Dear Friends,
It seems to me, Fredrick Douglas once said, A man’s rights rest on three boxes, the ballot, jury and ammo boxes. To them I would add… the soap box. Without the Right to sway the opinions of your neighbors, we are lone strands of silk unable to coalesce into a thread, then twine, and finally a rope capable of doing real work. Of the four then, I would say the soap box is the most important, since without it, the ballot box is nullified, the jury box becomes irrelevant and the ammo box feeds a lone holdout rather than an army. Then again, what good is a soap box if you don’t use it, or any of them for that matter? You see, while these are mechanisms for protecting our Rights, no machine works without being operated. Instead they rot, unused and abandoned, to the delight of our would be oppressors.
The elite count on many of us being too lazy to expend the calories to pull a lever. Heck, in democrat run states, soon the default for uncast ballots will be democrat. (To increase turnout). That would end all impediments to voting as turnout would always be 100% after that… even if no one votes! Republican run states would follow after a short browbeating from the press. Holdouts would be vilified as extremists who threaten democracy itself with their antics. Antics that will be called tantamount to violence. Making violence used to suppress us justifiable. We could allow this to happen, else we could make sure we cast a ballot at every opportunity, if only to poke them in the eye. Come to think of it, we might have seen that scenario play out in 2020, given the epic turnout of dead people.
Juries are picked on their compliance not their sense of justice. If you want to stay off a jury, simply be independent, just, and show yourself to be disagreeable… and voila, not on. The magic word is “jury nullification.” Judges and prosecutors hate that phrase. So much so it immediately disqualifies someone from jury duty. Despite the fact jury nullification is the very reason we have trial by peers. If the elite pass a law that is onerous, juries can choose not to enforce it… a jury (the people) nullifies a law. The elite loathe that idea. That the peons could nullify one of their edicts!? Such impudence! Who do the hoi polloi think they are?! Questioning the experts. You know, like lawyers, politicians… and used car salesmen. Rest assured, the elite go to extremes to insure jury nullification is not known of… or used.
The ammo box is a romantic idea, but is only effective when it feeds a squad fighting for a return to Constitutional rule… not a lone holdout surrounded by SWAT. By the time they are going house to house taking our guns, food and the means of production, it will be too late. The ammo box as a means of last resort is, as I said, romantic, but unlikely to succeed. Moreover, why wait to that extreme? Why not act now, since we still have some access to the soap, ballot and the jury boxes? For the time being anyway. The obvious erosion of all of them makes their use so much more important. Instead of waiting and being forced to do the hard thing, isn’t it wiser to try the easy thing first? Unless passing to your eternal reward in a hail of gunfire is your thing… it’s not mine, and I bet not most people’s.
Frederick Douglass was a great orator, thinker and man. Rising from the absolute lowest station, as a slave, he became respected across the world, and time. His example is one to emulate, especially for the downtrod, dispossessed and disheartened. He knew the value of our Rights, being someone deprived of them… “legally.” If we are to take our responsibility to our heirs seriously we must act. As a car rots in a field, paint fades in the sunlight and houses don’t long stand abandoned, the mechanisms of preserving our Rights also deteriorate without use. Douglass was not a man to shy away from the soap box, he used it effectively, as should you and I. Talk to everyone around you, write letters to your reps, and make a fuss. Start weaving that rope to do the real work of restoring sanity to the world.
Sincerely,
John Pepin
