Jury Duty and the Homesteader

The court system is such a caricature

So even though I've lived here less than a year, the ever-generous county of San Luis Obispo has chosen to call me for jury duty later this month.  Crap.

Jury duty is, in my opinion, one of those things where a super-bureaucratic government extends its outstretched hand a little too close to my face and leaves it there, saying "Does this bother you?  Huh?  Huh?  I'm not touching you.  Does this bother you?" like an annoying classroom bully.  The idea of a jury of our peers is a good one, of course.  It's how the government goes about getting it that bugs me.

This is not going to turn into an anti-government rant, I promise you.

I just think there are people out there who can not afford to spend a day, or several days, not at their jobs.  People like hairdressers, writers, waitstaff and folks working the night shift. And I'd add homesteaders to that list.

See, I need to be here every day to watch what's going on.  I have chickens, and have invested a lot of money on crops which will not only feed us, but in the case of the tree crops, might eventually make us a small profit at the farmer's market if we sell our surplus.  The work around the house doesn't stop just because I'm gone, either.  If I want bread, I need to bake it.  If I want soap, I need to haul out the lye and oil and get to work.

But the handmade life takes time, and it takes a presence.  It won't happen if I'm not here.

And so it bothers me that I have to change my entire lifestyle in order to accommodate a bunch of bureaucrats who like working 8 - 5.  After all, what's to stop having night or weekend court, where people like me who can't do the 8 - 5 thing could still serve?  How about a morning or afternoon court, where short cases could be tried without taking people off their jobs all day long?

No, the courts run the way they do because most people who work there don't need to be home from 8 - 5.  They are not people who value self-employment, hourly work, or stay-at-home parenting.  They want to put in their 8 hours, pick up some take-out food on the way home and then sit on the sofa and watching "Wipeout" while surfing the internet and eating Cheese Doodles.

And while I will be inconvenienced having to drive a full hour, each way, to the courthouse if called to serve, it is nothing compared to the folks who work part-time and will lose income that could be paying the rent or putting food on the table if they are chosen.

Just one of those ways that sometimes makes it difficult to be different.  Maybe we should have professional jurors the way we have professional judges.  That way the people who want to hang out with lawyers, civil servants and criminals all day could do so, and the rest of us could stay home and make soap, or whatever.