By Mark David Blum, Esq.
Last week, I had the distinct pleasure of addressing a gathering of students at Nottingham High School on the subject of a career in law. As seems to always happen, within minutes of the start of the discussion, the students wanted to moreso discuss rights and how the law itself applies in society. Explaining what a lawyer does is a near impossibility. Showing by example is the greater lesson and I thoroughly enjoy demonstrating to students how the law and lawyers work with facts and situations to advance their cause.
My cause is to save a life. Today’s youth, like the thousands of generations before them, see life in a limited sphere and cannot fathom a world 30, 40, or 50 years hence. With every passing day, pandering politicians and cowardly administrators close down opportunities and shove our young into tightening boxes of rigid behavior; stamping out creativity and critical thinking. The anger that boils over, the frustration, and the prison-esque environment of some schools leaves our children torn between competing political theories.
One theory is that my government and leadership is always doing the right thing. The theory presupposes that leadership is on the right course with a benevolent heart. Indoctrinated with the “my government, right or wrong” attitude, followers of this trend go along flaccidly with whatever they are told to do and find comfort in that.
The other theory, the one penned by Thomas Jefferson on a piece of hemp, makes no such assumptions. To the contrary, the uniqueness of the American experiment was that all political power and authority flowed uphill with the starting point being the individual. Only those rights and liberties voluntarily surrendered to the State for the greater good are lost and even then, their loss is intended as temporary. Government is presumed as a necessary evil and must always be held in check as to fail in supervising your government will result in small and incremental losses of freedom which will never be regained.
With these young minds to whom I regularly speak … most times labeled as “failures” or “at-risk” by the system … I find a shocking submissive audience. Students who on the streets probably carry about a great deal of clout and power (and guns or drugs) are mentally beaten down and submissive in the classroom. In introducing me, I have seen at least one teacher talking to these students like they were a bunch of five year olds on detention; which infuriated me to no end. I force them out of their shells and make them engage me.
When I walk out of the classroom, I am confident in my heart that I have moved at least some of those students off their comfort zones, out of their mental prisons, and into a world of pondering responsibility for their own futures. They know that through government, through free speech and expression, they can change the world. I label those who rely on a gun or violence as cowards because they accomplish nothing and how a true fighter can stand there with his hands in his pockets and tear someone to shreds with the power of words and logic.
The question however, comes up frequently … about dealing with a government that refuses to be honorable. Some of the examples are how Syracuse police target young black males for harassment and arrest. Many feel the justice system is stacked against their race and very few students believe they will be living in freedom after age 25.
For that very reason, I walk them through their Bill of Rights. Summarized best, the argument goes that if government takes away your First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendment rights, your only choice may be the Second Amendment. That right, to keep and bear arms, has nothing to do with militias or hunting. It is about the last line of defense against a corrupt and threatening government. Guns are the great equalizer and Thomas Jefferson and those who stood with him declared that there comes a time when government oppression is so great, that the only solution to rise up to arms. Because our children cannot vote and so much oppression is being levied “in their best interests”, they are resorting to the natural alternative to ballots: bullets.
One of the most astute political comments I have ever read was offered by a middle aged blue collar Black man. It was during an A-2 felony drug trial and during my turn at jury (de)selection, I came upon this unassuming man. Being he was the only Black candidate for the jury and the Defendant was Black, I began a gentle inquiry. Specifically, I asked him if he had an opinion about the nation’s War on Drugs.
His response has been one of those statements that you hear and which stay with you for a very long time. He looked me right in the eye, then lowered his head and looked down (a cultural thing) and said, “a government which declares war on its’ own people has no legitimacy.”
Eight years have passed since that day and those words first were uttered aloud in a Court of law. Yet, every time I repeat them, the meaning and impact of what that juror was saying strikes harder. Such a simple sentence so very much summarizes how we see ourselves as free Americans and the dreams of the true American promise. We see ourselves as autonomous of government intervention unless absolutely necessary and with our consent. “Government” is just the guy down the street who ran for office and got elected; someone we would never see as our enemy. He is our representative; never our leader.
Two great examples popped up this morning which best demonstrate the point of how a citizenry responds to an illegitimate government. I know many of my fans and foes from area High Schools are reading this (and may use it as another reason to try and ban me from speaking at some campuses). But by way of this example, perhaps I can educate the educators and get them to see the fallacy of their attitudes and the harm they create by shutting down free discussion and keeping our children in ignorant bliss.
Teachers, since you complain about how I argue these situations, I would be curious to see the official company response and explanation to students about the law and rights in context of this case. “Florida's drug trafficking laws were stretched beyond their logical limit when they were applied to Richard Paey, a Pasco County man now serving a 25-year mandatory minimum sentence. Paey suffers from debilitating and chronic pain, and he may have violated the law in order to obtain more pain medication.” Whereas Rush Limbaugh commits the same crime for purely recreational purposes, he gets an invitation to the White House. When Noelle Bush, daughter of the outgoing Florida governor commits the same crime, she gets a stint in a rehab center and then back to the governor’s mansion.
