The mistake that Larken has made is thinking that the jury is just a fact finding mission only when in fact the jury is the people governing themselves in conscience. We’re all part of a community so crime is answerable before the community, through a jury, so that correction can take place to ensure societal cohesion. A nation governs itself through it’s justice system because with the power to punish comes with it all power. If an individual decides to become the executioner then cracks will appear in the structure of society through breach of equity and lack of nuance and discernment. We cannot point the finger at corrupt governments for abusing the law whilst simultaneously advocating for abuse of the law by dismissing due process. Government oppresses us by unlawfully ignoring due process with the despotism of trial by judge. The jury places everyone on an equal playing field in a court of conscience to protect both parties.
Please read the interaction and Calvin's subsequent comments on Substack here:
https://substack.com/home/post/p-193159186
My brief comment on this exchange:
I am both sad and disappointed in the same way I think Calvin is. Larken is, and has been, such an important educator on the dangers of statism. But this is the blind-spot of anarchy showing up here.
Yes, we don’t want a state in the way we traditionally think of it - in which the rights of individuals are at the behest and decision of the state. But neither too do we want people taking the law into their own hands under any circumstances, whether or not they think they have assimilated all the information necessary to judge a crime by themselves.
The Common Law Trial by Jury Constitution always kept the laws in the hands of the people, was how it was always supposed to operate and is the ‘missing piece’ that the anarchists have not spotted.
Some superb arguments made in this piece by Calvin and I’ll post up on https://www.commonlawconstitution.org
Will
https://substack.com/@willkeyte/note/c-238970602