In our legal system, a person must be proven guilty beyond a weasel-nable doubt. Well, should be. I mean, we prefer it. Proof is nice.

We have an adversarial justice system—justice that cannot overcome the adversity of its continuous miscarriage is not worthy of coming to pass.

Does a “non-redacted document” mean that the document is just “dacted?” So why not just say so?

And why do you have say “I take the fifth” when you don’t want to answer a question under oath? Do you have to say, “By the first amendment, we hereby gather to discuss political issues…?” Or begin every public prayer with a Constitutional justification for praying? Since when does a Right require some silly verbal incantation to be in effect? And why is that incantation worded to sound like self-incrimination, which is precisely what the Fifth Amendment is meant to protect us from?

           “By the Second Amendment, I hereby bear this gun.  By the stand-your-ground law, I hereby discharge this gun at your fleeing ass because you’re still on my ground until you get past the sidewalk. ‘Government surveyors’—my ass!”

What legal recourse is there when someone assaults your shadow? What could be more “stand-your-ground” than defending your shadow? That really is your ground.  Too bad that’s it’s now six o’clock and my shadow is 50 meters long!

Plaintiff:          “Your Honor, I was just taking a piss—urinating, sir—“

Defendant:      “—On the shadow of my head, your Honor!”

Judge:              “So you shot him?”

Defendant:      “At him, your Honor, at him. He was fifty meters away. You’d have to be a cop to hit someone that far away with a handgun. I’m just a Citizen Observer. Our effective range is less than 10 meters. He was in no real danger, sir.”

Judge:              “And neither was your shadow, which I assume is fine today and does not smell of urine.”

Defendant:      “No your Honor, there was no ‘danger’—it’s—it’s—it’s the symbolism sir.”

Judge:              “Symbolism? Symbolism?! Your bullets were not symbolic!”

Defendant:      “Your Honor, there are hand symbols I could make here in Court that would get me thirty days for contempt—”

Judge:              “—Yes, there are. Even your reference to such things borders on contempt.“

Defendant:      “So symbols matter. That’s all I’m saying. That’s my legal theory. If symbols didn’t matter, we’d all be shooting each other birds in court.”

Judge: (to the Plaintiff) “He brings up a point—two redundant ones, if you count the left hand—but I have a better one:  suppose a woman were sitting on a park bench and a man came up and made obscene gestures towards various areas of her shadow on the ground and yet refrained from actual eye contact or anything directed towards her actual person? Society could hardly tolerate such shadow molestations, and yet how much shadow protection can society reasonably provide its citizenry?”

Lawyer for Plaintiff:    “Our client was fifty meters away from the Defendant, due to the low angle of the sun that late in the day. If the lady in your park bench scenario were also fifty meters away she probably would not be insulted or feel the need for shadow protection. Two-thirty, three o’clock—that’s a different story. Pissing on someone’s shadow at 3:00 is much more of an insult than doing so at 6:00, fifty meters away.”

Judge:              “Agreed.  I hereby rule that the stand-your-ground-law only applies to your shadow up until 3:30 PM. After that, you have a duty to retreat your shadow if you’re so fuckin’ prissy about it.”

(c) 2012 Alan Brech