Darrell Castle talks about the law and how vital it is to the people of any free nation to be protected by the law from the abuse of those in power.

A SHIELD OF THE PEOPLE

Hello, this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report. This is Friday the 8th day of March in the year of our Lord 2024. I will be talking about the law and how vital it is to the people of any free nation to be protected by the law from the abuse of those in power. The law must serve as a shield of the people if we are to be any different from dictatorial regimes, 3rd world corrupt regimes, and the like. Lawfare is not a shield but a weapon to be used by those in power against those considered to be without power or at least without the protection of law.

One often hears the term lawfare, but many or most people wonder what that term means. They don’t understand its literal meaning and therefore they don’t understand why using the law as a form of political warfare is destructive of the rule of law and reduces our form of government to tyranny.  I have traveled this world from one end to the other throughout my lifetime but I have always been glad to get home. Whether in a 3rd world war zone or a glamorous capital I am always glad to see America where the law protects me and I have rights that cannot be arbitrarily abused or disregarded.

The term lawfare doesn’t make sense because it seems to be two words of opposite definition cobbled together. It indicates violence whereby the parties to a dispute, usually two or more nations, fight each other with their very existence at stake. Law and warfare are opposites and should not exist as one but today, unfortunately, they do. For purposes of this report, I will define lawfare as the use of law and the legal process to destroy political and ideological enemies but law, standing alone is the opposite because it is a way to settle disputes peacefully without resorting to violence.

Whether you have personally been to a war zone and witnessed war’s destruction, its indiscriminate violence, or you have only seen it in pictures and films, you are aware of it and you know how horrible it is. I wonder if you know that a society can be destroyed by the misuse of law just as it can be destroyed by bombs and bullets. The law can destroy people, their reputations, their careers, their financial and emotional well-being, and their ability to pursue normal peaceful lives. The law can be used to bankrupt people, keep them defending themselves in court for years while the press goes about its business of supporting corruption and destroying the reputations of the innocent.

I’m a lawyer by profession having practiced law in the courts of my city for more than 40 years so I submit to you that I know something about how it works. In the best of circumstances, the law can be a shield against the guilty whether in criminal court where people’s freedom and even their lives can be taken from them or in civil court where damages, normally monetary can be imposed against them. This is all done according to strict rules discovered and implemented over centuries and judges are supposed to be well schooled and determined to enforce and abide by those rules to ensure fairness.

None of that is true when the law becomes lawfare. The users of that weapon are so convinced that their position is correct that the ends justify the means. They know what the result should be and by their hand will be before the court proceeding ever starts. It is one thing to have a mistake due to mistaken identity whereby a person is thought to be the one but through evidence is later found to not be the one. In lawfare that is not only not the case but often lawfare is used to convict of a crime that did not even happen. It’s one thing to be misidentified and convicted of bank robbery but in our case it’s not just misidenity, there was no robbery to accuse anyone of. The people who use, pervert,