Hey, FractionalizingIron ... this has been a great thread. And yes, I believe it was sticked for awhile yesterday.
Australia and the USA both have the English common law base upon which our respective country's legal framework was built.
Besides our constitutions, I would say that the Declaration of Independence embodies principles that apply to all of mankind.
That document really summarizes the mindset that we should all have, and specifically that the government employees are our servants. NOT the other way around.
For that reason, we should be holding all government employees -- ESPECIALLY judges -- to the standard that THEY agreed to when the accepted the job. In the USA, they have to give an oath of office, I would guess that it is the same in Australia, since our legal systems are funamentally the same.
OF COURSE, people who are drawn to power (government jobs and authority) want to USE power over others. That is one of the flaws in any legal system. Most good people don't even want to have power over others. It is mostly bad people who want that.
And both of our countries have seen how damaging that can be when such people are allowed to hide in the shadows and gradually usurp power that is not rightfully theirs. They become tyrants.
And the "Karens" of the world are the wanna-be-tyrants who seize on an opportunity to exert some sort of pseudo-power that they suddenly find themselves in a position to exert (think: teachers, civil servants, police, politicians, etc.).
I think there are two significant factors that are really important here:
One is simply basic awareness.
Secondly, communal power.
I agree. Awareness comes first.
But once one is aware, one feels powerless unless they have tools and strategies to do something about it. That is where the sense of community comes in.
Imagine if 50 or more people were to all get speeding tickets over the course of a year, and learn how the system works, comparing notes, and realizing that the traffic court system is largely a paper tiger.
Because we ALL have fundamental rights as humans (see: Declaration of Independence) and because our governments are required to uphold those rights (see: Constitution), and because such non-crimes as traffic infractions can NEVER be prosecuted in a way that upholds the fundamental rights of the individual, there will ALWAYS be a weakness in the system.
It is BUILT IN to the system because the system itself is a violation of fundamental rights.
As more and more people become aware, AND compare notes and experiences, we gain more power (of the People).
There are already A LOT of people who ARE interested in the law. The problem is that most of them go to law school, where they are taught a bastardized version of law.
The same is true for health care. People who are really, really interested in health care tend to go to medical school or nursing school, where they are taught lies, falsehoods and propaganda, but nothing about how to make a sick person really healthy.
Law schools teach how to manipulate the People, not how to make them more powerful. Where would the money be in that?
Be we can learn, despite the obstacle, because we have FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS.
These rights can be trampled on, they can be abused, but they can never be taken away.
That is why they are UN-ALIENABLE.
"We hold these truths to be SELF-EVIDENT, that ALL men are created equal, that they endowed by their Creator with certain UNALIENABLE rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."
We need to alter the course of history that our governments have been taking for at least a century. It has been moving away from the common law, and must be moved back in that direction.
The "king's law" is really no different than the dictator's law. And there is no place for that type of law to reign supreme in a free society.
Hey, FractionalizingIron ... this has been a great thread. And yes, I believe it was sticked for awhile yesterday.
Australia and the USA both have the English common law base upon which our respective country's legal framework was built.
Besides our constitutions, I would say that the Declaration of Independence embodies principles that apply to all of mankind.
That document really summarizes the mindset that we should all have, and specifically that the government employees are our servants. NOT the other way around.
For that reason, we should be holding all government employees -- ESPECIALLY judges -- to the standard that THEY agreed to when the accepted the job. In the USA, they have to give an oath of office, I would guess that it is the same in Australia, since our legal systems are funamentally the same.
OF COURSE, people who are drawn to power (government jobs and authority) want to USE power over others. That is one of the flaws in any legal system. Most good people don't even want to have power over others. It is mostly bad people who want that.
And both of our countries have seen how damaging that can be when such people are allowed to hide in the shadows and gradually usurp power that is not rightfully theirs. They become tyrants.
And the "Karens" of the world are the wanna-be-tyrants who seize on an opportunity to exert some sort of pseudo-power that they suddenly find themselves in a position to exert (think: teachers, civil servants, police, politicians, etc.).
I think there are two significant factors that are really important here:
One is simply basic awareness.
Secondly, communal power.
I agree. Awareness comes first.
But once one is aware, one feels powerless unless they have tools and strategies to do something about it. That is where the sense of community comes in.
Imagine if 50 or more people were to all get speeding tickets over the course of a year, and learn how the system works, comparing notes, and realizing that the traffic court system is largely a paper tiger.
Because we ALL have fundamental rights as humans (see: Declaration of Independence) and because our governments are required to uphold those rights (see: Constitution), and because such non-crimes as traffic infractions can NEVER be prosecuted in a way that upholds the fundamental rights of the individual, there will ALWAYS be a weakness in the system.
It is BUILT IN because it is a violation of fundamental rights.
As more and more people become aware, AND compare notes and experiences, we gain more power (of the People).
There are already A LOT of people who ARE interested in the law. The problem is that most of them go to law school, where they are taught a bastardized version of law.
The same is true for health care. People who are really, really interested in health care tend to go to medical school or nursing school, where they are taught lies, falsehoods and propaganda, but nothing about how to make a sick person really healthy.
Law schools teach how to manipulate the People, not how to make them more powerful. Where would the money be in that?
Be we can learn, despite the obstacle, because we have FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS.
These rights can be trampled on, they can be abused, but they can never be taken away.
That is why they are UN-ALIENABLE.
"We hold these truths to be SELF-EVIDENT, that ALL men are created equal, that they endowed by their Creator with certain UNALIENABLE rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."
We need to alter the course of history that our governments have been taking for at least a century. It has been moving away from the common law, and must be moved back in that direction.
The "king's law" is really no different than the dictator's law. And there is no place for that type of law to reign supreme in a free society.