sacrifice and blood that he is bound to the inheritance—be permitted to serve in any capacity in the judiciary, law enforcement, or any institution of justice. This is not new. It is the ancient law of the Acts of Settlement, reaffirmed across centuries of our history. We demand that it be enforced.
Third: That every officer of the law, every juror, every participant in the machinery of justice, be held accountable for the consequences of their actions. If they acquit the guilty and that guilty man harms the innocent, they are answerable. If they enforce an unjust law, they are answerable. If they fail in their duty to protect the weak, they are answerable. No immunity. No shield of office. No protection from the law they claim to serve. The blood of the innocent is on their hands, and they must answer for it.
Fourth: That juries be drawn from the whole body of the Commons—not from the professional class, not from the politically connected, not from the pool of those who have lost their nerve, not from those who have no stake in the community, not from the factionally malevolent. Juries are the conscience of the community. They must be composed of men who have skin in the game, who have sons to protect, who have fathers to honor, who have a stake in the future of the place they judge.
Fifth: That the institutions of justice be returned to their only legitimate purpose: the protection of the innocent and the punishment of the wicked. Not the protection of the tyrant, the petty powerful. Not the punishment of the inconvenient. The law must serve the people, not the other way around.
The choice is made in the ache of your chest and the iron in your grip.
DEMAND THE REMOVAL OF THE CORRUPT!
DEMAND THE EXPULSION OF FOREIGN JUDGES AND OFFICIALS!
DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY FOR EVERY PARTICIPANT IN THE MACHINERY OF JUSTICE!
DEMAND THE RESTORATION OF JURIES DRAWN FROM THE WHOLE BODY OF THE COMMONS!
UNITE THE COMMONS AGAINST THE REAL ENEMY!
HARD RESET THE INSTITUTIONS!
RESTORE THE LAW THAT BINDS US ALL!
STAND FOR THE FATHERS!
STAND FOR THE SONS!
MAKE IT OURS!
MAKE IT OURS, AGAIN!
STAND!!!
Read the entire E.M. Burlingame post …
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