Solzhenitsyn and more
700 words. Read to end.
Never forget the words of Solzhenitsyn, imprisoned in a gulag for eight years for an opinion written in private correspondence:
“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would
things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at
night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return
alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of
mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter
of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs,
paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every
step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose
and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen
people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?... The
Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and
transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed
machine would have ground to a halt! If...if...We didn't love freedom
enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation.... We
purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.”
Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn , The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956
_____________________
The political landscape we are confronted with today is utterly different, if dire, to that suffered by Solzhenitsyn.
The checks & balances, which defined the Enlightenment dispensation, have ceased to work because key positions have come to be occupied by cowards and perverts of various mentalities. Those positions are located most importantly in the judiciary, to which otherwise appeal could be made to rectify misdeeds. There are rogue judges, alongside abundant others who are uneducated and lacking in critical ability. Elsewhere there are zillions of sheeple, i.e. the brainwashed masses who slavishly believe whatever the censors have allowed them to see or read.
There is a question of the monopoly of the State on the use of force, an issue which is tied to the power of the judiciary. That monopoly must end where there is censorship. There may be hesitancy about a fine line between censorship and gatekeeping, but not at the extremes. For example: Refusing to give a hearing to flat earthers is gatekeeping (because it would distract from more controversial matters). Suppressing debate about “net zero,” which is the most absurd ideology, is censorship.
Returning now to the topic of rogue judges. This refers to judges who persistently make rulings which fly in the face of consensual morality; such rulings include, for example, widespread cases of two-tier justice, with misplaced leniency for felons versus punitive punishment for misdemeanours and forceful protests. Such rulings have the purpose of intimidating other protestors; they violate the principle of equality before the law.
A reminder here of the immortal questions of Anthony Neil Wedgwood Benn (3 April 1925 – 14 March 2014); “What power have you got? Where did you get it from? In whose interests do you exercise it? To whom are you accountable? And how can we get rid of you?” If you cannot get rid of the people who govern you, you do not live in a democratic system
Therefore, what can be done about rogue judges?
It should be possible to write to all judges, and indeed magistrates, heads of police and public prosecutors, and ask for their consent to the principle of de-selection in cases where there is a substantial and persistent public outcry against judicial rulings.
Those that give consent could then be listed on a public website, with a re-assurance of protection under the Common Law and indeed the covenant of common courtesy. There is no need here to spell out the ramifications.
The exact procedure for de-selection by universal suffrage need not be deliberated here. Suffice it to say that:
* full information on mis-judgements must be available, such as has become uncommon in the mainstream media,
* that the voting public must not be distracted by long lists of candidates for de-selection. This could be countered by making the suspected rogues accountable only in the constituency, county or region where they live or work.