The Ron Paul Revolution of transforming the Republican Party won’t end with Dr Paul.

Is that the “Revolution’s” goal now?

I thought the goal was to elect Ron Paul President of the United States, or at least get him the Republican nomination for President. But I guess if at first you don’t succeed, you can always move the goalposts.

This sounds like electioneering mission creep to me. In order to do A (get libertarian, anti-war policies) you decided to do B (get Ron Paul elected). To do B you’d have to do C and D (raise money and convince Republican primary/caucus voters). To do D you found out you’d have to do E (either recruit and register new Republicans or convince enough influentials within the Republican party and the media to get your message to the existing Republicans). But now you’ve found out that to do E effectively you have to do F (“transform the Republican Party” (!)). To do F, you’re planning to do G (run a bunch of Pauliticians in other, lower-level Republican primary races). But to do G, you’ve got to go back to C and D. And around and around we go.

Maybe it’s just time to cut your losses and look for other ways to do A without getting sucked even further into the quagmire of electoral politics.

I’m not sure that Ron Paul supporters ever believed Paul was the Messiah.

Maybe not. But at least one does think he’s “The Greatest American ever” Another thinks that he’s a light that shineth in the darkness, and the darkness comprehended him not.

And this is a great example of why I think we’re diverging even as we state many similar principles. If concentrated power is the enemy, not the abrogation of rights, then there’s a lot that happens at the local, familial, and small group level that falls outside of the strict boundaries of libertarian concerns. So it’s natural that a “thick” libertarian would not approve of that kind of libertarianism.

I need to read the essay on thick and thin libertarianism again to make sure that I’m using those terms correctly; feel free to correct me or clarify muddy thinking.

Well, thin libertarianism is the position that “libertarian concerns” should be narrowly construed, as being exhausted by whatever your favorite specification of the non-aggression principle is (abrogation of individual rights, violations of equal liberty, initiation of force, whatever). Thick libertarianism is the position that “libertarian concerns” should be construed more broadly, as including a definite stance for or against at least some attitudes, practices, traditions, practices, projects, institutions, etc. that are logically consistent with, but not entailed by, the non-aggression principle. (All the forms I’ve discussed in my writing on the topic, at least, are forms of “thickness” in which the cause for concern is that the commitments that go beyond the logical entailments of a commitment to non-aggression are still linked to a commitment to non-aggression in some other, weaker, but still interesting sense — e.g. causally linked, or in application to specific cases, or in virtue of being two different conclusions of a common set of prior premises.)

Strictly speaking, if a “thin” libertarian is being consistent about the non-aggression principle, then she will still concern herself with things that happen outside the scope of the State insofar as they involve the direct use of violence — so, for example, her version of “libertarian concerns” would still properly include non-State forms of systemic coercion like race slavery or violence against women. A “thick” libertarian would agree, but take it one step further to include things other than the express acts of violence, which she takes to be importantly connected with the express acts of violence (e.g. white supremacist prejudices, patriarchal rape culture, etc.).

I don’t think the distinction lines up neatly with the question of whether the libertarian or anarchist in question focuses narrowly on anti-statism or generalizes to cases other than the State. (Cf. 1. Some “thin” libertarians do tend to write as if the State were the only significant form of systemic coercion, and “thick” libertarians may be more likely to recognize the existence of other forms of systemic coercion, but in principle a “thin” libertarian might very well recognize other forms, while a “thick” libertarian might in principle regard statism as the only significant form of systemic coercion around, and devote her time spent on “thick” concerns entirely to the stuff that she takes to be causally or conceptually supporting statism.)

So thick libertarians will probably tend to be much more interested in things like a critique of institutionalizing or otherwise concentrating social power, even without that critique cashing out at some point in references to rights-violations. Thin libertarians will tend to argue that those concerns are either uninteresting, or, if interesting, still outside the scope of libertarianism per se.

I’m not sure how far this clarifies the point that you were interested in clarifying.

… I think numbers *do* constitute authority …

Authority for what?

Do you mean to suggest that, for example, that superior numbers gave Anytus’s party the rightful authority to kill Socrates, or the Roman occupiers the rightful authority to crucify Jesus?

If so, why? If not, then what do their superior numbers give them the rightful authority to do?

