In my county we implemented what we call Peer Courts, which submit real juvenile delinquency cases to local high school jurors. The jurors question the subject and also his or her parents about the offense and the overall situation, retire to deliberate, and then recommend a sentence to a real judge who then imposes it. (Often the judges make some modifications, because frequently these jurors can be pretty tough.) But the beauty of this program is that, if the subject completes the imposed sentence within the next four months, the underlying charges are then dismissed and the subject will have no criminal record (this is what we call a “diversion” program).
When I preside over these sessions I frequently ask the subjects to close their eyes and think of three of young people that they “hang out” with. Then, once they have those three in mind, I ask them if they believe that ten years from now their associates will be successful in their lives. Most often the answer is no. Of course, the underlying message is that the odds are good that if their associates do things like ditching school, smoking marijuana and being disrespectful of their teachers and parents, this will strongly contribute to their lack of success. But, conversely, young people who are serious students, respectful of others and maximize their opportunities will probably be a success. And it is almost certain that the subjects will turn out the same way – one way or the other. So we have the Liberty of choice of our friends, but we will be held accountable for the choices we make. Then I finish this thought by looking the subjects in the eye and saying: “You show me your friends, and I’ll show you your future. You might want to adjust accordingly.” And I am proud to say that, over the years, this approach has been effective. (Try this approach with your children, or grandchildren. I think you will like the results.)
Judge Jim Gray (Ret.)
2012 Libertarian candidate for Vice President,
along with Governor Gary Johnson as the candidate for President
** Here is an additional thought that holds true in our family:
“I work hard so my dog can have a better life.”
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Okay, I agree that this is longer than 2 Paragraphs, but enclosed is an article that I published Friday, January 12, 2018 in the Orange County Register about reforming our nation’s tax and welfare systems, and instituting a Safety Net.
Our nation has been fighting the so-called War on Drugs for decades. And what do we have to show for it? At least $1 trillion spent; we lead the world in the incarceration of our people; a major loss of our civil liberties; all illicit drugs being plentifully available both for us and our children (and we can’t even keep them out of our prisons!); juvenile street gangs not only prospering by selling illicit drugs, but also using their sales as a recruiting tool; large numbers of mentally ill people being jailed for self-medicating to stave off their demons; and the loss of more money from our shores than for any other reason except oil. And now our present Attorney General wants to “double down” on everything that has been shown not to work. The answer to that attempt must be No!
When I was a small child my parents continually drummed into my head: “Jimmy, if you get lost what will you do?” Answer: “I will find a policeman, he’s my friend.” Tragically that probably isn’t taught much anymore. Nevertheless, being a police officer is a noble calling – in fact, the police should be seen as the epitome of public servants. But we should insist that, just as surgery is the last option for a medical doctor, an arrest should be the last option used by the police. Why? Because bringing someone into the criminal justice system is really easy, but getting them out is often truly difficult. And that involvement can leave lasting and often unnecessary damage to a person’s ability to get a job and otherwise lead to further involvement in crime. So we should have an environment in which we trust and partner with the police as they protect and serve us! In that atmosphere, the police will protect both our safety and our freedoms, and thus be pillars for Liberty.
Talk about an emerging and present threat to Liberty? Today the city of Guiyang, China has state of the art artificial intelligence facial recognition cameras in its surveillance system city wide. So with that technology they can, combined with photographs of every person in the city in their database, track the movements of everyone virtually anywhere in their city. And they can store the information in their memory banks for a week! Enclosed is a video of a reporter from the BBC showing us how that system works. As you can see, with the reporter’s photograph in the system, it took only seven minutes for the police to detect and detain him.
I have just finished reading “Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy” by Eric Metaxas. The book is superb. It is about Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was a pastor of the “Church of Luther” during the rise and reign of Hitler’s Nazi Germany. This man of Christ conducted a principled fight against what Hitler and the corrupted Church of Germany were doing, and eventually was imprisoned and executed for his efforts and beliefs. But he was unafraid, because he was doing what knew his God wanted him to do. Regardless of our religious faith or beliefs, how many of us can genuinely say that we are standing up for our principles and Liberty for ourselves and others anywhere near to this degree? This is an inspirational book, and I strongly recommend it to anyone.
