This is the personal campaign website of Robert M. Pritchett, the Libertarian candidate for Dallas County Justice of the Peace, Precinct 1, Place 2.
I'm 48 years young and a native Texan, and I've been living in the Dallas area since 1977 and happily married since 1983. I have no experience being a judge, a lawyer, a politician, or a government bureaucrat. Of course, maybe that's a good thing. :) I do have years of experience working hard and running a computer consulting business, helping people work effectively and profitably in situations that otherwise might not be feasible. I'm succeeding in (and gradually reforming) an industry that's besieged with discriminatory tax laws and predatory power-brokers who for years have used Congress to help them put small independent consultants and other hard working Americans out of business. They've been able to get away with this government-sanctioned conspiracy of fraud and racketeering because Government is like a blind and half-deaf dinosaur constantly turning about to try to hear the rich and powerful screaming their demands, and totally unaware of the people being trampled underfoot in the process. The sole legitimate purpose of Government (read the Declaration of Independence) is the protection of the rights of every individual. Instead, the government has become a pawn for special interest groups to oppress and rip off the American public. The vast majority of laws and regulations today are violating your rights rather than protecting them. The government and its favored cronies routinely commit acts of terrorism and other atrocities which would be considered crimes if done by the average American citizen. No, I'm not some radical kook or fanatic; I'm a hard-working law-abiding native-born born-again red-blooded American, and the Libertarian Party has opened my eyes to what America really means and what we need to do to save Her. Government is part of the problem, not the solution - we need to get our country back to basics, back to the founding ideals, and get our government back to performing only its legitimate Constitutional functions. And by the way, the Preamble is not (as is commonly misconstrued) a laundry list of things to let the government do; it clearly states that those desireable goals are achieved by establishing the Constitution to limit the functions and power of the government.
Since (like most libertarians) I have a better understanding of what's going on and why, I wanted to become part of the solution. I'd probably make a good legislator, helping to repeal bad laws and enact good ones. I'd probably function well in the executive branch also, being an executive myself. But for some reason, the judicial branch has especially appealed to me. This is where the rubber meets the road - where disputes get resolved, the guilty get punished, the innocent get justice at last, and (at higher levels) bad laws get overturned. When I personally witnessed a Justice of the Peace (now retired) engaging in religious persecution, I realized that I should become a JP and make sure that this would never happen in my court. I got 12% of the vote in a JP race years ago, and now I'm running to win.
By the way, I have no quarrel with my opponent and I don't know much about him, and that doesn't matter. My race is not about him, and it's not about me; it's about doing what I can to help, and getting more Libertarians elected to do the same. It's about giving people a real choice on the ballot; a chance to just say no to more government.
A libertarian is someone who believes that it is wrong to commit acts of violence or dishonesty (except as reasonably required for self-defense), and that it's wrong no matter who you are or what lofty goals or organization you claim to represent. This is the main principle that America was founded upon, and it's also the ethical core of many religious beliefs. Most Americans are libertarian; they just never realized that there's a name for what they believe in. The real political spectrum cannot fit on one left-right line; take the World's Smallest Political Quiz to see whether you're liberal, conservative, totalitarian, or libertarian.
A Libertarian is a member of the Libertarian Party, an organization dedicated to promoting libertarian principles and candidates who follow them.
There's often a difference between what's legal and what's ethical or moral. People forget that the law is a means to an end, not an end in itself. The end, the goal, the whole purpose, is justice. The law (and government for that matter) is not something that should be worshipped, or blindly enforced or followed to the letter when doing so defeats the spirit or purpose of the law. Of course I'm not saying that laws should be ignored or violated, and I'm not saying that all laws should be repealed, although a lot of them probably should be. Laws should be followed and enforced to the extent that it is just and reasonable to do so. In cases where there's a dispute, that's what the judge is for, to apply carefully reasoned and compassionate judgment, firmly yet fairly, as to how (or even whether) the law in question should be applied in the particular case, in order to maximize justice. The law is a tool to be used to achieve justice, not the other way around - not like some of the TV shows where judges are apparently forced to make an obviously bad decision because the law ties their hands (if I find myself in that situation, I'll do whatever I reasonably can legally and ethically to change it).
