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Sharing Thoughts
Letter Written by:
Iloilo Jones
Date of Letter: 2009-05-25
Subject:
Criminal Justice System
FIJA: The Vision and Mission
Helena, Montana
Dear Friends: Although
I was not with you in person at the recent meeting, there are a few thoughts I
wish to share with you. I hope you will
have time to read what I have written here.
Thank you. Kindest Regards, Iloilo Marguerite Jones
First, let me explain that jurors have not always been a part of
government, but they have been deciders of justice. From earliest times, we know from oral traditions
of tribal cultures where disputes were settled by each side choosing five
people. These ten people were responsible for delivering a verdict based on
fairness and justice, tempered with mercy.
Because tribal peace and restoring the damaged party were the goals, all
ten jurors were aware that their verdict must meet the approval of everyone,
even the relatives of the loser of the dispute.
Justice, fairness, and mercy were required of early jurors. Verdicts were public, as were the arguments
presented. Juries have been considered
fair deciders of justice in tribal cultures, churches, temples, governments,
states, families, nations, and sometimes, in simple groups of nomadic peoples
seeking a fair mechanism for social balance.
Again, jurors have always functioned for justice, but not always from
within other institutions.
FIJA’s mission is to enlighten ─ and thus empower ─ the
individual juror. Based on the shared
concept that no human should be beholden to any government for liberty,
justice, or life, FIJA works to liberate, and therefore restore, the role of
the juror from being agents of government, back to the role of the autonomous,
independent juror. A juror can render a
verdict based on justice and fairness, tempered with mercy. This is a verdict of individual thinking and
conscience.
Rather than pleading with government agents for what we know
to be our inherent rights as humans, we teach jurors that their most powerful
vote in defense of human rights is a “not guilty” verdict against government
tyranny expressed through bad laws. We
teach that the Constitution, through its articulation of the right to trial by
jury, guarantees that government must bring its case before The People any time
─ and every time! ─ government tries to deprive anyone of life, liberty, or
property. Jurors protect our inherent,
sacred human rights.
The concept of the juror long has been held captive by
government schools and judges, and by government-licensed lawyers and media. If it is not a vast conspiracy, then it is a
vast and horrible ignorance. FIJA does not seek to restore justice or
liberty through appeal to power-damaged individuals who constitute these
government-controlled groups. FIJA seeks
to restore justice and liberty through thinking, independent, individual jurors.
Remember, the jury is not an institution of government,
although it has been usurped by kings, priests, dictators, presidents, and
prime ministers during some of human history. The jury functions whether initiated by an
independent group of people or by a society, or by a Church, or by a government
agency. The function of the jury remains
the same in all venues: to render justice.
FIJA has worked with GOA, ASA, NORML, Liberty Belles, Pink
Pistols, Oath Keepers, Tea Party organizers, tax protest groups, Sport Shooting
groups, JPFO, Catholic Peace Workers, property rights groups, and other groups
and individuals too numerous to mention.
FIJA has no formal membership, but rather relies on unique,
individual initiative and thinking from volunteers and supporters who
cooperatively support our educational efforts. Volunteers make videos, publish
web sites, hold forum discussions, speak, give interviews, create works of art,
design posters or advertisements, purchase advertising, and a myriad of other
creative projects.
There is no formal structure or titles, other than the one I
use on ceremonial occasions. We here at
FIJA are all state contacts, volunteers, writers, speakers, artists, or other labels
that suit us. We are all in this
together, and we all do everything.
Across the country, you will find thinking, honest,
enthusiastic, bright, creative people handing out FIJA literature, making
movies, giving talks, and sharing the message of the impressive role and
authority of the juror to defend liberty and do justice.
Across this country, people who have learned the power of the
juror to veto bad laws and government tyranny serve on juries, and refuse to
convict harmless, productive, good people for breaking the king’s stupid and
vicious laws. Many, many people have not
gone to prison because of informed jurors who read FIJA literature or listened
to a FIJA speaker.
Across this country, FIJA teaches people to think ─ and act,
each as an individual ─ for those ideas of life, liberty, property, and justice
that are the living expression of the founding concept of this nation: that
each individual is a sacred sovereign; that all humans are created equal,
endowed with the same rights; and that government has no legitimate authority
to interfere with our human rights.
Across this country, FIJA teaches the concept that one
person, acting alone, can make a huge difference for another person, and for this
country, by the verdict they give as a juror.
Across this country, FIJA teaches the concept that we are
equal as humans, with equal ethical rights, equal access to reason, and equal
contributions to make as jurors and as members of society. A juror does not have an ethical compass
inferior to that of the government-paid, power-damaged judge, prosecutor, or
attorney. Quite the contrary, in fact. J
FIJA encourages all honest people to stand against
government tyranny; to use their individual juror authority to protect our rights,
and to see government as the instrument of taxation, war, murder, captivity, slavery,
and oppression that it is.
