The Tyranny of the Bench

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mises.org...

All of these people, in truth, had grossly violated Linda's rights and aggressed against her. All should have been made to pay, and pay dearly, for their monstrous offense. But the federal district court ruled otherwise. First, it ruled that mamma, her lawyer, and the various members of the "healing professions" were all immune because everything they did had received the sanction of a certified judge. And second, Judge Stump was also absolutely immune, because he had acted in his capacity as a judge, even though, the district court acknowledged, he had had "an erroneous view of the law." So, not only is a judge immune, but he can confer his immunity in a king-like fashion even onto lowly civilians who surround him.

Rothbard argues that the State judiciary is a tyranny unto itself.

I agree with him.

reply to post by mnemeth1


Here is one of my theories on law. This is my theory, it is just a theory.

Law is like mathematics. Without the basics, you can go no further, unless of course you are an Einstein or a Locke.

Precedent is just a theorem based upon the basics. It is NOT a provable construct. It is only based upon a set of circumstances that lead to this situation.

Yet, our judicial system set this new theory or postulate as a construct of proof.

Look at the situation where the citizens of Wisconsin told the federal government they would not return any slaves. At that time, these people in my Republic were told they were breaking the law. Problem was, the court was using flawed reasoning or flawed mathematics.

It does NOT take a member of the black robe religious sect to determine the law. We all know the law, we just have to recognize that the math they are using is flawed, they have attempted to divide by zero and they tell us it is relevant instead of a flawed interpretation.

You cannot divide by zero, it creates something known as imaginary numbers, or worse yet, CHAOS.

I hold these truths to be self evident, that I and everyone are created equal, that life as we know it is infinitely small. That to be free, one must have both freedom and responsibility.

Without one, you do not have the other.

reply to post by saltheart foamfollower


In a truly free society, the law is the markets.

reply to post by mnemeth1


Yes, but markets work on mathematics, which is good.

I have been drinking rum again. I still think I can function, I just may be slightly enamored to the pirate songs!

Anyway, what I am getting at is that mathematics and Law are very parallel. You should have completely relevant situations being considered the same. But you have the black robe society making subjective evaluations.

Anyway, this song is not very great just relevant.

reply to post by saltheart foamfollower

Anyway, what I am getting at is that mathematics and Law are very parallel. You should have completely relevant situations being considered the same. But you have the black robe society making subjective evaluations.

I would go as far as to say that not only are they parallel, but the same. They are both natural. In nature, there is mathematics as well as a preferable state of existence.

Example: Hunger is not a prefered state. That which is hungry will try to change its state by consuming sustainance. As this being adapts to its surroundings and learns from it (evolves), it learns how to better sustain itself and propagate its own species (another biological imperitive, like hunger. all of it the will to live). As the being adapts and/or learns (Actively or passively) its struggles to remove unpreferable status in other areas. The natural imperitive to better its own life leads to discovery and logic (again, active or passive). This being must understand and try to change it surroundings or adapt to them. This leads to higher complexity and greater relience on tools and/or other beings.

Note: beings with higher intelligence adapt more quickly than those without. The difference in the speed of adaptation could be millions of years of evolution, and could mean that beings that can't adapt will die out.

This natural order is the reason bee's store food, camels have water reservoirs (and other camelids do not), humans have adapted as they have, and the reason that, eventually, humanity will learn to be peaceful.

If humanity fails to discover peace, it will become an extinct evolutionary experiment like T-rex.

Here is a song that is not at all relevent to this topic.

There is only one law. No harm no crime. Every conflict can be decided on that basis.

reply to post by hawkiye


This is the prefered state.

Humans waste so much of its resources trying to prevent people from doing something that is not relevant to survival. Imagine we had all those resources back. Most of the state, itself is a vast operation to prevent people from doing something socially inconsiquential or to sustain its own operation. If we didn't worry about people doing nonviolent acts that we saw as morally reprehensible, we wouldn't need to sustain this vast operation. The state would not exist, and people could truly live in peace. Peace is preferable.

So who judges the judges? Firstly to be a judge is a highly vetted process with a lot of peer review and years in the industry before even being considered for selection. But they are still people, have good and bad days and still make mistakes. In a market based system of justice there is a demand for oversight. In most professional fields people need to be licensed and subject to review on their performance. If the worker is incompetent in that role, they lose their license and the profession still keeps its good name.

With how to deal with the fall out when judgements go wrong? With the amount of court appeals going on it looks like this happens a lot. Some people fail to understand the resolution decided, some have the resources to keep fighting, some bigger decisions just have to work their way up the system with how it is structured. One problem with the court system is how they expect society to stop as they work through the details. It is important to talk to people in person, have the evidence and sort out the facts from the fiction as much as possible. Sometimes it is not practical or possible for things to progress on a specific day, sometimes this get misplaced and sometimes evidence that is deemed to be of the highest quality is still corrupt. There is a lot of uncertainty, speculation, misinformation and ways to resolve the conflict to work through. By waiting until a high level of confidence in the situation is reached before considering the resolutions may provide a reduction to appeals. I know this is difficult with people lying and failing to acknowledge errors. Perhaps more consideration is also needed on how to resolve conflicts so all parties can walk out with a sense of justice done.

reply to post by hawkiye


I wish we could all live like that!

reply to post by xyankee


No Harm, No Crime. It would be great if it was that simple, unfortunately life is not that simple. Sometimes you have cut off a leg to save a body, discipline a child to modify bad behaviour, make a smaller sacrifice for a bigger reason. While we may have noble intentions in our actions, things do not always go as planned. As a basic philosophy it is perfect and used in the medial community 'do no harm', but it is a grey definition that requires consideration and judgements to determine the overall situation.

reply to post by kwakakev


No not really. It can be as clean cut as that. Why would this not work? Anything that someone does has a consequence. Give me an example of what you are referring to !

reply to post by xyankee


You come across a car accident, car is messed up on fire and person trapped inside. There is no time to cut the person out safely and to pull them out you have to cause more significant harm to their legs. You save them, but they never walk again.

You see someone attacking someone else for no justified reason, to stop the conflict you attack the assailant and some bones get broken along the way. Harm was done to the assailant to defend and protect the victim.

reply to post by kwakakev


Well lets just say that whoever initiates the situation is the person who is held accountable. Ultimately there was injury, and there was a victim.

reply to post by xyankee


Ok, so when a doctor makes a minor mistake or fails to repair a patient, it is the patient who is held accountable for getting sick in the first place?

reply to post by kwakakev


LOL! no, it would be the doctor's fault only if he or she was found to be negligent or malpractice. As long as they stay in the confines of there job then it is not their fault

Good, we are in agreement with your indirect answer. I would have liked to have seen a 'yes' for the direct answer as the patient did start the conflict by getting sick, unless there was a third party involved.