Of course, too much latitude can be abused; the goal is to promote justice, not someone's personal agenda. For this to work, it requires that the judge and others involved understand the libertarian principles that America was founded upon; they must know right from wrong. Not to push the particular "morals" or other views of their favorite religion or anything like that - just the basic, core principles of ethics which are required for any society to function properly. I feel that, everything else being equal, libertarians understand these principles better than others. The Golden Rule is close, but the core ideal is simply to live and let live; everyone should respect everyone else's freedom to do what they want and live their life as they choose, as long as and to the extent that they do not themselves violate each other's same freedom. As the Libertarian Party puts it, do not initiate the use of force or fraud. Self-defense is OK, as reasonably required, of course. Just don't be the one to start it.
An important judicial issue is Jury Nullification, which is explained by the Fully Informed Jury Association and their Texas branch. When you serve jury duty, judges often forget (or deliberately neglect?) to tell you this, but in a criminal case, if you believe that the law or crime involved is not being applied properly or is a bad law or shouldn't be a crime in the first place, you have not only the right but also the duty to nullify it by finding the defendant not guilty, even if all the facts show that the defendant did commit the alleged "crime". This is part of the restraints on government which are an important part of our American founding principles. See the Juror's Handbook for more information. In my courtroom, juries will be properly informed of their rights and dutes in this regard.
What does it mean that a defendant is entitled to trial by a jury of his or her peers? It is possible that courts have interpreted this in various ways. The point is to have at least some jurors that can relate to the defendant's situation, by virtue of similar experience or culture or occupation or other commonalities. On the other hand, both sides may challenge prospective jurors for cause and may have some number of peremptory challenges not requiring any cause. These should not be allowed to strip the jury of its ability to take either side of the issues as applicable. There have probably been court cases where, for example, a prosecutor was prevented by the judge from stacking the jury by removing anyone of the defendent's particular minority. Of course a judge shouldn't micromanage this to the point of ignoring all peremptory challenges, and jurors must be impartial and able to decide either way based on the trial itself regardless of their own background. However, a judge should make some effort if needed to ensure that the jury at least partly represents a cross section of the general population, at least in those criteria which are relevant to the trial, and that there is enough diversity among the jury to include some members who are able to understand and sympathize with each side as appropriate. There should probably be at least one juror selected to be as similar to the defendant as possible in relevant areas, at least in very controversial cases, such as those involving religious, political, cultural, or other issues or views or minorities that are uncommon and not well understood by the general population, particularly when there is a possibility that some kind of persecution may be involved. Better to have a hung jury than an improper verdict based on prejudice. If the jury is properly selected, it should represent a variety of opinions yet have the intelligence and open-mindedness to fully discuss the issues and come to a unanimous vote one way or the other. By the way, lawyers often tend to prefer jurors they can easily sway emotionally and jurors who are not very smart. Judges should make an effort to see that juries include at least some people who are highly intelligent and not easily conned, and include a variety of temperaments and styles of thinking ranging from artistic/intuitive/emotional to logical/rational. Both left- and right-brain thinking is needed to reach a just verdict.
If you've ever been evicted, or had to evict someone, this probably took place in a Justice of the Peace court. Both tenants and landlords will be treated fairly in my court. Here is some information on your rights that may help prevent misunderstandings and unnecessary court action.
Michael Schrader is running for County Judge of Dallas County.
See the Dallas County and Texas branches of the Libertarian Party for more information.
The overall underlying trend is for gov't power to increase and the rights of the individual to decrease. Since the political establishment has the general public bamboozled into thinking that the political spectrum is one-dimensional (left vs. right), and that therefore there is any significant difference between the Republocrats and the Demoblicans, they continue to paint any alternatives as Commie/Nazi/fringe/loony/whatever. People watch the pendulum swing from left to right or vice versa, but they don't notice that the pendulum itself is mounted on a rolling cart on a slight incline perpendicular to the left-right axis, so that each swing jostles it further down the slippery slope.
