Four Boxes of Liberty

we've tried the soapbox for generations, we've tried the ballot box, and the courts are now stacked against the people. hmmm.

You know, they should have been teaching interesting stuff like this in US public schools growing up. I would have been way more engaged. This was an intriguing read. Makes a lot of sense when you think about it. Soap box: free speech, ballot box: right to vote, jury box: right to nullify convictions of unjust laws, and cartridge box: right to fend against corrupt gov't. I think society is close to the cartridge box more often than not.

Jefferson wrote in 1787

And what country can preserve it’s liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-12-02-0348

Professor Larry Lessig has outlined at length how elections are corrupt, and we've watched the courts get so corrupt, well that Citizens United, Loper Bright and Trump v. US 2024 were able to be ruled without intervention from a psychiatric ward.

The thing is, courts are an alternative to settling civil and social disputes with violence. And elections allow for the peaceful transfer of power (e.g. without violence).

So if both the courts and elections are subverted (they are) violence becomes the default way by which regimes are ousted and laws are changed.

The reason we tried to set up democracy in the first place was all the Game of Thrones shit. It seems the ownership class never got the memo how bad it gets.

Problem is we have more of the "kyle rittenhouse" type of people rather than the "NYC John Wick"

Interesting read. Although:

the Anti-Defamation League noted that it is frequently used by anti-government extremists to justify violence to gain their ends on the grounds that all else has failed

Aah, right. I mean, I can see anyone using this to justify any violence.