Meter parking is available for about 50 cents. It would also be helpful if someone brought a camera to record the event. The event lasts for about an hour, but if someone can only stay for a few minutes, that would still be helpful.

A copy of the tri-fold (PDF) being distributed is available for downloading. Here is a copy (PDF) of useful tips that FIJA recommends for passing out literature near courthouses. If you are interested, you may also view the jury selection process as a guest, according to the court bailiff.

The topic of jury rights will be of most interest and relevance to people who may serve on a panel. It will be on the top of their mind, for they are much more likely to read those documents than at any other time. This also provides an opportunity for outreach to meet other like-minded folks and bring them into the fold.

This is event is being coordinated with the Campaign for Liberty — Tarrant County.

When: Monday, Sept. 27, from 7:15 to 8:30 a.m.

Where: Tarrant County Justice Center, 401 West Belknap St, Fort Worth, TX 76102, at the Weatherford-Taylor intersection

Knowing how important it is to keep an active mind, the following essays clearly articulate the opposing view for expanding the scope and power of government.

The author is professor Douglas J. Amy of Mount Holyoke College, the proprietor of the website “Government is Good.”

He has many more articles on the site, but the two of focus here are “Why We Need More, Not Less, Government” and “Taxes are Good.”

They should take about 30 minutes to read.

For this discussion, we can practice debating these issues since at first it might be easier to do with a friendly face than a complete stranger. That way it helps to build confidence in our arguments and make them more persuasive.

Where: In the past we have used Skype for the online discussion. Instead, we can use a more user-friendly online application called Tinychat. No download or registration is required, but the call is limited to 12 “broadcasters,” though more may listen in if they like. The URL chosen at random for this chat is http://tinychat.com/uieni83284908.

If someone would like to arrange a meeting place, that would be great too.

When: Monday, Sept. 20, from 7 to 9 p.m.

The case against granting the divorce was argued by the Plano-based Liberty Institute, which recently helped to get charges dropped against a local activist harassed in Wautaga who was exercising free speech on so-called public property.

It goes to show that even so-called liberty supporters are willing to concede their principle of “Responsible and limited Government” for the sake of a higher-ordered religious belief.

Instead of viewing marriage as a consensual contract, and therefore outside the scope government intervention, often conservatives are more than willing to use government force to prevent the peaceful and consensual acts of honest people. They want to use the government to oppress a convenient class of minorities.

For what it is worth, conservatives opposed to gay marriage cannot use the law as their crutch either. A conveniently ignored and poorly worded subsection to a 2005 state constitutional amendment says that “This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage.” The clear reading of the law prohibits all marriages, including common law marriage. And as the lower court ruled in this case, the federal constitution that conservatives allegedly so revere (except when the don’t) guarantees equal protection from discrimination under the law.

Historically, the conservatism of Robert Taft and Russell Kirk understood the fault of using government to promote moral virtue. They knew that government constantly undermines genuine social institutions like churches and other local communities.

If religious conservatives really wanted to promote virtues, they would understand that laws (force) can only do so much. They will have a far greater effect of promoting their beliefs by raising children in a healthy atmosphere, by talking with their neighbors, and by honoring the peaceful values of others. Those are the genuine ways to bring about more respect for life and caring for our neighbors.

The Fort Worth (Texas) city council approved a $120,000 settlement for a man beaten in police custody. According to a newspaper report, the victim received a broken nose, a shattered eye socket, and traumatic brain damage, while the officer responsible for the abuse received only a light reprimand for his actions.

In late 2008, Carey Cass Hudson was arrested on suspicion of driving while intoxicated, a charge later dropped by prosecutors. Hudson initially only filed an insurance claim for his medical bills, which prompted an informal inquiry into the incident. The police did not release a video, and no disciplinary punishment was issued.

It was not until several months later that Hudson sued two officers, including Collin Harris, at the station where he was being held. Seemingly unprovoked, Harris can be seen in the video (above) slamming the handcuffed Hudson against a wall and then throwing him to the floor. Harris refused two paramedics and a nurse access to the once-unconscious Hudson even as blood can be seen coming from Hudson’s head area. It was only after Hudson had posted bail and was released several hours later did he receive medical attention, according to his lawsuit that incidentally was thrown out of court.

