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Or isn't ours a self-governing nation any more?

Of course it is, as laid out in the Constitution.

Will you plainly answer whether or not you support and revere the US Constitution? It sure seems that you do not.

The method of self-governance laid out in that document is NOT one of jury vigilantism and chaos, but of elected representation and distributed powers. The sort of small, focused, absolute authority you espouse is PRECISELY what the Founders prohibit!

Perhaps we've abdicated that responsibilty? Perhaps we have for too long lazily delegated that duty further and further up the chain of power that we can no longer make decisions for ourselves about what sort of communities we'd like to have?

Who is this "we" of which you speak? Don't you mean the sort of communities you would like to have?

I mean, that's what you're really getting at. You don't want "the people" to govern, since they sometimes create laws you don't like. You want to be able to ignore and override "the people" so you can have things your way.

It's the spirit of tyranny, no different than Hugo Chavez.

If so, let us hang our heads in shame, for we're unworthy of the inheritance bequeathed to us in blood by our nation's founders!

How utterly absurd and mocking of you to mention the nation's founders while you proudly undermine the principles for which they fought!

You should hang your head in shame. You carry the spirit of everything the founders opposed.

If you're suggesting that the consequences of my principles might convince me to abandon my principles, you've misjudged me, my FRiend.

I'm suggesting you think about what you're really saying, and how it would work if your ideas were applied on a large scale.

I doubt you'll change your mind, since you haven't had to actually see and consider the consequences of your ideas. Your principles are anti-American and anti-conservative.

Thank God there aren't too many of you.

I'm inclined to ignore your silly comments, except to reply plainly as you request, and to offer a couple of quotes from our nation's founders.

Yes, I support the U.S. Constitution - most of all the first seven words of it, which I'd like to remind you of:

"We the people of the United States..."

(Not the legislators, the executives, the judges - to whom you appeal as supreme authority. This they are not.)

"It is not only (the juror's) right, but his duty to find the verdict according to his own understanding, judgment, and conscience, though in direct opposition to the direction of the court." - John Adams

"(Y)ou have nevertheless a right to take upon yourselves to judge of both, and to determine the law as well as the fact in controversy....(B)oth objects are lawfully within your power of decision." - John Jay

"But it is also their duty to exercise their judgments upon the law, as well as the fact." - Alexander Hamiltion

"It is essential to the security of personal rights and public liberty, that the jury should have and exercise the power to judge both of the law and of the criminal intent." - Alexander Hamilton

We could learn a lot from the founders, from those self-reliant, liberty-loving folks. And the principles which underlie jury trial and its authority of sitting in judgment of the law can instruct us on how best to restore America to her former greatness. For it starts - and ends - with we the people of the United States.