Jeremy,

I’d like to suggest that the chief reason libertarians and anarchists spend more time assailing government than they spend assailing “mere” crime isn’t so much that the former is institutionalized while the latter isn’t. There are plenty of examples of “mere” crime that’s institutionalized — the Mafia, for starters — that libertarians and anarchists also don’t spend much time fulminating.

What I think is more likely is that libertarians and anarchists spend a lot of time and rhetorical energy on government because over and over again we see that the violence of the State apparatus, no matter how intense and no matter how obviously harmless or helpless its victims, is ideologically mystified, morally excused, and either widely treated as legitimate or else simply rendered invisible, whereas most “mere” crime is not. It doesn’t take a lot of rhetorical energy to convince most people that the Mafia is a band of thugs; most everybody knows that being a band of thugs is their business. Most people don’t know, or don’t consistently realize, that being a band of thugs is the government’s business. Hence the effort to demystify, delegitimize, and get people to come down and look at the actions of governors and their hirelings the way they would look at similar conduct by someone without a badge or a pompous title on letterhead.

Note that when libertarians have been especially concerned with exposing and condemning some form of systemic violence carried out mostly outside of the formal State apparatus — for example the “private” violence of race slavery, or violence against women, or adult domination of children — it is more or less always a parallel system of violence which is, like the State, mystified as being something other than violence, culturally excused, and either explicitly socially accepted or else kept silent and made invisible. Even when (as in the case of, for example, violence against women) there may be various kinds of institutional support or institutional denialism for the violence, but the paradigmatic locus of the violence is in informal actions by one ordinary person against another, carried out in private settings.

I should note that the mystification of State violence also seems to play an important role in arguments that try to undermine the ideal of a consensual society by appealing to the ignorance, folly, or vice of mortal creatures. Of course we are all prone to ignorance, folly, or vice in this vale of tears. But that is precisely the reason to oppose all forms of coercive power. Every government is run by those same imperfect, sinful people that it supposedly exists to straighten out, and certainly the would-be bellowing blowhard lords of the world are no more immune to pride, cruelty, or sharp dealing than ordinary business-people, workers, etc. Quite the opposite. If it’s utopian to imagine perfecting human nature, then certainly you have every reason to centrally concern yourself with institutions, practices, projects, traditions, etc. which take all the ignorance, folly, and vice of those who come out on top of the power-struggle, and then magnify it, concentrate it, regularize it, and insulate it from both criticism and resistance.

That libertarians are simply more consistent in their advocacy of non-agression is no mind-boggingly unique contribution to political discourse; it’s actually just a preference

I don’t know what you mean by this. Clearly one can have a preference for consistency — I’d hope everyone does — but is the phrase “just a preference” supposed to indicate that preferring consistent application of moral principles over inconsistent application of moral principles isn’t backed by some prior logical and/or moral obligation? That it’s just a matter of taste, like preferring milk over lemon in your tea? If so, why do you believe that? If not, then what work is the word “just” doing here?

And I agree with you that, as distasteful as it may be to us, government is comprised of genuine traditions, norms, and social identity.

Again, I’m confused by what you mean here. Are there libertarians or anarchists who deny that government is comprised of genuine traditions, norms, and social identity? (What then do they believe it is comprised of? Idiosyncratic rather than traditional practice?)

The point of anarchistic critique is not that government somehow exists separately from traditions, norms, and social identity, but rather that some traditions, norms, and ways of understanding your social identity are foolish, vicious, or otherwise objectionable, and in particular that the the statist elements of those traditions, norms, and social identity are in need of critique, reform, or revolutionary transformation.

One realization I’ve come to is that I don’t have a problem with force being exerted by society, so long as it is society, and not a particular class of society, executing the force.

And again, I’m confused by what you mean. Force is never exerted “by society.” It is exerted by individual people who live in a society, and, when it’s coordinated, it is always coordinated by an organized faction within that society (whether spontaneously or deliberately ordered), not by the “society” as a whole. This is no less true of “citizen militias” than it is true of professionalized police or government armies. (Barring universal conscription, there will always be a fair number of people who decline to participate. And there will always be a fair number of people — young children, frail people, paralyzed people, etc. — who are incapable of participating. Aside from any limitations through cultural or institutional prejudice, the nature of the practice necessarily limits participation.)