We encourage each person to use every peaceful means to be
an example of their best vision of the new cultural paradigm which demonstrates
the rights of each human to own their body, and to control their life and the
products of that life.
FIJA works to educate and empower the individual, so that no
matter how venal, vicious, or insane government actions may become, jurors can
refuse to enforce the laws which government creates to protect its power and
abuse the rights of mankind. It is
possible the present government will collapse.
We must be prepared to provide a peaceful, non-coercive
transitional government in its place. No
matter what, if government crumbles under the weight of its own ignorance, or
stumbles on for years to come, the function of the juror remains the same:
to render justice.
Comments
for the Conference
(I was asked to make some comments for the upcoming Constitutional
Conference. These comments are from me,
individually and personally, and are not a part of FIJA’s primary efforts nor
of its mission, but rather are associated with www.meansofinquiry.org. )
 Recognize
that it is the time in human history for coercive, violent, power-based
governments to stand down, including the one in this nation. Now is the time to
introduce a transitional structure to peacefully move from coercive governments
to other forms of societal structures.*
Be
among the vanguard who will institute voluntary cooperation among people; free
from coercion, force, fraud or threats.
Let this Nation’s direction once again lead toward human freedom. We are a very young species, we humans: let
us, through our thinking and our deeds, assist in our evolution to a peaceful
species on this planet Earth.*
Acknowledge
that we can manifest innovative organizations, more beneficial for human society
than these old organizations, including government, which gain power over
people through force and fraud.
Cooperation can be won with reason, rather than force.*
Acknowledge
that any government granted the power to levy taxes thus has legitimacy for the
initiation of violence against individual humans as the means to collect those
taxes.
Institute
a government existing only on voluntary contributions. For humans, now must be the age when
cooperation replaces coercion as a survival tool. It is the time in the history of humans when
we must replace coercion with cooperation if we are to survive as a species.
Grant
any government no power to make war. We
can defend ourselves, we individuals, with our personal weapons.
Grant
the government no power to invade the privacy of individual humans.
Close government schools, we can teach our
own children, and save their minds, too.
Remove
permissions and licenses from the list of activities government may practice or
administer or control - and these include marriage, driver’s licenses, vehicle
licenses, professional licenses, and permissions to enter or leave our country. Leave these functions to the Church,
insurance companies, private road owners, or voluntary private contracts.
Introduce
and practice a new cultural ethic: that each individual, once they are old
enough to leave the shelter of their parents’ care, is responsible for that life,
individual self-governance, self-responsibility, and self-actualization, as
well as responsible, until they in turn leave the shelter of their parent’s
care, of those children they manifest.
These are new, cultural ethics which humans must adopt as they have
adopted taboos against other forms of parasitism and slavery.
Provide
for the Zero Aggression Principle, and prohibit any form of taxation, and you
might get something that will work during the transition period.
If we continue to accept and promote the
contradiction that government may legitimately initiate violence, make wars,
tax and regulate us, or enforce other than the common law, then we will have as much of a
new mess in any new government as the mess that this last Constitution has not
prevented. We must set aside the
notion that any human, no matter their agency or reason, may initiate violence
against any other human.*
By now we
have learned through observation that an institution based on the contradiction
that it can protect itself through force and fraud will not long survive. We know that power-damaged minds only
perceive the utility of force: they do not realize that the use of force cannot
be sustained against thinking minds. Force
stifles individual human creativity, cooperation, voluntary effort, and demeans
the human spirit.*
We are each
a thinking, problem-solving unique individual. It is time we looked beyond the present
political structure of taxation and theft, fraud and favoritism, to a new
concept for your individual role in a just, fair, and merciful society. For humans, coercive government is merely a
passing fad. The days of the bully are
over. Reason must prevail. Don’t you think it is time we individual
thinkers evolved to a better cultural and ethical concept of human society? I do. Thank
you. Peace. ~ Iloilo
Marguerite Jones
*Please also read www.Think.ws for
more information on many of the concepts I have presented in Comments
section. Thank you.
The Courage We Need Today
© MeansofInquiry.org January 1, 2009
It is not the courage of war we need today.
It is not the soldiers we need.
It is not the tanks and grenades.
We cannot heal this world with blood.
We cannot mend the wounds with hatred.
We cannot save ourselves with violence.
It is not the courage of power we need today.
It is not the politicians that we need.
It is not the taxes and the corruption.
We cannot heal our planet with politics.
We cannot mend the rifts with legislation.
We cannot save ourselves with debt.
It is the courage of truth we need today.
It is integrity that we need.
It is honesty and courage.
We can heal our existence with honesty and courage.
We can mend the contradictions with reasoning.
We can save ourselves with peace.
We know the magnitude of these concepts:
Truth requires courage;
Integrity requires courage.
It is this courage that we need today.
~toward entelechy, ilo²
Iloilo Marguerite
Jones, Helena Montana.
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