The Jury's Out on the Greater Good

Crimes that can only be understood by trained professional jurors do not deserve to result in convictions.

I consider myself a patriot. But if we drop the jury system, then this country really deserves to die. Experiment over. We lost. Trying the accused before a class of jaded and insular professionals will represent the death of the last vestige of a country "by the people for the people." We'll be a country by some people, who decide for us all, in our name - against our behalf.

Of course, we're already halfway there in some ways. People are clamoring for it: "Take my individual rights away! I don't want them! The greater good is more important!" No, they don't say it in those words - usually they're talking about some other person's individual rights - but that's the net effect. Because if you can cut somebody else's, then somebody else can cut yours. And why not! For the greater good! Isn't that laudable?

The problem with the greater good is, it ain't you. No matter who you are: it ain't you. It ain't me. It ain't anyone you see. It's an absolute abstraction that necessarily applies to no single one of us. If the greater good renders the rights of the individual forfeit, then at any given point you will find you have no rights - not because of anything you did! But because someone can determine you were in the way. A regrettable casualty, for the greater good.

Who should have that power?

The greater good will be defined by whomever happens to be working the government at that time, and - and they define it how they see fit for their own purpose and benefit. Protecting the rights of the individual is the real greater good: protecting us all, every one. "The individual" is also an abstraction - but it is concrete: it applies equally to everyone you see.

The fact that our justice system's overseers know they can't make something fly unless they can convince 12 ordinary folks that it's right - this is one of the single greatest bulwarks we have against the tyranny of the elite. Install a class of professional jurists with a vested interest in the system, see how fast the system decides it can make anything fly. And believe you me, it will.

What tickles me is that all the self-styled, well-meaning, principled elitists all like to think that if a trained elite decided everything of importance, it would all be decided in their favor. Hell-no.

Come the revolution, the well-meaning and principled elitists will be the first up against the wall.