America on Trial Inside Battles That Transformed Our Nation

America on Trial inside Battles that Transformed Our Nation

By: Alan M. Dershowitz

The book starts out by discussing how courtroom trial has fascinated human being from the beginning of recorded history. A trial can provide great insight into the passion, conflicts, and attitudes of a particular time period, despite sometimes because of its narrower focus. America on Trial book is an episodic history of our nation viewed through the prism of our most dramatic and influential public court proceedings. In some cases the verdicts of certain trials have outcomes that can change history in and of itself. Since the players of a court case all have different personalities, biases, predispositions, and ambitions. A Court case represents the human condition of a specific time period. Each of the cases Dershowitz examines represents important eras in the history of United States. The cases tell us something about the struggles and strong feelings of that time period. The court cases or trials tell a lot about our nation and about us as members of society.

The first part of the book takes up back to the colonial era of America. The first trial(s) that was discussed in the book was “The Salem Witchcraft Trials.” In 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts approximately twenty-five, although several hundred men and women were arrested and imprisoned on charges of witchcraft between 1648-1706. The sentence of the twenty-five thirteen women and six men were hung and one man was put to death by heavy stones; four other imprisoned. Dershowitz argues how our own Supreme Court and lower courts would react if hysteria comparable to the witch trials were to occur today. Also, could not help wondering whether the presence of a vigorous defense bar would not have made, and would not now make, a difference in the processes and outcomes of the case. Dershowitz states the real reason why the Rehnquists, Scalias, and Thomases of today’s judiciary would not intercede is that they are in the practice or doctrine of giving a centralized government control over economic planning and policy rather than true conservatives. Conservatives believe in limited government power over individuals; statists believe in virtually unlimited governmental power and limited individual rights except in some instances when it comes to property rights or the right to bear arms. In general Dershowitz believes that several of our current justices and judges would become part of the problem, going out of their way to give an imprimatur to the evil at hand, as former chief justice Burger did in the homosexuality case and as numerous judges did during the McCarthy period. Nor is this an issue that falls neatly on any right-left continuum. In today’s world left-wing zealots on the bench of which there are, thankfully very few also pose a danger of using the imprimatur of the law to exorcise their devils.

I would have to agree with Dershowitz in stating that many judges are statists. This philosophy statist got me to think and explore this more into what exactly is a statist. A statist according to Simple Liberty Organization is a collection of people who, with respect to a given arbitrary geographical territory, by fiat claim a power to:

1. Enact authoritarian laws, even when those laws are contrary to ordinary customs.

2. Ultimately resolve all disputes and conflicts within that territory, and do so with impunity.

3. Forcibly expropriate revenues under the color of law to finance operations.

4. Use force and coercion and the threat of violence to maintain their alleged jurisdiction.

Statists are people who proclaim their own fiat authoritative law as the supreme law of the land. Statists obtain their sustenance (revenues) through force and coercion rather than voluntary exchange of goods and services. Statists survive by demanding payment through the threat of incarceration, loss of property, or even loss of life. Statists are a collection of people who use the political means to obtain that which they have no lawful property title. Although many people who serve in “the state” mean well, they are nonetheless participating in theft because their sustenance depends upon the involuntary expropriation of property. Because statists use force and coercion to obtain property title to property not lawfully owned, and do not participate in the voluntary exchange of goods and services, by definition these people steal.

If we live in a county that is ran by statist judges, legislators, and other members of political power it demises the whole principal of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness which the United States Constitution has given us. So how can we keep liberty