News flash: We Think in Words. So if people do not understand the difference between (or among) different words, they do not understand many nuances or even concepts. For example, there are many dialects in the languages of the world that do not make a distinction between the word “stranger” and the word “enemy.” So if some unknown person were to stumble into a small village of people who did not understand that distinction, the stranger would automatically be their enemy. Imagine how much needless violence, or at least how many lost opportunities, has been caused simply by that reality. Over the years, I have found similar problems for people saying they advocate “legalizing” marijuana. I don’t favor that, because if you think of a legalized drug, think aspirin. Your 12 year-old daughter could buy a case of it at any pharmacy if she so chose. No restrictions on advertising, price, licensing or age of the buyer. So the connotation of legalizing a substance is that you don’t care if my children get hooked. But if you were to ask the question, “Would you like to strictly regulate and control for adults marijuana like wine?” the answer is increasingly Yes. It’s all in the nuances of the words, and it is also more accurate.
War is not glorious! And with war, of course, comes coldly arbitrary destruction, deaths and serious injuries which, in turn, exact a lasting cost not only for combatants who sustain both visible and non-visible wounds, but also to many of the people who have been left behind. So war is devoutly to be avoided, if at all possible. Nevertheless, and even with those understandings firmly in mind, there are some values that must constantly be fought for. And foremost among those are our national safety and protecting our national interests, which vitally includes Liberty! But tragically – and realistically – there are and have always been people in power around the world who see a reluctance in others to go to war as a sign of weakness. And almost never can those people be appeased! So sometimes the threat of war, or even war itself, is necessary. But it is the sacred obligation of our national leaders only to pursue war when our core issues are truly involved.
In my view, the most important thing in life is Gratification. Not power, prestige, money or even love. We can get gratification from all of those things. But I define gratification as people inwardly knowing that the world is a better place for their having been here. Of course, Gratification can come from many sources, such as having raised wonderful children, helping to defeat cancer or saving the Whales or the Redwoods. It can also come simply from having been patient, considerate and kind in every facet of your life, including socially, politically and religiously. So when I am on my deathbed looking back over my life, Gratification is what I hope to feel.
It is fundamental in a democracy that the laws must be enforced equally as to all people. But did you know that back in 1995, Congress created a slush fund of our tax money that is used to settle claims against members of Congress for the sexual harassment of others, and then to require the victims to be secret about it? Since that time, more than $17 million has been spent for this purpose! I hope that you agree with me: The answer is No! This cannot be sustained! Not on our watch!
Thomas Jefferson famously said “The natural progress of things is for Liberty to yield and government to gain ground.” And that is what has been happening – for decades – with federal and state governments in too many areas. There are many areas of infringements, but here are a random few. One is civil asset forfeiture, where governments take/forfeit people’s property when their agents “have a reasonable belief” that the property was either used for or gained from illegal activity. And then it is the obligation of the person from whom the property was taken to file a law suit and prove that the property was not so used or gained – which turns our system of justice on its head. Another is to require business licenses before someone can work at such occupations as hair braiding, tree trimming or roofing (and frequently people who have been convicted of felonies are precluded even from applying). And many too many colleges today are putting limits on free speech and open discourse by enforcing so-called “trigger warnings” and free speech zones so their students can be free from being placed in “uncomfortable” circumstances.
Only supervised activities for our children; safely drive them to school; don’t let them go out on Halloween by themselves, etc., etc. As aptly stated in the December 2017 edition of Reason Magazine, “Play is training for adulthood.” And today not only aren’t our children playing much on their own, they’re not doing much of anything on their own. But only when children fall down and skin their knees in some “resilience moments” without parental guidance will they learn from their mistakes. And this is virtually the only way that they can effectively grow into adulthood.
Recently some militants set off a bomb in a crowded mosque in the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt during 
Hi everyone!
Many years ago when I was a federal prosecutor in Los Angeles I found myself waiting at a red light while walking over to the Federal Building Cafeteria for lunch when a judge widely known for his harsh sentencing came up beside me. When I greeted him and asked how his day was going, he surprised me by saying “Jim, Mondays are always hard because they are sentencing days.” Without pausing at all to reflect on who I was or who he was, I responded “In many ways, Your Honor, when it stops being hard you will be in the wrong job.” What followed thereafter was an awkward silence.
During the past year my wife and I have devoted more special time in the evenings to sitting on our front porch, sometimes with a Manhattan or wine, sometimes not, but always with our dog. What have we found? Lots of things and all of them good. Neighbors walk by and we chat, joke and laugh with them. We notice things that had escaped us before because we were too busy: a hummingbird (we call him “Dart”) that always rests on the same twig; and not only sunsets and moon risings, but also the sense of the breeze and the seasons – and we also utilize the casual opportunity to explore each other.
It is truly a rare occurrence for anyone in either the legislative or executive branches of government not to have favorite constituents to whom they give public money and other favors. For example, the City of Anaheim gives great tax advantages to Disneyland, Governor Brown and officials from many other states and cities are offering hundreds of millions of dollars in public incentives to Amazon, and most liberal governments ensure lots of extra tax money goes to public and private union workers. And that is not to mention the numerous “humanitarian” and “environmental” laws that directly feather the nests of some plaintiffs’ attorneys. In other words, we need to elect Libertarians, because all of this Crony Capitalism is totally against their philosophy!
