On the record
A trial in one of these courts of injustice is a trial by battle, almost, if not quite, as really as was a trial by battle, five hundred or a thousand years ago.
Said by
Lysander Spooner
Source
gutenberg.orgLysander Spooner: “A trial in one of these courts of injustice is a trial by battle, almost, if not quite, as really as was a trial by…”
Editor's note · Context
Spooner compares modern trials to ancient trials by battle, emphasizing their brutality.
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More from Lysander Spooner
They do not tell us that we are the freest and happiest people on earth, inasmuch as each of our male adults is allowed one voice in ten millions in the choice of the men, who are to rob, enslave, and murder us.
They acknowledge it to be our unquestioned right and duty to kill them, if we can; that they expect nothing else, than that we will kill them, if we can; and that we are only fools and cowards, if we do not kill them, by any and every…
When they have once taken our money, they have the decency to get out of our sight as soon as possible; they do not persist in following us, and robbing us, again and again, so long as we produce anything that they can take from us.
On the contrary, they acknowledge themselves robbers, murderers, and villains, pure and simple.