As far as I can see, the only important question here is, not who is or is not exercising the force, but rather how it is being exercised: whether it is being exerted prudently or destructively, and, when it is exerted, whether it is being exerted to vindicate just claims or to violate and suppress just claims. Insofar as there’s a question of “who” involved, it’s only a question of which factions, and which forms of organization, are the most likely to abstain from destructive or aggressive uses of force, and most likely to pursue wise and righteous uses of force. I think the superiority of citizen militias here over unaccountable paramilitary cops or imperial standing armies is obvious, but the reasons for that superiority have little if anything to do with some mythic direction of force by the General Will. It just has to do with what we, each of us individually, in our ordinary lives, are prone to do under different circumstances, when we are dependent on others for our safety, or when we have unaccountable power over others, or when we are able to defend ourselves, or when we are working cooperatively with our neighbors, etc. etc. etc.

John,

The most unfortunate thing about “anarchism” may be the name, which may lead one to believe anarchists are against all gov’t, when really (as I understand it) they are perfectly willing to cooperate with their neighbors for the common good, a good that must inevitably, at times, impinge upon their personal good.

But, John, the reason that anarchists call themselves anarchists is that they are against all government–as they understand government. If you want to introduce your own definition of the word “government,” which includes absolutely any arrangement for cooperation between individual people, no matter how informal, consensual, non-territorial, non-monopolistic, and accountable to external constraints of justice, then you’re free to use the word “government” that way, but your definition of the term (which I think is much further from the common use of the term than anarchists’ definition) would seem to be of little help either in understanding why anarchists call themselves what they call themselves, or in advising them on what they ought to call themselves to maximize clarity.

What they are not willing to do, and what no man [sic] should be willing to do, is to deprive the many in favor of the few,

I don’t see what numbers have to do with it. Of course it’s terrible when the many are forcibly deprived in favor of the few, and this is what almost always happens under the auspices of government (even so-called majoritarian government), where the governing class is always an elite minority parasitic upon the productive labor of the governed. But is it any less terrible when the minority, or an individual person, are forcibly deprived in favor of the majority, which has certainly also happened over and over again in history? (Cf. Socrates, Jesus, the Christian martyrs, Catholics in Reformation England, Protestants in Counter-Reformation Spain and France, Jews and Muslims and Romani all across Europe…) The only reason I can see why “the many” would, as a group, be entitled to demand that they will not be beaten or robbed or swindled by an elite few is because each of them, naked and alone with nothing other than her humanity, is just as entitled to demand that she will be beaten or robbed or swindled by anybody else, whether they are few or many. That’s rights, as I see it, and everybody’s got them whether or not they have a large enough posse.

Have I been inducted into the Beltwaytarian Illuminati without having heard about it? If so, I eagerly await my imminent influx of cocktail party invites and Kochtopus cash.

ThorsMitersaw,

The declarations of states are not reflective of their citizens …

No, but they are reflective of the opinions of the state governments at the time that those state governments determined to secede.

Of course, many if not most people in many southern states at the time felt differently. For starters, many if not most people in many southern states at the time were black slaves.

The white southerners who fought as common soldiers often had very different views of the import and justification for the war than those held by their governments. But of course it was their governments, and not they, who made the political and military decisions that we’re discussing here.

Charles H.,

I agree with you that any honest review of what the secessionists said (especially what they said at the time of the secession debate, rather than when they wrote their memoirs in the 1870s) would very quickly reveal that the perpetuation and expansion of race slavery was absolutely central to the Confederate cause. However, it would be an ignoratio elenchi to follow that evidence with the conclusion that ending or limiting race slavery must have been absolutely essential to the Union cause.

When people claim that the Southern states had the “right” to secede, what they mean is that a minority– adult white male landowners– had the right to decide for everyone else what form of government they would live under, and whether their basic human rights would be recognized.

I’m sure that when many people claim that, that is indeed what they mean, but I don’t think it’s at all fair to impute that meaning to most of the writers at LewRockwell.com or the Ludwig von Mises Institute.

Whatever faults they may have (and some of them have a lot), most of the people in question are anarchists, who believe that no government whatever, state, federal, or other, has any legitimate right to compel anyone’s allegiance. Their point about the right of secession is that adult white male Southern landowners had a right to determine for themselves (and themselves alone) what form of government, if any, they should live under, a right which any principled and honest believer in the principle of government by consent would have to concede they do have. The obvious and hideous atrocity of southern race slavery hardly justifies military invasion and bayonet-point Unionism; what it justifies is the (Garrisonian) strategy of embracing peaceful disunion, and then supporting southern slaves in their efforts to secede from the from the illegitimate government created by their quasi-secessionist slave-drivers.