Or as many people will point out, some of the nation’s child support laws have become as draconian as our drug laws where non custodial parents are treated as a deep pocket for a child and are otherwise dismissed by a hostile and system top heavy with estrogen and metrosexuals. When the system shows no mercy, desperate actions are taken. Though a law was passed in the name of children, it has effectively wiped two generations of fathers from the lives of their children. “An underground organization based in Nice, France, PAFE claims to have assisted 250,000 North American men start new lives in Europe. Alliance founder Roger Debois, who also goes by the name Jean Kelly, said he was a New York City emergency-room physician before starting PAFE. He assists North American men, including 4,000 Canadians, who want to start over.”
Indeed the system can be harsh and come down with crushing pain on a losing party. In the years following the so-called liberation of women, men (metro sexual men) who wanted to get laid, began to argue women’s issues as part of their campaign promises. Trying to fix a then perceived inequity in how custody and child support is handled, politicians everywhere enacted laws with fixed dollar amounts for support, brutal and unforgiving collection practices, and little to no defenses or other considerations are allowed. The poisonous slogan, “do it for your children” infected the honor of the system and took decision making out of the hands of judges and turned them into mathematicians. Discretion fell by the wayside and a custodial parent usually hit the lottery insofar as tax free money.
As an attorney and officer of the court, I work as hard as I can to bring enlightenment and change inside the system. Sometimes it works; others it does not. The one thing I do know absolutely is that the Judge and legal system itself is the last line of defense against a corrupt government. When judges start making Nuremburg arguments (I hate to do this to you because it is immoral, but I have no choice), our very essence as a nation is sacrificed and faith in government is lost. When a people do lose faith in their government or see the government as having declared war on its’ own people, then indeed the government will have no legitimacy.
The best example is by way of my own work. No lawyer can claim a 100% win rate because ‘winning’ is not always an option unless you consider mitigation to be a victory. Losing a heartbreaking criminal case or having an unexpected defeat in a civil case can be a serious kick in the groin. Yet, each time a party loses, so long as they felt that the playing field was level and the lawyers did their job and the judge listened and was fair, then a loss does not implicate our justice system and cause the litigant to turn on his own government.
It is truly amazing how in a criminal case, citizens of this nation voluntarily walk into courtrooms from Washington State to Washington D.C. despite knowing full well they may not walk out of there. So much do we trust our own system, that even the most sociopath amongst us most times surrenders and bends to the will of the State; even offering up decades of their freedoms. Despite sitting in Attica, a defendant who has had a fair trial will blame lying witnesses, stupid girlfriends, or whatever. But, their trust in the integrity of the system is not challenged and will work zealously within the system, despite the futility thereof.
So since efforts are underway to silence my voice and limit the content of my presentations, I call upon the teachers and principals who are so offended to themselves take the responsibility to educate future generations of citizens. Justify for these kids the inequities in the system and how they, as future voters, have no choice but to let government completely run and dominate their lives; liberty be damned.
The kids I talk to are not star students; they are dubbed the at risk kids. Having come out of that same background, I know and can sense how they feel. Their frustration with the system, their feeling branded and ignored, and their powerlessness to rise up and change their situation takes them out of the education loop and turns schools into a mandatory prison sentence.
Obviously, I do not condone or advocate the violent overthrow of the United States government. Every year, on the first Tuesday in November, we as a People, have the chance to overthrow our government; just as we did this year. Unfortunately, however, while we can change legislators, we cannot change tenure protected teachers. Ironic too is that the entire concept of tenure is designed to shield teachers from political control and yet it is they who themselves are using this shield as a sword to blind and quiet the voices of the next generations.
One root cause of violence amongst our youth on the streets is that they have never been exposed to the real beauty and power that the American experiment offers. Instead, they tend to be moreso victims of abuses of the State and thus do not recognize the authority of the State or submit to her laws. In doing so, they present a danger greater than a terrorist. To them, the government no longer has legitimacy and the only option they see, is to stand against the entirety. When bands of people start to feel the same way, you find Crips, Tea Parties, and Massacres. If the poison spreads, revolution and civil war are not far behind. Remember our own history when the English crown lost its’ legitimacy to govern because of the perceived arbitrary and unfair manner in which laws and taxes were applied.
Since I can no longer share these words in a classroom, I will offer them here: All political power in this country starts from you. You have the full range of every liberty imaginable and only those you choose to give up for a greater good are surrendered. Once you give up a right or liberty it is gone forever. It is your duty to stand in opposition to every effort by government at every level when they try and reduce or take away liberties. In small almost imperceptible steps sometimes, government will completely strip bare and entire body of freedoms. (E.g. the Harrison Act). If you don’t stand your ground, even if you are the lone voice, then you have violated the sacred trust placed in you by our nations founders and have wasted the gallons of blood spilt by previous generations to protect that sacred trust. It may take you five years or fifty to find that voice, but when you do, speak up loud and strong. Find what lights you up and follow it with all your heart. Never forget what real liberty is; the right to make all the mistakes and to be as stupid as you can be. You will be judged by your grandchildren not by your failures but by how you responded when you did.