An official complaint was not filed until August of 2009, when Hudson sued, several months after the city had initially dismissed any allegation of misconduct. Only after Hudson sued did the internal investigation uncover video of the abuse. “During that time, the clock on the type of discipline that could be imposed on officers was ticking, and it ran out in December 2008,” said the Star-Telegram article.

According to the state’s civil service privileges, disciplinary complaints must be filed within 180 days of an incident. Instead of being fired, as the recently installed police chief had wanted, the officer was given a written reprimand and ordered to attend anger management classes.

The settlement offered by the city will not cover the medical expenses for Hudson’s injuries, which he estimates are $300,000.

Lessons to Learn

Police abuse is becoming a growing problem, and has been for a long time, in part because of the imbalance of power in the police’s favor and the deference they get from the public. Their word is the law. Nothing is more authoritarian (and ripe for abuse) than that, and they have a multi-million dollar organization behind them that can throw the book at you. I am sure that many officers get into this line of work to help the public. That is very admirable. But we can see how even well-intentioned people can become tainted by the disproportionate power they hold over others, particularly when the power is granted by an already aggressively violent institution. The police are wrongly granted special privileges but at least should be held to a higher standard because of it. The fact that they police their own only leads to greater infringements of liberty. It goes to show that when giving a monopoly the sole responsibility for providing a service, the quality of that service they provide will reflect the poorest of quality for an exuberant price.

Even if Hudson is fully restituted for the moral crimes committed against him, it will not be the officers responsible for his injuries who pay. It will be taxpayers who get the bill. With the city of Fort Worth already facing a historic $77 million budget deficit next year, or 15 percent of its general fund, it will give even more reason to push for higher taxes, already some of the most expensive in the state, to an even greater level.

The self-identified Tarrant County lawyer, whose name I have yet to discover, gave us a scowling look but did not object as Katy and I passed out pamphlets to prospective jurors while she was waiting at the cross walk across the street from the Tarrant County Justice Center.

We stayed at our regular corner for just over an hour and managed to distribute close to 230 pamphlets of FIJA literature. I would guess that our success rate of getting literature into the hands of everyone we met was pretty high too, maybe 80-plus percent.

We did not get into any debates. One guy was interested if we were lawyers ourselves. I told him we were concerned activists who wanted to inform the public of the rights of jurors to determine the facts of the case and the moral or constitutional legitimacy of the law before them. I said that Katy and I personally would like to see consensual crimes not be enforced but that we also supported nullifying what we believe are unconstitutional laws in order to help keep government in check (as if that were possible).

Saturday’s food drive in Haltom City for Union Gospel Mission was a great time. We did better than even Katy or I thought possible for just two and a half hours of work.

For anyone not familiar, Union Gospel Mission is a private charity in Tarrant County that has helped feed homeless families and adults for the past 130 years. The remarkable thing about this charity is it proudly operates without any government funding.

In all, Katy, Lee and I collected approximately 175 individual non-perishable cans and boxes of food. Conservatively, Katy and I estimate that would be equivalent to about $250 in donations.

We had a tough go of it for the first dozen houses. I think we had one or two donations, and we were both beginning to doubt how effective we would be. I think the turning point came after about 30 minutes. A lady who had initially declined to make a donation changed her mind and met us outside with a sack of canned goods. We were successful at another string of houses, and then a gentleman we had visited more than a block earlier delivered a sack of groceries. He had walked all the way down just to meet us.

Katy met a lady who had once donated her furniture to Union Gospel Mission. As it happened, it was the exact furniture a needy family had requested just the day before. She told Katy that she believed Gospel Mission was the best charity in the Metroplex and that she appreciated our help.

Many we talked with regularly volunteered or gave to the charity. One volunteer told us about a book, Same Kind of Different from Me, that tells the story of just one of the many people who have been saved, literally and figuratively, at the mission. It sounds like an interesting read.

