[lbo-talk] Anger at suicide of US internet activist

[Wojtek S]

C'mon, you know better than that.  Nobody is suggesting legalizing
common crime.  The point is to protest bad laws, or as you argued
elsewhere, bad application of the law, by intentionally breaking some
of the laws or rules of conduct.  That is a time honored strategy of
social protest, and I may add, the essence of the Nuremberg
principles.  Trespassing or blocking the traffic is breaking the law,
yet I doubt that anyone on this list - including yourself - would
object to it if it were carried as a part of a protest action.
Intentionally screwing up the judicial process to protest some kind of
injustice is the same kind of action that involves obstructing
"business as usual" in order to protest some kind of injustice.
Except perhaps more effective, if applied in a right way, than
thousands of people marching in the streets.

Now, we can argue whether corporate property laws are unjust.  I
believe they are inasmuch as they (i) shield wealthy individuals from
any responsibility for their responsibility, (ii) are a form of social
control of the majority by a minority, and (iii) undermine democratic
governance by giving de facto power to oligarchs.  You may disagree
with that judgment and use that as a premise of the argument that any
protest against such laws - both the street and courtroom varieties -
is not justified, but this is an altogether different argument than
saying that jury nullification as a form of protest amounts to
legalization of common crime.

FYI, I am in principle opposed to the jury nullification idea, as it
amounts to subversion of the rule of law.  There is no room for it in
a country where laws are passed through an unobstructed democratic
process.  Unfortunately, the US is not such a country.  In the US,
many laws are passed by oligarchs with the window dressing of a
democratic process.  For that reason, subversion of the rule of law in
the US may not be such a bad idea, if it is used to protest laws that
favor oligarchs.

-- 
Wojtek

"An anarchist is a neoliberal without money."