If you’re not already familiar with it, I’d like to recommend J.R. Hummel’s excellent book, Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men, which ably defends the Garrisonian-disunionist position and presents a much more accurate and sophisticated libertarian analysis of the war than the stuff churned out by, for example, Tom DiLorenzo or Tom Woods.

PhysicistDave,

I think the issues at hand are a bit more complex than cultural affinities. When I see Yankees like Tom DiLorenzo running around affecting a fondness for the ol’ Moonlight-and-Magnolias, I just find it ridiculous. But when I see them actively distorting history for polemical purposes, in order to whitewash rabid slave-driving statists like John C. Calhoun, Robert E. Lee, or Jefferson Davis (cf. for example 1, 2, 2, 3, etc., not to mention DiLorenzo’s periodic attempts to portray Lysander Spooner, the author of the Plan for the Abolition of Slavery and a conspirator in an abortive attempt to rescue John Brown from the gallows, as an advocate for “peaceful” gradualist emancipation, I think there is something deeper and nastier at work that needs to be exposed and confronted.

Of course, those people who, in the name of “moderation” or “compromise” or politesse, attempt to water down or dissemble about libertarian principles on hard cases, or who try to marginalize radical libertarians for simply for making uncomfortably libertarian points — a group that intersects with, but certainly does not exhaust and certainly is not limited to — the staff at Cato and Reason deserves nothing but contempt for that kind of hand-wringing opportunism. But I don’t think it’s true that that’s the only reason that the Paulitarians and the VMI/LRC crew draw the kind of flak that they draw from within libertarian circles, or even from the Cato and Reason crowds specifically.

GT 2008-02-05: Rapists in uniform, in which an Ohio county sheriff declares that when a woman is thrown in jail on a bogus “disorderly conduct” charge, having a gang of cops, including two male officers, pin her down and strip search her over her screams of protest, and then leave her naked in a freezing-cold cell for six hours, counts as “us[ing] reasonable force to … protect prisoners in their custody.”

<a href=”http://radgeek.com/gt/2008/02/10/the_conservative/>GT 2008-02-10: The Conservative Mind (second Sin Fronteras edition), in which we’re reminded that they’re not against immigrants; they’re just against illegal immigrants!

GT 2008-02-13: Liberty, Equality, Solidarity: Toward a Dialectical Anarchism, in which your humble blogger appears in print.

Matt Polzkill defends Ron Paul by comparing him to Lysander Spooner:

What IS wrong with you guys?!? Who do you support for president? Who that ran, was light years closer to Spooner?

Meanwhile, Lysander Spooner joins the Smearbund:

SIR, — Your inaugural address is probably as honest, sensible, and consistent a one as that of any president within the last fifty years, or, perhaps, as any since the foundation of the government. If, therefore, it is false, absurd, self-contradictory, and ridiculous, it is not (as I think) because you are personally less honest, sensible, or consistent than your predecessors, but because the government itself — according to your own description of it, and according to the practical administration of it for nearly a hundred years — is an utterly and palpably false, absurd, and criminal one. Such praises as you bestow upon it are, therefore, necessarily false, absurd, and ridiculous.

… You have not so much as the honest signature of a single human being, granting to you or your lawmakers any right of dominion whatever over him or his property.

You hold your place only by a title, which, on no just principle of law or reason, is worth a straw. And all who are associated with you in the government — whether they be called senators, representatives, judges, executive officers, or what not — all hold their places, directly or indirectly, only by the same worthless title. That title is nothing more nor less than votes given in secret (by secret ballot), by not more than one-fifth of the whole population. These votes were given in secret solely because those who gave them did not dare to make themselves personally responsible, either for their own acts, or the acts of their agents, the lawmakers, judges, etc.

These voters, having given their votes in secret (by secret ballot), have put it out of your power — and out of the power of all others associated with you in the government — to designate your principals individually. That is to say, you have no legal knowledge as to who voted for you, or who voted against you. And being unable to designate your principals individually, you have no right to say that you have any principals. And having no right to say that you have any principals, you are bound, on every just principle of law or reason, to confess that you are mere usurpers, making laws, and enforcing them, upon your own authority alone.

