It’s time for The Thursday Thumb-Twiddler:
1. You receive notification of jury duty. Do you go willingly, or do you try and find some way to beg off (or get yourself disqualified)? What if you were told that the case you were being impaneled for might go on for months?
Okay, so I picked this one on purpose, in reaction to the incessant searches here for “how to get out of jury duty.”
Note the last word of that phrase. “Duty.” The concept of “duty” has fallen on hard times in our present-day society, since it implies having to do something that you don’t really want to, or being coerced by cruel parents, evil governments, or oppressive social systems into great self-sacrifice, drudgery, unhappiness, or (gads) inconvenience.
You see where I’m going here …
Most people consider themselves more intelligent than average, wiser than average, smarter than average, of better judgment than average.
Why would you rob the criminal justice system of that talent?
If it were you sitting there in the dock, or you sitting there as the crime victim, or surviving relative thereof, wouldn’t you want the smartest, wisest, most discerning-of–bullshit people in the jury box? Damn straight.
Colorado has what I would want to see as a national minimum standard: one day/one trial. When you get called, (assuming, when you call the county number the night before that you actually are told you have to go in), you are in the pool for only one day or, if selected, for the duration of that case. Colorado state law also requires that employers pay up to three days of regular wages.
It’s not enough, of course. Frankly, either employers or the taxpayers should pay normal wages for however long it takes. This is crime and punishment we’re talking here. Innocent people possibly about to be locked up in slammer. Guilty beasts possibly about to be let back out on the streets. Not a lot is more important than that, folks.
“But it’s inconvenient!” Tell it to the unjustly accused defendent, or the crime victim.
“But my business will fall apart!” Then you’re doing something wrong with your business. That’s your concern, not society’s.
It always used to disgust me, a decade or two ago, when my employer, which wrapped itself up in patriotic colors and concern over society’s ills, which was run by a “compassionate conservative” contributor to various causes and associate of various high government officials, had a well-known but unwritten policy of “If you get a jury summons, HR will write an excuse letter for you, claiming it will be a hardship because we won’t pay you.”
Bastards.
If your local laws are less generous, I strongly urge you to write your state reps. If they’re conservative, play up the law-and-order aspects. If they’re liberal, play up the hardship angle.
But in the meantime, just do it. Just do it. If it’s inconvenient, or troublesome, or you just plain have to take a vacation day or two — just do it.
Because what’s the alternative? Leave the jury system to the unemployed, the retired, the idle? Just trust that “somebody else” will do it?
Now, if it’s going to be a few months … well, I can understand reluctance. There are very, very few people for whom that wouldn’t be a real hardship. But if it’s at all possible, it should be done.
Because, at the risk of making people run for the hills — it’s a duty. Suck it up and do it.
UPDATE (a few minutes later): If you need to get out of jury duty, plead the truth. If you’re going to lie about it, then make sure it’s for a damned solid reason. People who intentionally and falsely disqualify themselves just to avoid the inconvenience are assholes, in my opinion. And one of these days I may have the balls to tell them that to their face.
2. Would you be willing to give up sex for one year if you knew it would give you a much deeper sense of peace than you have now?
Define “sex.” (Yes, I realize I wrote the question.) I have gone for (over) a year without sex, by some, even many definitions.
But that was a different time, and I now have the convenient excuse of having (if I can use the word) certain duties. Even if I knew to a certainty that remaining celebate for a year would give me peace, happiness, moral clarity and a big raise, that’s not a decision that I could make on my lonesome. My sexuality is intermingled with someone else’s right now, and she’s got something to say in the matter.
3. What’s the most violent television show you watch? What about the most sexually graphic?
(This question was inspired by the web info in the last few days that violent and graphic shows tend to interfere with folks’ ability to remember commericials — which may actually be a good thing.)
Problem is, I don’t watch much TV regularly enough to be able to point to many shows that I “watch” — and a lot of those, these days, are on Nickelodeon and Disney …
I’d probably say “Farscape” for both, which is pretty sad.