Lee, as always, kept us super motivated. He was not nervous in the least and even wanted to get back to it after lunch. If the heat had not been so overbearing, we might have.

Lessons Learned

We did learn some things. All the food donated, except for four sacks, was collected on our initial door visit. The others were left on porches for us to pick up later in the afternoon. We are going to think about holding the next food drive at a local supermarket. Saturday morning was good timing, as we met a lot of people still at home.

One process we really refined was our presentation. We found we got the best response by asking for the non-perishable goods right away and not leave the impression that we were looking for money. It might also be helpful to leaflet our designated neighborhood a week prior so residents are aware that we will be visiting in the near future.

Overall, Katy and I would rate this as one of our favorite events, which not only enriched us personally, but will enrich the lives of donors and families facing hard times.

We will be informing potential jurors that their primary function is to protect the rights of the accused from tyrannical or immoral laws, not simply to determine the facts of the case. Approximately 700 potential jurors appear at the Justice Center in downtown Fort Worth each Monday morning.

Meter parking is available for about 50 cents. It would also be helpful if someone brought a camera to record the event. The event lasts for about an hour, but if someone can only stay for a few minutes, that would still be helpful.

A copy of the flier being distributed is available for downloading.

Here is a copy of useful tips that FIJA recommends for passing out literature near courthouses. I will also make time for a training session for any newcomers who like to attend FIJA events in the future. If anyone prefer a particular day for training, just let me know.

If you are interested, you may also view the jury selection process as a guest, according to the court bailiff.

The topic of jury rights will be of most interest and relevance to people who may serve on a panel. It will be on the top of their mind, for they are much more likely to read those documents than at any other time. This also provides an opportunity for outreach to meet other like-minded folks and bring them into the fold.

When: Monday, Aug. 23, from 7:15 a.m. to 8:15 a.m.

Where: Tarrant County Justice Center, 401 West Belknap St, Fort Worth, TX 76102, at the Weatherford-Taylor intersection

This is event is being coordinated with the Campaign for Liberty — Tarrant County.

According to its Web site, “All Mission services aim toward productive independence for each individual, regardless of gender, race, or religious beliefs.”

The plan is to walk preassigned routes in residential neighborhoods of Haltom City and collect canned food and other donations on the initial contact or later in the day. For volunteers, we will have fliers talking about UGM, some suggested donation items, and other notes. For anyone not at home or who is busy, we will have a note asking they leave their donations on their porch for pickup later in the afternoon.

Separately, we will ask to place donations bins at popular locations in the city.

The goal is to show how private charities are better able to provide relief and training to the needy and how the poor might be better taken care of in a free society.

We can meet Saturday morning at Clown Burger and walk for about two hours before eating lunch at the popular burger restaurant.

When: Aug. 14, Saturday, from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m.

Where: Clown Burger parking lot — 5020 Stanley Keller Road, Haltom City, TX 76117

Personally, I think opposition to the TRV is a great cause to support to protect individuals and businesses from the plunder of local bureaucrats. However, the hosts had some great tips for general activism in the future.

Mike Miller, from IJ’s Texas chapter, talked about the new eminent domain constitutional amendment that went into effect in Texas this year. There are some pluses and minuses to it. The matter left open is who determines if a project is primarily for “economic development,” which the new amendment forbids. The best-case scenario is that government judges will determine the purpose of contested eminent domain use. Otherwise, local governments will be able to deem that a project’s purpose is whatever they please, effectively neutralizing the constitutional amendment.

Christina Walsh is part of the Castle Coalition, the activism arm of IJ. Her focus is to defeat eminent domain abuse by building a local coalition against the project without ever having to litigate, a preemptive stike, if you will. She emphasized forming an effective organization and building a broad coalition among potentially affected constituents. Some examples of how to organize your allies, to make noise, and to work with media are online.

Here are some bullet points Walsh presented.