… But the falsehood and absurdity of your whole system of government do not result solely from the fact that it rests wholly upon votes given in secret, or by men who take care to avoid all personal responsibility for their own acts, or the acts of their agents. On the contrary, if every man, woman, and child in the United States had openly signed, sealed, and delivered to you and your associates, a written document, purporting to invest you with all the legislative, judicial, and executive powers that you now exercise, they would not thereby have given you the slightest legitimate authority. Such a contract, purporting to surrender into your hands all their natural rights of person and property, to be disposed of at your pleasure or discretion, would have been simply an absurd and void contract, giving you no real authority whatever.

… Every man has, by nature, the right to maintain justice for himself, and for all other persons, by the use of so much force as may be reasonably necessary for that purpose. But he can use the force only in accordance with his own judgment and conscience, and on his own personal responsibility, if, through ignorance or design, he commits any wrong to another.

But inasmuch as he cannot delegate, or impart, his own judgment or conscience to another, he cannot delegate his executive power or right to another.

The result is, that, in all judicial and executive proceedings, for the maintenance of justice, every man must act only in accordance with his own judgment and conscience, and on his own personal responsibility for any wrong he may commit; whether such wrong be committed through either ignorance or design.

No one could justify, or excuse, his wrong act, by saying that a power, or authority, to do it had been delegated to him, by any other men, however numerous.

For the reasons that have now been given, neither any legislative, judicial, nor executive powers ever were, or ever could have been, delegated to the United States by the constitution; no matter how honestly or innocently the people of that day may have believed, or attempted, the contrary.

… Such, Mr. Cleveland, is the real character of the government, of which you are the nominal head. Such are, and have been, its lawmakers. Such are, and have been, its judges. Such have been its executives. Such is its present executive. Have you anything to say for any of them?

Yours Frankly, LYSANDER SPOONER. BOSTON, MAY 15, 1886.

“But in terms of the Constitution, the CSA was perhaps less evil than the North, wouldn’t you agree.”

I can’t answer for Anthony. But I certainly wouldn’t agree. Why in the world would anybody agree? The Confederate Constitution was deliberately modeled on the U.S. Constitution, and replicates nearly all of its defects. To these it adds new defects, in particular explicit new protections for “the right of property [sic] in negro slaves,” in particular explicitly forbidding any “impairment” of this so-called right by the confederate Congress (Art. I Sect. 9), explicitly protecting Confederate slaveholders’ ability to pass through or stay in other Confederate states with their slaves (Art. IV, Sect. 2), thus preventing any effective emancipation at the state level, and explicitly requiring that “the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected be Congress and by the Territorial government” in all newly-acquired territories (Art. IV, Sect. 3). Alexander Stephens, famously, described the changes (which he regarded as an improvement) as putting “to rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution—African slavery as it exists amongst us—the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization.”

I can find no particular at all in which the Confederate Constitution is preferable, from a libertarian standpoint, to the existing United States constitution, with the possible exception of its ban on protective tariffs (Art. I, Sect. 8). But the Confederate constitution does allow for revenue tariffs and other taxes, and the Confederates at the time happily implemented every sort of tax, cartelizaton, and nationalization during the few years of their independence. In any case, compared to the massive and obvious evil of perpetuating chattel slavery, swapping on set of taxes for another set of taxes seems like pretty small potatoes.

So what exactly is a libertaran supposed to find “perhaps less evil” in the Confederate constitution?

“And in fact the CSA Constitution banned the slave trade”

Obviously it did not; they went on trading slaves. It did forbid the transnational slave trade (except with the slaveholding states that remained in the Union), which is something different.

Nor is it something especially noble. The prohibition on the transnational slave trade in 1808 was pushed through originally by the Virginian slavers. Not out of any moral scruple about trading slaves, which they continued to do with gusto, but rather because certain powerful slavers profited greatly from the internal slave trade, even while plantation agriculture became increasingly unprofitable for the longer-settled parts of the South. The basic impetus behind both the 1808 ban and the Confederate ban was not emancipatory; it was just another damn protectionist scheme.

At the end of the article, Franks does express some “regret” that “we really couldn’t honestly find enough reasonable doubt to acquit Mr. Rhett.” Not because he feels bad about abducting harmless people and locking them in a cage for 10 years, of course, but rather because he would have rather reserved that treatment for some other innocent person higher up in the import-export business. But Rhett didn’t snitch, and “he was the one that got caught,” so ten years of his one-and-only life is close enough for government work.

