When I did jury service….
12 Aug
When I did jury service about twenty years ago, it basically taught me to distrust lawyers and the justice system. It appeared to be quite literally that it was not much more than each lawyer telling a convincing story, obliging you to then believe one story over another. And then on top of that, it then relies on twelve people more or less reaching an agreement as to which story to believe.
I had gone into it fairly sure that I would not want to be instrumental in sending anyone to prison. However, of the two cases that I presided over, with the one, I was not only certain of the defendant’s guilt, but also that he should face some form of punishment. In this case, a nightclub bouncer had put on a leather glove and then punched a drunken student in the face. This was captured on CCTV, so there was little doubt about it.
But for some reason which I was not that clear about, none of the other people on the jury wanted to convict this man. And they did not even want to discuss it, preferring to end the session as quickly as possible so that they could finish early for the day, and so a not guilty verdict was returned.
When it comes to choosing a political party, to some extent you are again encouraged to believe one over the other, whether it is something in their manifesto, or whether it is the party that traditionally represents the values that you hold yourself.
Nonetheless, politicians are of course quite notorious for not telling the truth, and I think it’s because of this that I now distrust pretty much all politicians from all of the major parties.
I am convinced that when it comes to the Coronavirus, that we have not been told the truth with regard to a number of factors. In addition to this, it strikes me that there is very little to choose from with regard to the way in which politicians have presented facts to us and the rules/guidelines that they have encouraged us to follow.
Whether pubs open on one particular day, or a few weeks later, whether or not we should wear masks etc. etc. politicians from all sides of the political spectrum have basically all just given slightly varying opinions about the same subjects.
Not one politician has been prepared to put his or her neck on the line and say, for example that they believe the figures presented are distorted. This is in spite of the fact that in many subtle or not so subtle ways, we have basically been told this on the news. Around two months into the lockdown, it was stated specifically that the way in which figures was calculated was to change. It was stated that henceforth only people who had tested positive would be included in figures. This surely meant that for the previous couple of months, a significant number of people who had not been tested were included in the figures – and yet the figure was not adjusted to take this into consideration.
More recently, we have been told that the figures could also include people who had tested positive, recovered, and then died from an entirely different, and unrelated cause – someone who had tested positive and then been hit by a bus could be included. I have not seen a single politician speak about these sorts of issues (only today, as I write, has been the announcement that the figure is going to be adjusted so that over 5000 deaths will not be included in the total figure – I still believe the figure is distorted, and surely even an announcement about such a major adjustment gives cause for suspicion in itself?).
A lot of people on facebook seem to think that views I’ve expressed point to me being right wing. This could not be further from the truth. My political allegiance has always been left wing. If I haven’t voted for Labour, I’ve always looked for the most left wing candidate on the ballot paper, particularly after studying Philosophy at A Level and at University and being impressed by the writing of Karl Marx. I was quite fascinated by Marx’s idea of the inevitability of revolution. I used to imagine watching my favourite bands playing as Buckingham Palace burned, and certainly at the peak of the time of The Stone Roses, it almost seemed possible.
I do not think it is a right wing position to cast doubt on what we are being told by news media and by politicians on either side. I have actually been quite taken aback to see so many people who I know to be on the political left happy to go along with everything the government and the news media says.
Other than the fact that I did not believe the portrayal of the way the Coronavirus was apparently sweeping across the globe in the manner depicted on TV, there were other things that made me initially sceptical. I read about the Bill Gates-funded Event 201, which took place last November. This was a conference which apparently predicted a Coronavirus and discussed what would happen in the event of it occurring, and how it would be portrayed in the media, etc. If you mention this to people, they will normally immediately say the words “conspiracy theory”. But personally, I do think it is something at least worth giving consideration to, but of course, not a mention of it on TV or by politicians.