1. Identify others potentially threatened: property owners, renters, employees, customers, suppliers, tax payers, those who could face similar threats in the future, ect.
2. Create a broad coalition with one unifying message
3. Get local political officials and media on your side
4. Find respected academics to support your findings, recruit college students
5. Use current members to recruit others
6. Distribute fliers: door-to-door, at businesses, or post
7. Go where the crowds are
8. Utilize sign-in sheets to retain contact information
9. Welcome new members
10. Match talents with tasks
11. Define Victory
12. Get online: keep everyone current; give visitors five things they can do now; use social networking sites like Facebook
13. Speak at every public meeting
14. Hold rallies and protest — be visible
15. Working with the Media
16. Humanize and personalize your issue
17. Present facts reporters can wrap their heads around
18. Repeat concise sound bites
19. Distribute one-pagers that are easily digestible
20. Offer an alternative
21. Respond en masse to all media publicity
22. Expose myths
23. Get published in any format possible

We passed out a different brochure [PDF] this time, “A Primer for Prospective Jurors.” We think it is more professional looking in addition to providing some useful tips on answering private questions during voir dire.

Some of the common questions about jury nullification are also addressed in the brochure. For example, “Once on a jury, must I use the law as given by the judge, even if I think it’s a bad law, or wrongly applied?” There are also historic examples of jury nullification being used to right a wrong, like the trial of William Penn.

We will set another event for next month. I know I said this last time, but I will make time for a training session sometime for any newcomers who like to attend FIJA events in the future.

We will be informing potential jurors that their primary function is to protect the rights of the accused from tyrannical or immoral laws, not simply to administer verdicts regarding the guilt of defendants. Approximately 700 potential jurors appear at the Justice Center in downtown Fort Worth each Monday morning.

Meter parking is available for about 50 cents. It would also be helpful if someone brought a camera to record the event. The event lasts for about an hour, but if someone can only stay for a few minutes, that would still be helpful.

A copy of the tri-fold (PDF) being distributed is available for downloading.

Here is a copy (PDF) of useful tips that FIJA recommends for passing out literature near courthouses.

If you are interested, you may also view the jury selection process as a guest, according to the court bailiff.

The topic of jury rights will be of most interest and relevance to people who may serve on a panel. It will be on the top of their mind, for they are much more likely to read those documents than at any other time. This also provides an opportunity for outreach to meet other like-minded folks and bring them into the fold.

When: Monday, July 19, at 7:15 until 8:30 a.m.

Where: Tarrant County Justice Center, 401 West Belknap St, Fort Worth, TX 76102, at the Weatherford-Taylor intersection.

This is event is being coordinated with the Campaign for Liberty — Tarrant County.

What: The Institute for Justice will be addressing grassroots activists wanting to stop eminent domain abuse by the Trinity River Vision project.

According to the event page on Facebook, “Speakers include local activists Adrian Murray and John Austin Basham. Also – Sam Stavron, who stands to lose many, many acres of his land that has belonged to three generations of his family.”

The IJ is a libertarian public interest law firm specializing in defending individuals and businesses from government abuse.

When: The event begins June 15 at 6:00 p.m.

Where: The back room of Billy Miner’s Saloon at 150 West 3rd Street, Fort Worth, TX 76102.

More information is available here.

In his book The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, he said, “It is only in a highly authoritarian society, where sudden, substantial, all-round changes could be decreed that a flexible wage-policy could function with success.” Astoundingly, he thought authoritarian societies were more susceptible to the market process. In an earlier comment, he said that was “because men want the moon. … There is no remedy but to persuade the public that green cheese is practically the same thing and to have a green cheese factory (i.e. a central bank) under public control.” So Keynes thought the role of government was to deceive individuals in the public into making decision they otherwise would not have made. In an authoritarian society, he swooned, there is no need for such pretenses.

Part of Keynes’ confusion was failing to distinguish between the total wage income and the hourly wage rate of an employee. In today’s market, there are all sorts of adjustments that employers can consider when wanting to cut their overall labor costs, such as reducing the number of labor hours and providing fewer health benefits. But those are best achieved in an open, dynamic market process.

