From: andyrose@netcom.com (San Francisco Fractal Factory)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.quaker
Subject: Hat Testimony
Date: 5 Nov 92 20:17:22 GMT
Article-I.D.: netcom.1992Nov5.201722.19766
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest)



The clutching need of the few to enforce
a system is clear.

I was in a traffic courtroom this morning and asked
to take off my hat.  I did.  I asked a
woman if she felt that wearing a hat had
anything to do with justice.  She said she
was enforcing the rule.

I asked a man if this rule was written and
where I could find that book and he said 
no, that the proscription on hats was an
unwritten rule regarding respect.  He felt
that the proscription on reading was also
in regards to respect.  Understand that I
really liked the judge, she was efficient
and courtous, although opaque.

I asked the man if I could find out other 
unwritten rules and how did one come to 
know them, and he said he was raised in
the system.  I asked him how people who were
not raised in the system came to know the
rules and he said "Look, there are 
alternatives.  You could leave the
country, or you can not get caught."  He hurried
off.

- I suppose that means if you don't leave and
you do get caught, you learn the rules.

- The adjudicant was a nice lady, who clearly
had private business to do with each 
attender.  I understand the need for silence,
but I do not understand the proscription on
reading or wearing a hat.

- I have long enough hair to be discriminated
against, regardless of how discretely, and 
chose to wear it up around authority types.
I have plenty of reason to wear a hat besides
religious right.

- While I took off my hat, I did read.
_The Mafia, CIA, and George Bush_
The untold story of America's greatest financial 
debacle, Peter Brewton, Shapulski Publishers, Inc.


I refuse to play dumb on this one.  Explain
to me how a hat is disrespectful.

Is respect a requirement?  Is disrespect against
the law?  I think assault is against the law and
I think punishment is against the law.

William Penn, preamble to Frame of Government
  Any government is free to the people under
it where the laws rule, and the people are
a party to the laws, and more than this
is tyranny, oligarchy, or confusion.
[Where people are a party to laws, and 
where law rules, people are free]

 ... governments, like clocks, go from
the motion men give them; and as governmen-
ts are made and moved by man, so by
them they are ruined too.  Wherefore, gov-
ernments rather depend upon men, than
man upon governments.  Let them be good,
and the government cannot be bad; if it be
ill they will cure it.  But if men be bad, let
the government be never so good, they will
endeavor to warp it and spoil it go their 
turn.  I know some will say, let us have good
laws, and no matter for the men that execute them:
but let them consider, that
though good laws do well, good men do
better; for good laws may want good men,
and be abolished or evaded by ill men;
but good men will never want for good laws,
nor suffer ill ones...

pg.? Cromwell,Paul, _The Holy Experiment: An Examination
of the Influence of the Soc.Friends Upon American
Correctional Philosophy_

Is discrimination evident and is it a problem?
 There were probably 45 people there
and no less than 8 were white.  This
may reflect the population of the Mission
District, or it may not.  I don't think
it reflects the racial breakdown of
people who assault or people who punish.

Most uniformed people including judges are
of color, most plain clothes justice workers
were white.

-



-- 
Andrew Rose andyrose@netcom.com FAX   end killing