2 PARAGRAPHS 4 LIBERTY: #245 "INDEPENDENCE OF THE JUDICIARY"

     My great friend Judge Andy Guilford recently called my attention to an insight that I will pass along to you: the Judiciary is probably the most important of our three branches of government.  Why?  Because the Executive is dependent upon the majority to stay in office, and so is the Legislature.  So it is only the Judiciary that truly upholds and enforces minority rights.  And that is what makes America what it is.  In other words, the very soul of our great country is our freedoms and our liberties.  And that soul is continually under attack, if only in the name of “keeping us safe.”  Wiretapping, surveillance cameras, unnecessary pre-trial confinement, license plate and facial recognition cameras, reduced rights under our search and seizure laws cloaked under the guise of the so-called War on Drugs, and on and on.  And it is really only the Judicial Branch of Government that stands in the way of even more erosion of our precious liberties.  I have said it many times in these columns, and it bears repeating: the Delegates at our Constitutional Convention in 1787 fought, debated and bickered over numbers of things, but literally each delegate agreed that the most important function of government is to protect our Liberties from the encroachment of government.  (The second most important was our security.)

      So what can we do to protect our Judicial Branch of Government?  Primarily we must protect its independence!  In the past few years we as a society have allowed our judiciary to become more politicized, even to the extent that several states have allowed judicial candidates to be endorsed by political parties.  In addition, many judicial branches, including California, have been intentionally underfunded by the legislatures in response to judicial decisions that the legislatures did not agree with.  These are dangerous precedents, because all of us are in the minority in some regards and, “There but for the Grace of God,” each of us could in fact be overly or even wrongly prosecuted by the government for just about anything.  We simply must have an independent judicial system to protect us from all of these potential abuses.  So everyone please be aware of this continuing threat, and lend a hand to protect us all against it.  We simply must keep our Judicial branch of government independent!

Story for the week: A Doctor gave a man six months to live.  But the man couldn’t pay his bills, so the Doctor gave him another six months.

Please listen to our weekly radio show entitled “All Rise! The Libertarian Way with Judge Jim Gray” as we discuss timely issues, and show how they will be addressed more beneficially by employing Libertarian values and approaches.  You can hear it every Friday morning at 7 Pacific/10 Eastern by going to www.VoiceAmerica.com, clicking on the Variety Channel and then upon the word “live.”  You can also hear past shows on demand as well.  And, by the way, these 2 Paragraph columns are now on my website at www.JudgeJImGray.com, Facebook and LinkedIn at judgejimgray, Twitter at judgejamesgray, and wordpress at judgejimgray.wordpress.com.  Please visit these sites for past editions, and do your part to spread the word about the importance of Liberty.  In addition, my new book entitled “2 Paragraphs 4 Liberty: Solutions that are Practical, Effective, Responsible, Libertarian, is now available at Amazon.com.   Please read and discuss it with friends, and send in a review.

2 PARAGRAPHS 4 LIBERTY: #243 "LET'S LEARN TO EMBRACE EACH OTHER"

      My great friend Dean Tom Campbell recently published in the Orange County Register the following quote that I pass along to you: “Most offenses taken are not intended.”  This hit me hard because I have always somehow inferred this, but had never seen it put into words.  And what a thought that will help us to live our lives more fully.  Then the next day, Christmas, the Register also published the following in an editorial: “The truly valuable things of this life are not found in power and riches but in our relationships – in our capacity to cherish our families, love our neighbors, stretch out a helping hand to those less fortunate and seek reconciliation with those who would be our enemies.” 

     Following up on both of those quotes, with the fall of the former Soviet Union, it was fully documented that the great composer Peter Tchaikovsky actually committed suicide at the age of 53 to avoid publicizing that he was gay.  And this act wasn’t done to protect his good name, it was instead to protect the “good name” of his former university.  Can you simply imagine how deprived the world has been by not embracing him even for his perceived frailties (that all of us share in some form)?  Look at what society lost not only in unnecessarily shortening his life, but also in the additional brilliant compositions that he would have created for us!  Pope Francis preached this past Christmas Day that “God does not love you because you think and act the right way.  You may have mistaken ideas, you may have made a complete mess of things, but the Lord continues to love you.”  Just like with the commonalities of the world’s religions and philosophies that are highlighted at www.Pro-JectUnderstanding.com, we human beings have so much in common that we should embrace each other more.  So as we are now beginning a New Year, let us all strive to exercise our Liberty and learn both not to take offense so quickly at things that other people say and do, but also to embrace each other more fully.  That is – or should be – what life is about.  Happy New Year!

Judge Jim Gray (Ret.)

2012 Libertarian candidate for Vice President, along with

Governor Gary Johnson as the candidate for President

Please listen to our weekly radio show entitled “All Rise! The Libertarian Way with Judge Jim Gray” as we discuss timely issues, and show how they will be addressed more beneficially by employing Libertarian values and approaches.  You can hear it every Friday morning at 7 Pacific/10 Eastern by going to www.VoiceAmerica.com, clicking on the Variety Channel and then upon the word “live.”  You can also hear past shows on demand as well.  And, by the way, these 2 Paragraph columns are now on my website at www.JudgeJImGray.com, Facebook and LinkedIn at judgejimgray, Twitter at judgejamesgray, and wordpress at judgejimgray.wordpress.com  Please visit these sites for past editions, and do your part to spread the word about the importance of Liberty.  In addition, my new book entitled “2 Paragraphs 4 Liberty: Solutions that are Practical, Effective, Responsible, Libertarian, is now available at Amazon.com.   Please read and discuss it with friends, and send in a review.

Book Alert: 2 Paragraphs 4 Liberty: Solutions that are Practical, Effective, Responsible, Libertarian

As you know, I have been sending out our 2 Paragraphs series each week for more than the past three years.  I have mostly done this to contrast how governments address various problems, as opposed to how private individuals and the Free Market address them, and what results we have seen in each case.

So now, in furtherance of that effort, I have compiled about 180 of the present 220 editions into a book entitled “2 Paragraphs 4 Liberty: Solutions that are Practical, Effective, Responsible, Libertarian.”  This book is now carried as a Kindle on Amazon.  So the favor is for each of you to spend/invest 99 cents and purchase the Kindle version of the book.  Then, please at least review the book and send in a review to Amazon, and pass along this request to your friends and social network as well and ask them to do the same.  The plan is that if the book receives enough either 4 or 5-star reviews within the next two to three weeks that it will forever be known as an “Amazon Best Seller.”  So when the printed version is published around the end of November, it will carry that label.  And this will strongly promote these discussions!

You can find out more information about the book at this site: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07YQCMLNP?pf_rd_p=183f5289-9dc0-416f-942e-e8f213ef368b&pf_rd_r=MB2KK1C071TFH8R95BHW.  Or, you can click HERE to order my book directly. 

I know that most of you are already familiar with the book’s contents.  But before you send in a review, please at least scroll through at least half of the book, because Amazon can tell if you have gone through it at least that far. And if you haven’t, Amazon will not consider your review.

Thanks Big Time, and let’s promote Liberty together!

Judge Jim Gray (Ret.)