I’ve been thinking about personal power lately. It started with this website about a 2,000 year-old redwood called Spooner that may be cut down by logging in interests. Activists are sitting in the tree to prevent its destruction. A legal battle ensues, of course. My question is, who are they getting to actually do the cutting?

I’m the last one to argue against private property rights and the like, but certain acts just strike me as being fundamentally wrong. Cutting down an ancient Redwood tree is one of them. Legal issues aside, I’m not sure that many people would volunteer to do the cutting. Likewise, this story about a Navy sailor whose wife may be deported while he’s deployed. Or this story about the Pedro Zapeta, an illegal immigrant whose life savings was seized as he tried to leave the US for good. Again, I am not arguing the legality of any of this, who would like to be the one to deport the sailor’s wife or steal Mr. Zapeta’s money? Not me.

In all of these cases the blame is cast off on the law or the system. Still, someone makes the final call. Someone physically fires up the chainsaw to fell a 2,000 year-old redwood. Is it you?

I do enough grouching on this blog, so today I would like to present a step in a positive direction on this issue of personal power. Every US citizen has one very special power that can make major changes: their vote, but not the one you might be thinking of.

Trial by jury is an indispensable part of our (relatively) free society. The juror is more powerful than an legislator because it is up to the juror to enforce the law. Jury nullification is the process by which a jury may find a law or its application unjust by refusing to convict. For example:

In the mid 1800s, juries in Northern states practiced nullification in prosecutions brought against individuals accused of harboring slaves in violation of the Fugitive Slave Act. Later, during prohibition in the 1930s, many juries acquitted individuals accused of violating alcohol control laws. In the high profile case of Dr. Jack Kevorkian, the jury acquitted Dr. Kevorkian despite the uncontroverted evidence that Kevorkian had violated Michigan law by helping the deceased commit suicide.

But:

Jury nullification has its dangers as well. For example, in the 1950s and 1960s some all-white southern juries refused to convict white supremacists for killing black individuals or civil rights workers despite evidence of the defendants’ guilt.

As you can see, serving as a juror is a real test of your personal power. You are free to cast your vote based on your convictions, whatever they may be based on.

In many part of the country, notably San Francisco, most people have fairly permissive attitudes towards marijuana use. If every jury refused to convict on marijuana charges, the law would be useless and effectively nullified. The police would still be able to arrest and harass people based on the law, but once it was clear that conviction was impossible, they would likely lose interest. This principle can be applied to any case that is brought to trial.

Everything you do has some effect on the world around you. Whether you wield a chainsaw or a juror badge, you have the power to make your convictions manifest. Though it might not be easy to defy the judge’s instructions to “consider only the facts” or your boss’s instructions to deport the wife of a sailor serving our country, you have the power to make the choice to participate or not. You might think, even if I don’t do it, someone else will. That may be true. You cannot control others, but you can control yourself.

For more information on jury nullification:

Fully Informed Jury Association

The Great Oracle of Wiki

Even Fox News will tell you!

Today someone found our blog by typing in “Why would I want to live?” into Google. We just want to let you know that we care about you and you can come hang out with us anytime.

Love (Liebe, Siyvarulit, Amor)

Emily and Laura

I’m temping today. Temping is fun because I get to observe the office activities, while remaining detached. This morning a drama was unfolding. I think we can learn something from it.

One of the upper managers bursts into the office this morning, in a very bad mood. He starts ranting to his co-workers about an incident at the gym this morning. Apparently, he took up a little more than one parking space, crowding into another space. He was sleepy when he parked so it was not his fault, he says. When he came out of the gym, there was a note left on his car; its author threatened to damage the car if it ever took up more than one space again. The manager was furious, “How dare he! Everyone makes mistakes!” He had a plan though. The note was written on the back of an invoice for a fancy car dealership here in San Francisco. Although the author was careful to remove his name and address, he left the bar-code. The office manager knows someone who works at this particular dealership. He spent the morning plotting to find the identity of the person who wrote the note so he could contact them and tell them he knows who they are.

As we can see, pettiness begets pettiness, stooping ever lower. Someone allowed a poorly parked car to ruin their day. In retaliation, they attempted to ruin the day of the car’s owner. The car’s owner not only allowed his day to be ruined, but plotted further retaliation. I can only imagine that this nonsense will continue to spiral to ever more ridiculous depths.

