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To dream the impossible dream
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by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News
Nov. 1, 2005
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If you have ever noticed, when a witness
is "sworn in" the convention is to say "Do you solemnly swear or affirm..."
The "affirm" part is there for those of us who have a moral commitment not to say that we are now swearing to tell the truth, as opposed to other times and places where, presumably, we intend to lie as long as we can get away with it. People who are committed to always telling the truth (or at least not use deception to take advantage of others) chafe at the implication that, when we give testimony, that we are assuming a higher standard of truth than we uphold in our daily lives.
On the other hand, officers of government are required to swear to uphold the constitution. This is in the nature of a promise, and does not represent a dilemma for us truth tellers.
So here is the question: If people can be jailed for lying about their disingenuous actions and intentions, as the extra special prosecutor has announced his intention to do in his indictment, then why can we not charge anyone who first swears to uphold the Constitution and then proceeds to violate that oath?
The first practical objection to this idea is that essentially all our higher level functionaries would be lined up for indictments and jail time. The entire policy level staff of this administration, and baring statutes of limitations, previous administrations, would be in jeopardy of jail time. Personally, I think this would be a good idea, but I can see the problem of a suddenly vacated executive branch.
An additional implication is that our representative branch would be similarly decimated (especially as they proceeded to rat each other out in return for a lighter sentence), but that probably would be, in the balance, a really good idea. The Congress hasn't done any good work for years now, and simply stopping that branch of government in its tracks would bring immediate positive benefits.
The Judiciary (it is a stretch to keep calling this collection of corrupt party hacks judges) would be similarly at risk, particularly the Supremes.
But the bottom line is that if you swear to uphold the law, and the Constitution is the supreme law of the land, and you proceed to not do so, particularly if it can be easily shown that you colluded with others and were intending to violate your oath at the time you made it, then you are a simple criminal and belong in jail.
Of course, we would need to make a lot of room in the prisons, but as soon as we restored the rights of the all the people serving time for victimless "crimes" there would be lots of room. In fact, people acting in bad faith to enact laws makes those laws not laws at all, but merely the product of a pervasive criminal conspiracy. "Laws" enacted in pursuance of a crime are automatically null and void and without force.
Virtually all the drug "laws," for instance, not only do not meet any simple test of constitutionality, they also were part of a complex conspiracy to deny the civil rights of citizens for the personal gain of those enacting them. "Vote for me. I'm against drugs and I intend to see everyone involved with drugs in prison." Simple political gain like this is bad, but, with any luck, we might be able to uncover the systematic corruption involved in doing the bidding of drug merchants such as the CIA.
I don't believe that our general population is really that much more criminally inclined than the general populations of other industrialized countries. There is absolutely no reason for this country to be holding 2,200,000 people in prison.
If we were to set about reducing or eliminating sentences of the vast number of people falsely convicted of "crimes" we would be able to close most of our prisons, even if we incarcerated the entire political class and a large segment of the officer corps of our military for perjuring themselves with the oath to uphold the Constitution.
With the money saved we could afford to feed, educate, and heal the entire nation and stimulate an economic revival that would ensure abundance regardless of what happens in the Middle East or the end of cheap oil.
We could also, once we had replaced the incarcerated officials with ordinary, honest citizens, begin the process of recovering the trillions of dollars stolen from us over past decades by the financial backers of the creeps that we jailed.
An impossible dream? If we cannot visualize justice then it will always elude us.
Why settle for half measures when it comes to imagining what a just society would look like? Any movement toward freeing the innocent and jailing the crooks, murderers and monsters that have come to dominate our government and corporate elite would be movement in the right direction.
However, without a distinct destination in mind, without an idea of what a just society would look like, we will continue to be lost no matter the direction we choose.
© by the author.
What do you think?
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If we were to set about reducing or eliminating sentences of the vast number of people falsely convicted of "crimes" we would be able to close most of our prisons, even if we incarcerated the entire political class and a large segment of the officer corps of our military for perjuring themselves with the oath to uphold the Constitution.
With the money saved we could afford to feed, educate, and heal the entire nation and stimulate an economic revival that would ensure abundance regardless of what happens in the Middle East or the end of cheap oil.
We could also, once we had replaced the incarcerated officials with ordinary, honest citizens, begin the process of recovering the trillions of dollars stolen from us over past decades by the financial backers of the creeps that we jailed.
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Dr. Herb Ruhs & grandson
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But the bottom line is that if you swear to uphold the law, and the Constitution is the supreme law of the land, and you proceed to not do so, particularly if it can be easily shown that you colluded with others and were intending to violate your oath at the time you made it, then you are a simple criminal and belong in jail.
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Say it with a bumper sticker:
$3 each, or two for $5
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Previous articles by this author:
Refusing to see the obvious
by Maureen Dowd, The New York Times
with comments by Herb Ruhs, MD
What can we do? Rhetorically speaking, that is.
by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News
All of us are being fatally poisoned
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Daubert is the most influential Supreme Court ruling you've never heard of
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Enough already
by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News
War is sometimes justified, often not, but always insane
by Herb Ruhs, MD
The bad news is the same as the good news
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Trying to control your emotions "can make you pretty stupid"
by Herb Ruhs, MD
The gangsters' mentality
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Nietzsche, New Orleans, and 'Nam
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Four decades in five minutes
by Herb Ruhs, MD
The masquerade of "civilization"
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Habits of successful modern cannibals
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Face these horrors with acceptance, equanimity, humor
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Yet another, higher dose of pain
by Herb Ruhs, MD
The war of one against all:
The roots of our enslavement
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Doctors, medicine, hospitals, and the rest of the story
by Herb Ruhs, MD
System of privilege expands in scope and overall power
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Highway robbery turns out to be legal after all
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Class warfare, anyone?
Why class war is not a fiction but a fixture of our lives
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Why the little-known news is the most important
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Why "Free Speech" does not matter
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Big pharma
by Herb Ruhs, MD
The genius fish and other comments
by Herb Ruhs, MD
When all else fails, try the truth
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Childhood abuse and the role it plays in maintaining coercive power
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Murder by medical device
by Herb Ruhs, MD
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