As you may have heard, recently the long-time sports television broadcaster Al Michaels said while doing the play by play in the third quarter of a football game between the New York Giants and Denver Broncos that the Giants were coming off a worse week than Harvey Weinstein, which was an obvious reference to the disgraced movie mogul. But the response on social media was so immediate and harsh that Michaels was forced to apologize by the fourth quarter. Of course, everyone certainly agrees that a comparison between the allegations against Weinstein, which are serious, and a football game is quite different. And, of course, there are some things that can never be funny, like death camps, slavery or the recent Las Vegas massacre. But come on, we simply must not as a country lose our sense of humor. All of this sensitivity is simply driving us further apart from each other, and most often unnecessarily so. Furthermore, all psychiatrists will tell us that it is mentally helpful for human beings to laugh at themselves, and that must be true for countries as well.
How many of these sick people who wantonly and arbitrarily kill crowds of people with bombs, guns or their cars are acting as copycats of prior similarly demented acts by other people? Of course, we may never know. But every time these demented folks have killed people in places like Aurora, San Bernardino, Charlottesville and Las Vegas the media have prominently published their names and even their pictures. Don’t you think that this has an effect? The media can call them losers, shooters, terrorists or the social dropouts that they are, and even publish information about them such as their backgrounds and affiliations. But don’t EVER publish their names or pictures! Don’t glamorize them so that later copycats can have their turn having fame as well!
Should we regulate and control gambling, or should we continue with most of it being illegal? Today the federal Professional Amateur Sports Protection Act prohibits any states – except Nevada – from regulating or controlling gambling. Maybe the federal law was passed with good intentions, because the government was logically concerned by the prospect of athletic competitors being bribed to “throw” their matches. But the law of unintended consequences once again prevails because not only has this law ushered in an enormous Black Market, it actually has made it more difficult to detect and prosecute corruption. How so? Because illegal betting makes it much more difficult to detect betting patterns, which increases the ability to fix athletic contests. And now eSports gambling is upon us, where people bet on online video game competitions, and already one player has been found to have made large amounts of money by betting against himself and then throwing his match. As of now it is estimated that this business garners about $700 million in profits, which is predicted to explode to $1.5 billion by 2020. The facts are that people have always gambled – always have and always will! So the only practical question is: shall gambling be controlled under the law, or by people outside of the law?
Recently, I received the following information from a recipient of these weekly 2 Paragraphs. She had, in turn, received the information from 
As I said in the first sentence of the introduction of my book on judging*, “the best decision I ever made in my life was choosing my parents.” And, of course, I have been the beneficiary of that so-called choice ever since. Obviously, I could have been born to a single mother with AIDS in Nigeria. But I believe that my good fortune has given me the moral obligation to help those people who did not “choose” quite so well. So all of this gets me around to one of my favorite reminders, which is “Who says life is fair?” My children were raised on that saying (just ask them!). Socrates was forced to drink hemlock. Tchaikovsky was forced to commit suicide when it was discovered publicly that he was gay. Many more innocent men, women and children are also randomly killed and otherwise harmed by terrorists, hurricanes, earthquakes or diseases. Sometimes a baseball player hits a sharp line drive that is caught for an out, and other times he duffs one that falls for a double. No, life simply is not always fair.
The whole issue of the minimum wage brings in a conundrum: we see people working for wages that would not provide enough revenue to pay for an apartment, and think it wrong. But we also see that the more laws we pass to rectify that situation, the deeper the problems become. So what’s to be done? The answer is to listen to Dr. Milton Friedman, who said that we should judge programs by their results instead of their intentions. In that regard, the fact is that when the government mandates that workers’ wages be increased, it obviously makes that labor more expensive. And the result of that is for many employers to lay off some employees and replace them by automation (think self check-out machines at stores like Home Depot and self-ordering kiosks at fast food stores like McDonald’s). For example, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that nationally increasing the minimum wages even to the level of $10.10 per hour would cause 500,000 workers to lose their jobs. And for the employees that remain, employers will also try to reduce their number of hours of work – particularly for overtime. As a result, minimum wage laws actually result in victories for robots and defeats for most employees. (Sorry, the callous fact is that in today’s world some workers are simply not worth $10.10 per hour.) And these are only just some of the problems that result. Thus, almost literally, the only good thing that results from minimum wage laws is that legislators get to feel better about themselves.
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