I know that there are some people who have more elaborate theories, such as for instance that Coronavirus is caused by 5G, or that we are in the process of a new world order being established. I do not go along with either of these theories, in the latter case, I do not believe governments are as sophisticated as anything like that would require.
But nonetheless, it may well be the case that certain people in authority know the truth about certain things, which we do not. I would be very much in favour of a political party that for once advocated exposing the truth about so many things over which there is uncertainty. It would be nice to have definitive answers to things, and to be able to put faith in a party who laid things bare, for once. Of course, there may be some things that we cannot know, but to be closer to truth and knowledge would be an interesting thing.
Here are a few things that a party that represented exposing truth and knowledge might expose:
- Did dinosaurs walk the Earth?
- Did Jesus walk the Earth?
- Have we set foot on the Moon?
- Do aliens exist, and if so, have we been into contact with them?
- What exactly happened on 9/11 and why did the third tower collapse?
- What exactly is the truth about the Coronavirus?
Of the questions above, there might be certain things that many people might say we do already know. We do already know that man has walked on the Moon because of what we’ve been told etc. However, the fact that there is doubt basically indicates to me that at present we are not able to trust those in authority. I think it would be very interesting if definitive truth could be achieved due to a party that so overwhelmingly represented the truth that there really could be no doubt.
The thing that got me thinking about this – about my experience as a jury member, and then my interest in the truth about things – was watching the TV drama, “Quiz” which documents the “coughing Major” incident, including showing what happened in the court case which followed, etc. Both sides of the case are presented, and it does leave you uncertain. Obviously, in a court case like this, where lying is potentially in one person’s favour in order to escape conviction, perhaps it will be difficult to know the truth because of a vested interest.
When it comes to the Coronavirus, I have struggled to see how it is in anyone’s interest – be it politicians or businessmen or people in power – to lie about it. And yet nonetheless, throughout it has looked distinctly fishy to me.
There are so many things that have happened where people are able to say clearly that we’ve been lied to in order for certain people to benefit. People said of the Iraq war that it was instigated to assist the oil industry. People might say that the production of electric cars was hindered for a while because the oil industry might oppose it. People might say America will not change its gun laws because there are too many gun lobbyists opposed to it. People might say that, if politicians did know of contact with an alien race, that they could not speak about it because it would cause fear.
There are so many reasons why perhaps it is difficult for politicians to speak the truth about matters. And so what ends up happening is just constant political point scoring, with essentially similar policies touted by politicians on both sides, with just a few tweaks that make them look just slightly different. They are nearly all power-hungry, it seems, and in order to maintain or to aspire to power, certain things are kept from the public.
And so a time when you have a “truthful” political party may never come about. If there was any interpretation of the current situation, it might be that, as a friend has suggested to me, we are engaged in a new form of cold war – it certainly seems that anything that derives from China – whether it is 5G, Huawei, or TikTok – America is opposed to, and of course, the Coronavirus is supposed to have begun in China.
One thing governments always seem to have been keen to do is clamp down on people having fun. From the rave scene in the 1990s, which brought about the Criminal Justice Act, to the eclipse of August 1999. You may recall that the media was strongly discouraging people from travelling to the south coast to witness the eclipse, and as a result several highly reputable festival organisers went out of business because people stayed away and the festivals had to either be cancelled or went ahead and organisers lost a lot of money. Even for the eve of the Millennium, there were scare stories about the Millennium bug of course, perhaps to discourage people from partying.
I must admit, I had actually been looking forward to 2020 simply because it’s a really cool sounding year – it might seem absurd that governments might want to try and discourage people from having fun for an entire year, but it certainly is the case that due to government intervention, many people are going to lose their jobs this year.
One thing I can tell you, is that I of course do not know the truth. But that does not stop me from being suspicious about being lied to. Almost certainly, just as in any situation, there are certain people who do know the truth. And almost certainly, if it is in the interests of these people not to let on, it is unlikely that the truth will ever be fully known by those being intentionally kept in the dark.