May 19, 2025 • 44 mins
Margaret talks with Kat Abughazaleh about the folk councils that came to define English Common Law.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Hello, and welcome to Cool People Did Cool Stuff. You're
a weekly reminder that as bad thing happened, a good
thing try to happen. Sometimes does happen. Sometimes good thing happen,
and that's what make bad thing.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
Hi.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
I'm your host, Margaret Kiljoy, and this is a podcast
that I run twice a week, and I have a guest,
and my guest is Katabugazala. How are you.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
I'm doing great, Margaret, How are you?
Speaker 2 (00:27):
I am doing okay. I'm clearly a little bit frazzled.
I'm suddenly by the speed at which I'm talking thinking
I might have eaten more sugar than I thought today.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
I love that for you. That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Yeah. Kat is a journalist, a commentator, and now a
twenty twenty six candidate for US House of Representatives the
ninth district of Illinois.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
That is accurate. That is what I'm running for. And
we're almost at two months of the campaign now.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
And basically, like y'all are just trying to primary a
Democrat is not doing their job, Like I don't know
enough about the stuff I'm not trying to Yeah, I
don't know. I mean the words in your mouth about it.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
So the incumbent actually announced that she won't be seeking reelection.
Oh okay, her name is jan Schakowski and she has
been a progressive member of Congress. Oh, my grandmother, who
was like a GOP operative hated her, which is like
an endorsement of Schaikowski's character. She is not seeking a
fifteenth term, and I announced before she announced, not like
(01:23):
as a vendetta against her. But I think that there's
a problem in the party of not having competitive primaries.
And there hasn't been a competitive primary in this district
since nineteen ninety eight, five months before I was born.
And so we're trying to do like a different style
of campaigning, spending our money on good stuff like that
helps people instead of consultants and a bunch of ads
(01:46):
that might not be effectively strategized. I know, super radical.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Yeah, I feel like the best advertising for you is
how much everyone's trying to attack you right now. That's
how I keep being aware of your Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
People have been losing their minds in the funniest way.
I've been called Maga hamas Republican. Someone alleged that's as
the La Terror cell. I've been called a carpetbagger because
I'm a transplant and like that's also fine. We're just
trying to prove through art, like you don't have to
(02:18):
legally vote for me, Like there's not a law that
you have to vote for.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Me until you get into the office. And then I
see that that's one of your campaign promises is to
suspend democracy.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
And then we're all in on autocracy. Obviously. The fact
that I am dating Ben Collins of Onion fame is
a massive journalistic malpractice as well, because the Onion is
America's finest news source. And then someone did attack my
cat and that's like the one here. They went after you.
(02:47):
They were like in fuck your cat, and I was like, bro,
you you're winning the argument. Obviously. When you're like fuck
your cat, you're winning this argument.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Okay, as somebody who knows you and Ben, and how
dare they come after your heat?
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Okay? And like she was fine, but like we were like, what,
it's fucked up.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
I'm angry.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
I think that all the people, especially when they're at
the point where they're attacking your cat, that's probably just
good press for you.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
Point.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Yeah, someone today was like, because I said that I
worked from home when I was, you know, like creating content,
doing journalism, and they were like, so your office is
just a front, like to show that you're in the district.
And I posted a picture of me drafting my response
in the office, and I was like, you can come
by the office right now. Like I'm I am recording
this from the campaign office, as y'all can see my
(03:35):
field organizer. I'm an astroturft candidate. We all know this.
Astroturft candidates have twelve thousand individual donors. We all know this.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
I just they came after Heater the babe of a cat.
She's such a babe. What are you doing Mittens?
Speaker 1 (03:52):
She's just a girly pop Come on this big she's
so tiny.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
But yeah, that's where we're at.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
That's wild.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Well we're gonna talk about Wait, first, we're going to
talk about the rest of the people we're here, including
the other voice you're hearing, which is Sophie Hy Sophie.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
Hey, I'm still really mad about Here.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Is Anderson back there.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Anderson is right next to me and her sister Truman
has taking a nap at her great.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
And Renshaw is asleep at my feet. Incredibly is surprising
and lucky because he has been running around like wild
all day.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Wait is that a dog?
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Yeahh Wrenshaw's my dog.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
In early days of Anderson, back when she was like
borderline mouldoerish because she was like still a rescue and
was like a tiny little thing, I had this very
evil roommate who like in the middle of me being like, no, really,
you have to pay your rent on time. There's three
other people who live here.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
She was like, your.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
Dog's fat, and I was like, I'm gonna beat your
fucking ass. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
I mean that's the only response you can really have.
Like she can't advocate for herself. I mean she can
obviously because she's smart and speaks human language. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Like, actually Anderson steps in for Sophia sometimes when Sophie isn't.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
That's true. Their voices are identical.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
I'd let Anderson drive my car, okay, like she could
handle it, Like I would let her handle all of
my finances, drive my car, and like perform surgery.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
I trust her.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
I know she has no thumbs, but I would trust her.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
So I wish I didn't have thumbs. That would make
life it's simpler, you know.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
Some nice person would take care of you the way
I take care of of my dogs.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
It's just Ben.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
It just just Ben's like, oh, good.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Girl, good girl, Carol.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Well who takes care of us. Also, Eva is our
audio editor, and everyone has to say hi, hi.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
Eva, Hiva hi Eva, you for editing this audio. Audio
editing is source in my opinion, So you're a hero.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
I know.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
It's the most thankless job. It's actually the with other
podcasts that I work on. It's absolutely the choke point
where we're like, oh, we'd like to release more and more,
Like no one wants to edit this.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
No one wants to edit this, like the benefit of video,
you know.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Yeah, Like if you're a DIY podcast, pay your audio
editors before you pay anyone else, because it is the
job that doesn't build you a platform. It doesn't like anyway.
