Darrell Castle talks about the new way of looking at things or the new general consensus that emanates from a disrespect for the constitutional framework of law and justice.

Transcription / Notes

THE NEW CONSENSUS

Hello, this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report. This is Friday, the 29th day of March in the year of our Lord 2024. I will be talking about the new way of looking at things or the new general consensus based on how the system programs us toward a general agreement on a preconceived set of outcomes for a particular series of events. I will argue that the new consensus emanates from a disrespect for the constitutional framework of law and justice now being taught in America’s law schools.

This is not just Friday but Good Friday, three days before Easter Sunday. Good Friday commemorates the day more than two thousand years ago that Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a borrowed donkey to great fanfare. He was the king, but he did not look like what the system thought a king should look like. He did not ride in on a great warhorse, he wore no battle armor, and he carried no sword and so the system and the people rejected him and called for the Roman, Pontius Pilate to order him crucified. The consensus went from hosanna to the son of David to cries of crucify him in a matter of hours.

Please don’t think that I am comparing anyone alive today with Jesus because that is not my intent. I am just trying to show how the consensus can change quickly and how that can sometimes subvert the entire system of law and justice. Consensus today goes something like this; there’s widespread agreement that something must be done; there is a growing consensus in the country; the general consensus is this; the study shows a strong consensus so let’s take a vote.

Trouble arises with the idea of a consensus when we forget that America is a country based on law and the rights of the individual. Each individual American is protected by law and assured that his rights cannot be taken from him without a fair and proper hearing called due process of law. The hearing must not be an already decided sham of the law based on what the consensus has already decided. The system must not, whether by consensus, or by the dictates of one individual, declare a person or group as tainted or already guilty.

The act of labeling someone as tainted was common in the English Crown days and was occasionally used against the American colonists so they specifically prohibited it in the U.S. Constitution. That prohibition is in Article one Section 9, paragraph 3: “No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto law shall be passed.” The term ex post facto means a law that was not in effect when the accused supposedly violated it but was passed later.

These two things specifically prohibited by the supreme law of the land are being used against one person and those who support that person today right here in America. Yes, Donald Trump, it seems, is not liked by those in charge and has been declared “tainted” by them. The idea of due process and presumed innocent are now just quaint memories from our history, interesting but no longer there to protect individuals who are tainted. I will also tell you that the obligation to provide due process of law cannot be met when the accused has been declared guilty by the system before the process starts.

I have been a lawyer for more than 40 years having gone to law school in the mid 1970’s so I admit to having a love for the rule of law and its protection of the individual American. Here in America some overzealous prosecutor or judge is not allowed to override the rule of law because they think someone or some group of some ones is tainted and outside the protection of law. I scratch my head and I wonder how the system could have changed so much in the 45 years that I have been a lawyer so I read, I investigate, I try to discern what happened and I reach conclusions.