General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: And Then There Were Three: Third Grand Jury Refuser Goes to Prison [View all]struggle4progress
(118,295 posts)Duran has every right to choose to be jailed for contempt for his ideological refusal to cooperate with the state in any way, but most of the public won't be sympathetic -- because most of the public will experience masked gangs of armed thugs, who smash other people's stuff, as oppressive, and most people will figure it's partly the job of government to protect the rest of us from masked gangs of armed thugs
Don't get me wrong: I do think people can organize to protect themselves from masked gangs of armed thugs, without bringing government into the picture, but that kind of unofficial self-protection has an unsavory history, under the headings of vigilantism and lynch law
Duran and Plante may think it grossly unfair that the state apparatus can offer them the choice between immunized testimony or imprisonment for contempt -- but in the state-free world, that they imagine would be a utopia, they (and other people with odd minority views) might actually fare much worse