Governments, as commonly conceived, are incapable of this downward flexibility because they are anything but open and dynamic. They are a violent assault on reason. Government escalates in a progressively intrusive way, making it what is sticky downward.

For the most part, conservatives, who rightly deplore their stolen tax dollars being redistributed to make welfare recipients more dependent on government handouts, hardly ever talk about reducing government welfare. Not including the automotive and financial industry bailouts, entitlement spending almost doubled under George W. Bush from 2002 to 2009. Instead, conservative politicians look to expand government power in hopes of deterring those who have moved into the country without government permission. They understand how difficult it would be politically to reduce government handouts, even to those without the ability to vote. Their best bet is to advocate for more government power, more police, more laws, more taxes.

Worse still, government is slippery upward. The reason why conservatives do not more vigorously advocate for reducing government welfare is varied. It might be because they do not want to be called racist, or it might be because it would hurt their chances of gaining control of government to impose their own social agenda. It is also not worth much of an individual’s time to lobby congressmen to reduce spending when the extra savings would probably just be spent on some other boondoggle. Violence does not produce positive overall results. It is less than a zero-sum game. In government, you are either stealing or being stolen from. The power of the state is being used immediately for your benefit, or the power of the state is being used against your benefit.

I can understand why conservatives clamor for more laws. On their own, they could not afford to kick out all the foreigners, to hire bounty hunters and deport them. That would be awfully expensive, and people might not look too kindly on using violence against peaceful people, even against those who broke an arbitrary government edict. But somehow, people acquire a different moral nature while wearing a government-issued uniform. If they can lobby for power of their own, they can use the government to achieve something, financially and culturally, not possible otherwise. The government’s monopoly on taxation means they can spend resources they did not have access to beforehand, extinguishing liberty one amber at a time.

We can see why government does not solve problems but only makes them worse. We can also see why reducing government aggression, at least through the conventional electoral process, has been so fruitless.

The police are only enforcing the law. If you want it changed, lobby the legislature, said the serf to the slave. After all, it is not the military’s fault they are being ordered to invade nations that pose no threat to the American government’s security, what they call “national security.” It is the commanders and the politicians who got them into this mess.

I agree somewhat. But the troops are the ones who chose to join the military — for the adventure, or for self-improvement, or for whatever lie their recruiter fed them. Soldiers are the ones who bomb wedding parties, who torture other indoctrinated men, and who massacre families. Of course, I bet a good number of troops perform a lot of heroic missions to save their comrades in the field. Most of the troops are just there to do their part to fight for a country they love. I am friends with a handful of them, so I know they are probably in the majority.

We are constantly fed guilt that we should support the troops — and by extension the politicians and bureaucrats who put them in danger. But how should I support the troops?

Should I pay taxes to buy their overpriced toys? Should I support their immoral occupation of countless countries? Or, should I support the hegemonic government of which they play an integral part? I know a more moderate position is to support the troops by insisting they be returned home. But is that much better?

Even if the troops were not abroad, they would be that much easier to deploy in our cities. Conceivably, it would become more difficult to scale down government spending once an influx of soldiers boosted depressed local economies.

With all that said, I believe we should support the troops. I support troops who stop following orders and take personal responsibility for their behavior. I support the troops who stand down and refuse to deploy.

Reposted from Who Plans Whom?

One lady called for jury service took special interest. She told me about her son who was arrested for marijuana possession. She agreed that it should not be illegal, and I told her that her son had the right to own property, including marijuana. She said she had never thought of it like that before. She wanted to know more about how to exercise her rights as a juror, and I told her not to bring it up during voir dire or else she wouldn’t be selected.

I do think it is important to reach people who do not already hold political ideologies. I think you’ll find that many of Ron Paul’s supporters had not been too involved in politics, if at all.

In the coming months, we plan to continue educating potential jurors about how they can protect the liberty of individuals. Especially if people refuse to obey the new government health insurance mandates, jury nullification could become a valuable tool if state governments do not nullify it first.