His Mistake Was In Pleading Guilty

Here is what he allegedly gained from his admission of guilt. The judge arbitrarily decided to reduce his sentence from 30 months to 20 months “because you pleaded guilty to this serious crime.”

Three Facebook posts criticizing UK policy is now viewed as a serious crime in a country where voter awareness of the consequences of government policy is extremely important at upcoming elections.

One should never plead guilty to a law that makes criticism of government policies a crime.

One pleads not guilty on the grounds that any law silencing dissent is a violation of basic human rights and thereby illegitimate.

Going further, it also makes a mockery of this court that rules over subjects allegedly free to choose their representatives in government. One cannot make such choices freely when one is not free to discuss the consequences of current law.

I must admit to being inspired for this line of thinking by my vague recollection of Hank Reardon’s commentary to the kangaroo court in Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. It would take courage to mount such a counter-attack. It might be nigh impossible to find an attorney who has the balls to plea like this before any court.

But that is the terrible cross-roads we have laxly permitted our formerly liberal Western world to regress back to.

(Cross posted at Crusader Rabbit 2 days ago because it took me this long to figure out how to embed tweets in our version of Word Press.)