Sharks and The Easy Take
To listen to the audio version of this post, it is here… https://soundcloud.com/genuine-optimist/episode-20-sharks-and-the-easy
The world in which we live teaches us to live as sharks. Sharks smell blood in the water. Blood means protein is available. Blood means an easy take.
Vultures live off road kill. Maggots feed on dead flesh. To the rat or hyena mind, this means an easy take.
Are you an easy take?
I have a close friend who is a general contractor. He is currently in a legal battle with a shark who hired him to do a lot of work on his housing project. Payments came until a few months later and then payments stopped. Within a thirty day period work was done on several homes with no payment. My friend had to shut down his work and this is where things went ugly. A court battle surfaced. So far, the shark has won on the smallest technicality (a misspelled name) and the judge removed all lien rights from my friend’s business, which included costs in both labor and materials for concrete, framing, stucco and landscaping. In total, he has lost nearly $350,000 in unpaid work in just thirty days. With legal fees it will be close to half a million before the end of this year.
Sharks swarm the waters and the system protects them because they feed those at the top of the food chain, but at the costs of those who labor at the bottom. The legal system is at the top of the food chain, and it is especially true for construction.
I spoke with my uncle recently who is in the trades and he said something interesting. “The construction industry is designed for someone to take a loss.” At some point during the construction of a home or project, someone will take a hit because there is always someone out there for an easy take, and the legal system protects those out for the take. I have seen dozens of friends and family get taken because another uses the legal system for legal theft.
Now I am going to say something that may frustrate many. Sorry, I cannot help myself, so here I go. If there is one thing we can do to make the world a better place, we should abolish judges entirely and create a simple eight-person jury for all civilian issues in excess of $5,000. We could have greater voice and involvement, a genuine judgement of our peers, and corruption would be almost fruitless. Right now sharks use the legal system which is driven by precedence, statutes, and protection racketeering to keep the sharks alive. All you have to do is learn how to move the court to act and the judge is forced to decide accordingly, even it is ethically and logically wrong.
A judge is moved to act according to what is on the books according to statutes, precedence and court procedure. Little technicalities have greater weight than the common sense of right and wrong.
I am sick to my stomach of the bloody waters that empower those who abuse it to take advantage of those who do not.
I know of a popular conservative media website in Austin Texas that was recently forced to be shut down by a judge in California. The judge has a history of making unilateral calls based on what others demand from court filings. If I mention her name, I could get in trouble, and if I mentioned the conservative media site I could be censored. Again, the judicial system as it now operates is at the top of the food chain.
Most of us could site at least one experience in our lives or one story where a single judge made a truly bad call. If the nine-member United States Supreme court can easily split on decisions with five against a decision and four in favor, then what makes us think that a single judge can make legal, ethical, and rational decisions at least 75% of the time? The truth is they can’t.
This means the judicial system is poorly flawed by a greater percentage than we dare admit. There is no real justice by our piers and prior court decisions dictate most action and not statues and standards.
Can we imagine something better? I propose the following:
Fire all judges within a 24-month period, nationwide. For now, let’s just fire all judges who rule between citizens not judges who rule between the state and citizens.
Replace these judges (those judging over civil disputes) with nine-member justice/juries selected locally at random.
Require all justice/juries to make their decisions by unanimous consent for most rulings (all nine) and by a super majority (at least 7) for other rulings.
Citizens serve on justice/juries in the same way they serve regular jury duty today.
We can appoint a simple court foreman or manager to handle the mundane management of the court and to assist the justice/jury with proper procedure and to prompt them of decisions to be made. You can even uses judges for this and call them court managers, but do not let them decide for the court.
Appeals can work the same way.
A 1-3 day training would precede justice/jury duty.