Juries Don't "Do" Emotion
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
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We have often stated that liberalism is based on pure, raw, emotion. And it is. There is very little reasoned, common sense, reckoning taking place in the mindless mobs spreading anarchy around the US in the name of justice for Trayvon.
Their continued calls for "justice" only underlines their ignorance of the judicial system.
See, JUSTICE is what they got. They did not get a jury's knee-jerk reaction to emotion. They got justice. And they HATE IT!
Ever wonder why most depictions of Lady Justice have her blind-folded? It is so justice doesn't get caught up in the emotion swirling about the event she is asked to rule upon.
Look. Justice cannot be found in a sea of raw emotion. It cannot survive in that environment. Emotion is what drives the human animal to insanity, temporary insanity all the way to permanent insanity. Mentally, we cycle back in time to our days living in caves.
The mobs on our streets today are exhibiting the kind of behavior sparked by emotion that our early ancestors, the cavemen and cave women, would recognize instantly as a behavior employed by them to attain a goal, which might include securing dinner -- or -- punishing a member of the clan for breaking a clan rule, or some such.
It is brutish, uncivilized, uncouth, barbarian,
(and dare we say it?) childish behavior. It simply underscores everything the civilized population already believes about those involving themselves in such exhibits of the bizarre.
Nevertheless, it is what it is.
However, those of us who live in the sane world must not underestimate the danger presented by such mindless activity. There is hardly a more dangerous beast than a mob. At some point, if the mob-fever does not subside and (at least) near-sanity returns, then, as with any rabid animal, it must be put down.
There is glaring irony in observing that those who have for generations railed against the lynching of members of their race, have, themselves, now become a lynch mob.
Civilized societies have rules, sets of rules, they have decided upon to govern the behavior of their particular society. It is the ONLY way a civilized society can exist. It is within this framework that the core of any society, the family, can exist and, hopefully, thrive.
But the agreed upon rules must apply to ALL members of that society -- that means every last one.
Cherry picking the rules we will enforce, and the rules we will NOT enforce, will quickly bring down the entire structure of a society.
Just as dangerous to the continued existence of ANY society is the refusal to accept the consequences of an applied rule when those consequences are unsatisfactory to a large portion of that society.
Our society, our republic, the United States of America, is in grave danger today. Over the past few years we have decided to try living our lives without the constraints on the government presented by the constitution. Too, we have adopted the philosophy of moral relativism, in which there is no absolute right and no absolute wrong. We call it political correctness.
See, we Americans have dipped our toe into the Marxist river and, unfortunately, a huge portion of our society (many of our leaders) has elected to baptize themselves in that river -- by total immersion -- and climb back onto the bank as avowed Marxists/communists.
These ARE perilous times. Yes. Thomas Paine WOULD feel right at home if he could survey -- and feel -- the weight of the government's yoke on the descendents of his fellow colonists today.
Yes, dear reader, I am aware that I am preaching to the choir with these few words. It is sadly unfortunate -- but it is true -- that so many who might actually profit from the words here written cannot read them.
Look around you. Observe the vandals at work across America today. They are the "useful idiots" rampaging in our streets as they do the biding of their modern day slave masters. See, many of their number have never left the plantation. They only moved onto another plantation, this one overseen by a slave master whose skin color matches that of their own.
Human animals, engorged with emotional rage, are fairly easily maneuvered in the direction their master wants them to go.
Anytime you observe a mob doing something that would require a decent amount of planning or preparation, you can be assured that THAT mob is being controlled, directed, handled, by an entity far more intelligent than the cumulative IQ of the entire mob.
Edgar Allan Poe once said: "The nose of a mob is its imagination. By this, at any time, it can be quietly led."
I think it is important that we understand that the activities of the current "mobs" is not without direction. Too, I think it is immeasurably more important that we understand that the ultimate goal of those directing the mob violence plaguing our country today differs diametrically from the stated public demand for justice.
Juries don't "do" emotion, but mobs do. And, sadly, it is the very same emotion, whipped to a fever's pitch, that also blinds the participants to the less than noble ends to which their efforts are being applied.
James Bovard is a libertarian author and lecturer. Some time ago he said: "Part of the reason that the government's fear mongering is succeeding is because so many people are so ignorant, that it is easier for government to frighten people in submission."
Mr. Bovard also said: "The vision that the founding fathers had of rule of law and equality before the law and no one above the law, that is a very viable vision, but instead of that, we have quasi mob rule."
Mr. Bovard was spot on -- both times.
© J. D. Longstreet
