You call this justice?

Click this for the article that inspired tonight's post.

I'm not going to argue about the specifics of the case in question in the article. I'm just not going to touch that. What I want to talk about is the idiocy involved in the judicial branch of our government.

If you'll bear with me for a moment, let's remind ourselves what exactly the branches of government are supposed to do. The legislative branch makes the laws. The executive branch enacts and enforces the laws. The judicial branch interprets the laws. There is a system of checks and balances in place to keep each branch from becoming too powerful. The President can veto legislation. Congress can override the veto with a supermajority. The courts can strike down a law as unconstitutional.

But why exactly is it set up like that? Why is one branch of government having "too much power" such a bad thing? We all seem to agree that almost nothing productive ever happens in Washington, and often it's due to partisan gridlock. If one branch had control, they would be able to do things much faster than if it took everyone working together. The problem is that we cannot trust one person or one group, one third of our government, to know what's best for us.

Remember what happened the last time we had a government ruled by a single person/group? The American Revolution happened. Because that group viewed us as inferior, as subjects, not as equals. They felt that our existence was solely for their benefit. They decided that their luxury was more important than our liberty. We refused to accept that - because it wasn't Britain that made America strong. It sure as hell wasn't Parliament. It was a group of people who came over here, people who faced uncertainty, hardship, suffering, and toil. It was people who longed for a new life, a life in which they would not have to sacrifice their own needs or desires for the sake of anyone else. It was people determined to live in freedom. And they realized that they were all in this together. They had to look out for each other, because nobody else was around (except the Natives but they were occasionally not too friendly) to watch their backs. The pioneers, the pilgrims, the settlers, the foundations of our nation were built upon a sense of equality among everyone - because everyone deserves to be equally free.

And no, I'm not going to discuss the issue of slavery in the New World here. We all agreed a long time ago... that was a mistake. Moving on.

The judicial system, people often feel, is there to punish those who break the law. But the way I see it, you have to look at the law itself. You have to understand why breaking the law is bad. Why is it illegal to drink and drive? Because you're much more likely to get in an accident? Almost. It's illegal because if you drive drunk, you are more likely to get in an accident with another human being. You are more likely to infringe upon another person's freedom to not have massive bills for vehicle repair or medical treatment. Most importantly, you are more likely to infringe upon another person's inalienable right to life.

The courts are not there to punish us. The courts are there to protect us. The courts are there to protect our freedom. They are the shield we use to defend ourselves against each other - and against our own government.

"We can't be outcome driven," said Anne Tompkins, the U.S. attorney in Charlotte. "We've got to make sure we follow the law, and people should want us to do that."

Anne... you're wrong. We must be outcome driven. And the outcome must be that liberty is protected. If these people are innocent, the government is infringing upon their liberty by keeping them behind bars. The appeals process in this country is absolutely horrific if dozens of people who, according to a federal court decision, are innocent can't even get hearings.

The reason the statue of Justice is blind is because she does not see our differences - she sees us all as equals, she recognizes that we are all entitled to the same freedoms. Justice is not blind devotion to the rule of law. Justice is liberty. The court is there to protect liberty, no matter the cost. The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals sought to protect liberty with its decision. Anyone standing in the way of the implementation of that decision is guilty of dozens of counts of infringing on the freedom of an American citizen.

In memory of a great mind.

Ray Bradbury died yesterday. I am... speechless. Like, seriously, I've been working on this post for the past twenty-four hours because I am having trouble thinking of what to say. Because what can I say, what DO I say, what have I ever said, that he hasn't already said better?

Who was Ray Bradbury, to me? He was an idea. He was, in a sense, the idea of having ideas. Of thinking. Of free will. Of freedom. He wrote about these concepts in 1953, showing us a future in which thinking for ourselves would be unheard of. A future in which we are so enamored with our entertainment that we sacrifice thought itself to bask in the glorious glow of the screen. Think about that. He wrote that in 1953. It's 2012 now. How big is your TV? Mine is 42". And among many of the people I know, that's small. How long until entire walls are television screens? This is a future that I can definitely see happening.

Those on the left are all highly renowned scientists. The minds that pushed our civilization, our entire world, into the modern era. That one on the right is apparently famous for something and probably shitfaced. Is that the Jersey Shore chick? I dunno. But think about this. Take any of the greatest minds our world has seen. Philosophers. Theologians. Leaders. Writers. Put them on the left. If you're not aware of what makes their ideas important, if you don't know why their lives matter for humanity, but you know what's up with Little Miss Margarita over there, yeah, there might be a problem.

In Fahrenheit 451, nobody cares about ideas. They're too busy watching TV. Succumbing to the media. And the problem isn't actually with the media. It's with us.We submitted, we conform, we gave up freedom and independence. We gave up thought itself. We gave it up to such an extent that now firemen aren't people who put out fires, they're people who come to burn books. To destroy ideas.

"If you don't want a man unhappy politically, don't give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none"

That's what is happening here. A book is more than just that. A book is ideas. A book is thoughts. Any civilization that writes is, thus far, a civilization that still reaches out to us, even centuries after they've faded out of existence. Written language allows us to communicate complex ideas. Stories - books - allow us to give ideas context. They give us perspectives. They allow us into the minds of characters, to experience the world through a different set of eyes. They allow us to think beyond our own reality. But more importantly, they challenge us to question our own ideas. They challenge us to ask why. This is something that the world NEEDS. This is something that humanity needs. Because when we ask ourselves why, why we hold certain values dear, why society is the way it is, why we behave a certain why, why we do the things we do, we are very often unsatisfied by the answers.

"She didn't want to know how a thing was done, but why. That can be embarrassing. You ask Why to a lot of things and you wind up very unhappy indeed, if you keep at it. The poor girl's better off dead."

Books inspire us to ask why because they draw attention to conflict. Whether it be between two people, a group, or entire nations, conflict is an essential part of a story - hell, there can be only one character and I guarantee that conflict exists within that person. Conflict implies a problem. A problem implies that there is a solution. A solution implies that things can be better. Books force us to ask questions in search of a better world. When we read books, we become discontent with the world as it is. The reason for this is that books bring the world to us.

"Most of us can't rush around, talk to everyone, know all the cities of the world, we haven't time, money or that many friends. The things you're looking for, Montag, are in the world, but the only way the average chap will ever see ninety-nine per cent of them is in a book."

Read a book. Learn about your world. Ask questions. Demand answers. As Bradbury once said, you don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them. Fahrenheit 451 was never about burning books. It was about a society who gave them up. Don't let that happen to our world. Don't let Ray Bradbury's warning go unheeded.

I'd like to close this post with my favorite passage from Fahrenheit 451:

"There was a silly damn bird called a Phoenix back before Christ: every few hundred years he built a pyre and burned himself up. He must have been first cousin to Man. But every time he burnt himself up he sprang out of the ashes, he got himself born all over again. And it looks like we're doing the same thing, over and over, but we've got one damn thing the Phoenix never had. We know the damn silly thing we just did. We know all the damn silly things we've done for a thousand years, and as long as we know that and always have it around where we can see it, some day we'll stop making the goddam funeral pyres and jumping into the middle of them. We pick up a few more people that remember, every generation."