Last night Laura and I watched Earth, a film about the 1947 partition of India and Pakistan. Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs were locked in a cycle of revenge that led to former friends and neighbors killing each other. While this morning’s antics were mostly just silly, revenge can have disastrous consequences when it escalates.

Haven’t we all felt like this? We are feeling bad so we want others to feel bad as well, preferably whomever we decide is the source of our bad feelings.

How might this situation been handled differently? The note’s author could have shrugged off the bad parking job and been on his way. The manager could have laughed off the note instead of letting it make him as angry as whoever wrote it. The friend at the dealership could refuse to participate in the manager’s childish vendetta.

If we can’t let tiny things like these go in our personal lives, why do we expect our leaders to behave any differently? We are quick to criticize politicians’ petty feuds and military retaliation, but too often we display the same behavior ourselves. No one can make you angry, you choose to become angry. Once angry, you can choose to lash out at the world and try to spread your negativity. How can we expect anyone, including the government, not to engage in vengeful actions if we do ourselves?

Just wanted to give a “Thanks” and Shout-Out to fellow blogger Lastrik Eiram for referencing us on her post about serotonin deficiency syndrome.

Anxious, agitated depression occurs when a person’s dopamine/ noradrenaline activating arousal circuits (Yang) are functioning strongly, without the calming, relaxing, mellowing serotonin circuits (Yin) functioning strongly as a complementary counterbalance.

Spinoza is acknowledged in all philosophical traditions as a great thinker, yet his work is seldom studied. Here is a paradox that, like his doctrines, is explicable on several levels, each giving rise to further paradoxes. Small wonder that those who think the beautiful theory is the simple one shun him. –Philosopher’s Magazine

Martial Development Blog had a fascinating comparison of Spinoza and Lao Tzu. Spinoza was a western philosopher living from 1632-1677 and noted as a rationalist and ethicist. He also wrote on the unity of the human mind and body, science and spirituality, God and Nature. Lao Tzu, an ancient Chinese philosopher who lived sometime between 4-6 centuries BC, is considered one of the founders of Taoism and credited with writing the Tao Te Ching. As Lao is one of Emily’s favorite guys ever and Nietzsche quotes Spinoza up the wazoo (and we love Nietzsche here at CtU)…we thought we’d reproduce part of Martial Development’s thoughts on the matter.

Lao Tzu, Baruch Spinoza examined the topics of wisdom and virtue together. There are many fascinating parallels between Lao Tzu’s Taoism and Spinoza’s Monism.

For example:

Spinoza	Tao Te Ching (John Woo translation)
As for the terms good and bad, they indicate no positive quality in things regarded in themselves, but are merely modes of thinking, or notions which we form from the comparison of things with one another. Thus one and the same thing can be at the same time good, bad, and indifferent. For instance music is good to the melancholy, bad to those who mourn, and neither good nor bad to the deaf.	When all the world recognizes beauty as beauty, this in itself is ugliness. When all the world recognizes good as good, this in itself is evil. Indeed, the hidden and the manifest give birth to each other. Difficult and easy complement each other. Long and short exhibit each other.
He who would distinguish the true from the false must have an adequate idea of what is true and false.	To do the killing for the Great Executor is to chop wood for a master carpenter, and you would be lucky indeed if you did not hurt your own hand!
God and all attributes of God are eternal…Whatsoever is, is in God, and without God nothing can be, or be conceived.	The Great Tao is universal like a flood. How can it be turned to the right or to the left? All creatures depend on it, and it denies nothing to anyone. It does its work, but makes no claims for itself.
It therefore comes to pass that everyone is fond of relating his own exploits and displaying the strength both of his body and his mind, and that men are on this account a nuisance one to the other.	He who is brave in daring will be killed; he who is brave in not daring will survive. Of these two kinds of bravery, one is beneficial, while the other proves harmful.
The highest endeavor of the mind, and the highest virtue, is to understand things by intuition.	How do I know about the world? By what is within me.
If the road I have shown to lead to this is very difficult, it can yet be discovered. And clearly it must be very hard when it is so seldom found. For how could it be that it is neglected practically by all, if salvation were close at hand and could be found without difficulty? But all excellent things are as difficult as they are rare.	If only I had the tiniest grain of wisdom, I should walk in the Great Way, and my only fear would be to stray from it. The Great Way is very smooth and straight; and yet the people prefer devious paths.