Anon78,

I am skeptical of professionalized policing and uniformed “security” forces, even in the context of competitive free market agencies under anarchy. I think that while they may offer useful services to some private property owners, they also pose substantial dangers, which, even if the benefits outweigh the dangers in a given case, need to be countered, and probably not only by competing but basically similar firms, but also by assertive individual actors and by countervailing grassroots groups (on the model of CopWatch, but without laboring under the heavy burdens that State privilege for police currently forces them to labor under). I also think that in most cases the benefits are probably not worth the accompanying costs, and informal and decentralized solutions to security problems are usually going to be better than formal professional goon squads.

However, you asked a comparative question about competing private defense associations as vs. the current situation, so my answer mainly focused on comparing the two. I do think the former would be substantially better than the latter, for the reasons I explain, although I also think that a third solution will often be better than either.

As for your two objections, (1) it may very well be the case that individual people will prefer to back down when confronted by roving marauder gangs, and will ransom their safety rather than paying in the money and personal risk that it would take to defend themselves. It’s an interesting question why, historically, the technology and tactics of extortion and repression have tended to outrun the technology and tactics of evasion and resistance, and whether this would still be true under anarchy in a modern industrialized society (I’m not convinced that it would), and if it would be, whether anything can be done to reverse that trend (I suspect that it can).

I’m not especially convinced by your appeal to popular reluctance to use violence in self-defense or lack of training in it, because (1) presumably in anarchy, if people rely on themselves and their neighbors rather than professionalized security forces for their self-defense, more people will see it as in their interest to acquire some minimal training; (2) it doesn’t need everyone or even most people being willing to forcibly defend themselves, but rather just enough that it’s no longer profitable for the marauders to write off marauding in that neighborhood as too risky to be profitable; and (3) perhaps most importantly, there are lots of ways for people. individually or cooperatively, to effectively respond to violence other than by meeting it with defensive violence. There’s obstruction and fortification, stealth, evasion, and a whole host of tactics for passive resistance. All of which are increasingly accessible to the knowledge and resources of educated people in modern industrial societies.

But whatever the case may be, if anarchy does mean that many people will have to ransom their safety from marauder gangs every so often, which take the money and then leave, it’s hard to see how that’s worse than the present situation, in which a permanent marauder gang occupies their territory and micromanages the most intimate aspects of their everyday lives.

As for (2), I don’t really think it’s the case that feuds and civil wars between competing armed factions, such as those now common in central Africa or those that were common a few decades ago in southern Africa, are really a basic part of how trained fighters will always behave. Surely in those specific cases it has much more to do with the ideological and material allure of a particular prize (state power, or, failing that, local warlordism, with heavy, pervasive, and constant intervention by neighboring states, former colonial powers, world superpowers, and the bureaucratic “foreign aid” kleptocracy) which the victor in the civil war will ultimately be able to claim. But if it’s the prize that’s driving the fighting, then a political condition of anarchy, and a widespread cultural and institutional shift towards anarchistic principles and the industrial mode, which would tend to undermine or eradicate completely, makes it correspondingly less of a worry.

Jason,

Thanks for the link and the reply.

I recognize that there are minarchists more radical or principled than Dale Franks, who would have refused to collaborate in a drug conviction. I have other problems with their position (after all, I’m not a minarchist), but not the problem that I have with Dale Franks. I didn’t mean to imply that every minarchist would have done what he did.

However, I do think that it’s fair for me to suggest that being a minarchist makes one systematically more likely to indulge in that kind of legalistic error than one might otherwise be. Being an anarchist has built-in intellectual safeguards against it, whereas being a minarchist doesn’t. (That’s not intended as an argument for anarchism over minarchism per se; rather it’s why I think that this case and others like it go to support my prior argument that people who have already been convinced of anarchism for other reasons should be cautious about how closely they work with smaller-government campaigns or institutions.)

As far as drug trial juries go, I would happily lie about my political views in order to get on the jury, and then, if I got on it, do everything in my power to obstruct or prevent a conviction. I think that the prosecutor in a drug case has no more moral entitlement to get the truth from me than the Gestapo would if they stopped by to ask whether I’m hiding any Jews in my attic. And while the pay scale for sitting as a juror would be shitty compared to what I could be making for my time in other pursuits, I’d be happy to give up the profits in order to help an innocent person go free.