The compromising diagonal of the fake political spectrum exemplifies the gov't's approach to limiting what alternatives the voters see. Anderson, Perot, the Greens, etc. are not seen as a threat because they are still part of the More Gov't Party along with the Republocrats, they're all socialist to some extent. Only the Libertarians are different enough to be considered a threat, which is why, when the League of Women Voters was about to finally realize that they should include the Libertarians in their debates, the gov't took over the debates with their Republocrat-controlled debate commission. Meanwhile, the gov't still calls for free elections in other countries, to distract the voters from realizing that we don't have them here (between the gov't controlled debates and the discriminatory ballot access and financing laws). This is the standard con artist trick of accusing someone else (often the victim) of doing what the con artist is doing.
The gov't does not want the people to realize that it's even possible to have both economic freedom and civil liberties, or to have both security and freedom; it continually pits these against each other, forcing people to give up one or the other or both. One of the founders of our country said that those who are willing to sacrifice liberty for safety deserve neither. Fear is a favorite weapon of gov't's everywhere. The so-called Patriot Act exemplifies the gov't's willingness to use any excuse to take away more of your rights. The excuse is that the gov't needs more power to fight terrorism. This of course plays right into the terrorists' hands, it does exactly what they want, encourages the US to give up more of its freedom and become more like the terrorist dictatorships. It's like the old Twilight Zone episode where there were UFO sightings and everyone's power got cut off except for a few people, and their neighbors were ready to string them up for collusion - the aliens noted that they didn't have to do anything, just get the people to fight among themselves, and the aliens would be able to take over. The politicians should take a cue from the TV commercials where people say they won't give in to terrorism, they won't stop living their lives; the commercials should include some Congress people saying they won't overreact to terrorism by passing repressive legislation.
Anyway, since gov't doesn't produce anything but only consumes, wastes, and diverts resources from their natural destination, it changes what would be a positive sum game (a free market economy) to a negative sum game (with gov't as the cancer sucking the lifeblood out of the economy), thereby pitting the people against each other unnecessarily, e.g. race, age, religion, and any other way the gov't can find differences to aggravate and exploit. Like in the book 1984 where the world coalesced into 3 countries, always at war to use up resources that would otherwise allow the people to have some prosperity, and whenever 2 countries would be on the verge of beating the 3rd, one would switch sides to keep the war going. As someone said, war is the health of the State (not the country, the gov't).
More to be added later....
If you are a Christian, this page is especially for you.
Please excuse the inconvenience, but due to excessive abuse by spammers, many of whom have apparently used automated means to harvest email addresses from our web site, we have had to drastically reduce the use of email links. Most of our email addresses will be unlinked and spelled out (using e.g. "at" and "dot" etc.) so that a human being must interpret them. We hope that this will not discourage serious inquiries.
Real, sincere, non-harrassing email about my campaign is welcome at Vote4RMP at rmpcp dot com. This entire domain is off limits to spammers. I reserve the right to drag spammers into my courtroom and condemn them to a life of tasting their own medicine by putting them into a cell with 3 phones that constantly get calls from telemarketers, and have several pounds of junk mail delivered daily, and they have to pay for the phone bill and postage. ;)
Political advertising by and for Robert M. Pritchett, 381 Casa Linda Plaza, PMB 260, Dallas, TX 75218, who subscribes to the voluntary Code of Fair Campaign Practices. This web site has been provided strictly at my own expense and effort; not at the expense of or using the services of, and does not represent a contribution or subsidy by, the business that owns the primary domain, or any other business. It is a subdomain and there was plenty of additional space and bandwidth available on the primary domain's web site at no additional cost, and the work was done by myself personally at no charge. All contents Copyright 2002 by Robert M. Pritchett, all rights reserved, except for items (such as logos) which obviously belong to other parties. No affiliations (except for my Libertarian Party membership) and no endorsements are implied by any logos or links on this site unless otherwise specified. The contents are general observations, and nothing herein is directed against anyone currently in or running for office.