What's Good for the Goose!
Having lost the sailboat I built in my backyard
(a 33-foot double-ended gaff-ketch that was my home for nearly six years) when
she struck an unmarked obstruction in deep water one Halloween years ago, I
ended up going to law school instead of making a career of wandering about the
Caribbean islands writing more books and articles about navigation and marine
communications for the magazines who subsidized my happy life in those
wanderlust days. I entered Stetson College of Law soon after the sinking and
three years later was sworn in as a Florida lawyer in 1986.
 I was impaled by my intellectual and spiritual
discoveries at law school as certainly as my boat's hull was punctured by that
unavoidable obstruction. I was no longer able to escape the political realities
of this world. It was no longer possible for me to just hoist the outer jib and
point my bowsprit toward Jamaica. I now possessed jurisprudential truths that
demanded my efforts to teach others. I had no more chance of returning to the
good life of sailing away from the woes of this world than a decked dolphin has
of regaining his brilliant living colors once death turns his scales to dull
gun-metal gray.
I was impelled by unexpected and unavoidable
circumstance to embark on a new beginning. The boat was gone. I was like a
stranded bus rider with nothing in his pocket but a single token. I waited on
the corner for the next express. There were no options left for me. The
destination my travels would take me to remained uncertain, yet I knew it had
something to do with the law ... and our nation's history of struggling to
protect the innocent while promoting the common good.
I can't let go of the vision I've come to see
about government.
That it was reasonable for men and women to seek
what makes them individually happy is the only reasonable interpretation of that
familiar phrase from the Declaration of Independence, that primer on the limits
of legitimate power, yet my legal peers take no time for such philosophical
considerations. The principles of our American legal heritage have very little
to do with what actually happens in court. I cannot face a single day without
taking my stance, my perpetual position against the status quo, my stand-off
against the political forces presently in power. I trust the truth within my
being, yet there are few writers today who reinforce my thoughts and none seem
willing to take the matter to the people en masse.
I pontificate shamelessly to people like you ...
hoping one day to touch a sympathetic ear by which I may yet obtain my place on
the printed pages of our day. Like you, I know the truth within me is the truth
... worthy of my effort to proclaim.
Happiness is the driving force of civilization
... not money alone, nor prestige, nor any of the hallmarks of the empty promise
Madison Avenue hawks for cash. Happiness is the engine of industry, the compass
of commerce. A people's happiness is essential to the prosperity of their
nation. In fact, happiness and prosperity are inseparable corollaries. To make
its people happy is, perhaps, the most justifying goal legitimate government can
profess.
Yet, my happiness may not coalesce with your
happiness in every regard. Though we both have equal rights to seek happiness in
this life, the system will not long survive if seek happiness at the expense of
others. A method for resolving differences is required. Individuals disagree as
to what elements are necessary to enjoy happiness and what activities constitute
its proper pursuit.
Therefore, a wise government will provide just
courts where citizens can plead for reasonable resolutions to their difficulties
... just and reasonable results for all parties.
Pursuant to the Declaration, however, all parties
means all parties, not the particular party presently in power
politically nor the party represented by the wealthier attorney nor even the
party in support of the public policy presently politically correct. If we
abided by doctrines of jurisprudence set forth in the Declaration of
Independence, our courts and other government bodies would deal fairly with each
of us. Government would be required to deal fairly with us all. There would be
no favorites. Indeed, the favoring of favorites would be seen for the evil it
is.
Sadly, this is not how it is in these United
States quite yet. Jurisdictionary Foundation wants to make a difference by
teaching others how it ought to be and what we can do together to make things
better for us all!
Bias and partisan protocol too often control our
courtrooms as they do our halls of legislature and offices of executive leaders
at every level. America may be the land of the free and the brave, but justice
and liberty are most definitely not available for all. Individual rights are
routinely ignored by our courts and legislatures (to say nothing of the excesses
of our burgeoning executive bureaucracy and its numerous free-wheeling offices
and agencies). Individual rights are supplanted by public policy, as if the
collective welfare could ever be more important to our general happiness than
the right of individuals to enjoy the same opportunities government affords to
others ... without regard to race, religion, gender, personal persuasions, or
political and economic advantage.
What's good for the goose ought to be good for
the gander ... at least when goose and gander go to court.
Yet, it is not so in these United States.
In its purest perspective, it seems to me, the
rights of mankind (vis a vis the legitimate exercise of government power to
control particular populations) begins with the rights of each of us, i.e., with
individuals, ugly or attractive, young or old, male or female, rich or poor,
politically correct or on the imaginary fringe.
To believe otherwise is social suicide.
Yet, this is how your government operates today
... in our courts, in our legislatures, and in the highest offices of our
executive branches.
What's good for the goose is supposed to be good
for the gander. That is what the Declaration of Independence declares. That is
how government power is supposed to be managed. It is, after all, the very
definition of "fair".
Yet, it is not how things are in America's courts
or anywhere else in today's government, as I see things. We are a land of
enfranchised and disenfranchised ... with the trend moving away from securing
the rights of all to resolutely advancing the political rights and financial
interests of those presently in power and enjoying popular appeal. It is not how
things should be. It is, in a word, dangerous.
What will be the consequence of our refusing to
fight for the rights of all?
What will our generation leave as our legacy of
law?
If we abandon our heritage of liberty to modern
political pressures and the demands of popular expedience, as many modern
commentators observe with alarming vehemence ... whom shall we blame but
ourselves?
Who will our children blame?
I want to take this fight to the people. It
is, after all, your fight.
|