Eva's are audio editor andret and our theme music was
written for us by unwomen and so recently, uncol people
did cool stuff I've been thinking about for some weird reason.
(06:28):
Even as someone who's not particularly in love with the
concept of the state as a method of human organization
and society, I've certainly become very aware of a lot
of really good things that are currently being done for
us through governmental systems as we watch them get stripped
away one by one in our society. We talked about
vaccines last week, and this week we're going to talk
(06:51):
about the writ of Habeas corpus and what's the cool
people connection with it. Every single right we have comes
from somewhere, and usually they come from people who are
cool or sometimes complicated, people who are probably not cool
as individuals, but who accomplish something cool, which is honestly
(07:11):
a little bit more realistic because most of us aren't perfect.
So I am yeah, I know, that's why. Yeah, yeah,
but most people podcasters are oddly perfect. It's kind of
strange you'd think that they're not because of the destructive
effect we've had on society.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Women podcasters are Oh that's true.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Yeah yeah, I actually don't have a counterpoint to I'm like, no, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
You had to go through it and you have to
be like, well, you're right.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Yeah, I feel really bad when Nope, I'm not going
to talk shit on podcasts in general as the field
I work in. Anyway, everyone is equally entitled to start
a podcast, regardless of their gender identity.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Look I'm not saying you can't start a podcast. I'm
just saying women podcasters are perfect.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Yeah, exactly, and it's hard to compete, you know.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
So the story of Habeas Corpus, and I'm going to
explain what it is in a second before we actually
explain what it is, Habeas Corpus is basically like due process.
I mean there's a more specific thing, right, but the
idea that like, they can't just throw you in a
jail because they feel like it, which is a pretty
fundamental idea.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
I'm a fan.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Yeah, some of its concepts, although not its name, can
be traced back to pre Roman Britain and the folk
legal system of different clan groups there. And that's what
we're gonna do this week because I think it's a
good story and I think it helps us understand what's
at stake, because as probably most people who are listening
(08:38):
to this are aware, or you're listening in the future
and you're like, ah, I remember when people at Habeas Corpus.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
That was cute.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
The Trump administration is openly talking about considering suspending Habeas Corpus.
You ever heard of this, I know you? Have you
ever heard of this? Guy? Named Stephen Miller.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Yeah, I've heard of him.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
I believe he can legally be described as a right
wing goon. I think that that's a.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
I would say, like a hard boiled egg that is
filled with hate instead of an embryo of a chicken.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Yeah that's fair. Okay, I can picture this man because
he's the hard boiled egg wear in a suit. But yeah,
I can't always keep all their origin stories apart. Do
you remember more about this particular man.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
So, Steven Miller is basically like a Trump goon. He
helped ray like a bunch of Trump's speeches, and every
single thing he says is wrong and evil. I've seen
him way more than most people, or that like any
human being should. While I was wondering Fox News and
he comes on essentially says the most racist shit you've
(09:42):
ever heard from someone's mouth and thinks that it's okay.
He also has a really annoying voice, especially from a
party that loves to complain about like vocal fry and
like especially like women's voices. He sounds like a valley girl.
It's like listening to any clip of him, and I've
never heard more of a valley girl voice.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
I've never won to listen to him before, but now
I'm like, oh, maybe I will.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Next time. You see a clip, just like listen to
it and you're like, oh my god. It sounds like
like an early two thousand sexist comedy idea of a bimbo,
except instead of a hot girl, it's Stephen Miller.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
He's just jealous that he can't twirl his hair around
his finger.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Exactly because once again, hardboiled egg. Yeah, so he was
like a Trump goon and basically helped provide the architecture,
like the foundation for some of Trump's most racist policies,
and that's what he continues to do to this day.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Yeah, that tracks because on May ninth, twenty twenty five,
he threatened to suspend habeas corpus, which is basically him
saying he wants to suspend the rule of law. It
is the declare marshal law thing. Practically, he said, quote
that's an option we're actively looking at. Theoretically, in the
(10:55):
United States, the right to the writ of habeas corpus
can only be susp bended when, in to quote Article
one of the Constitution, cases of rebellion or invasion, the
public safety may require it I think that there is
a word for a right that can be taken away
by the government whenever they want, and that word is
(11:16):
not right. That word is privilege. Because the Constitution says
that you can take away people's right to habeas corpus.
It's supposed to be only used in extreme emergencies. But
here we go. The Trump administration consistently presents the existence
of migrants and people seeking asylum as an invasion. Trump
wants wartime powers, so he needs a war, so he's
(11:39):
calling the border a war. Federal judges keep saying, look,
immigration is not invasion. What the fuck is wrong with you?
Even I think the ones who don't like it, the
shitty ones, there's still like, that's just not actually what
invasion is.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Yeah, an invasion you would have like an authority saying
let's invade this, and not people trying to find a
better life.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Yeah, so what is habeas corpus? Well, it is these
goods and services. That's what they're trying to take away
from you. They're trying to take away from you your
liberty to listen to ads.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
They don't want you to listen to ads and support
the rule of law.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Yeah, that's right. Here's some ads. You can listen to
them if you want, or you can skip them. I
don't care and er back. Habeas corpus. Habeas corpus is
medieval Latin, is not ancient Latin or whatever. It's medieval Latin,
and it's Latin for you must have the body for
(12:36):
a really, really long time. I assume this meant you, like,
can't get charged with murder if there's no dead body.
That was just like what I thought it meant. I
thought it was like, oh, you need like you need
the evidence, right, Yeah, it actually means body like person.
I spent a long time. I read like eight articles
about this, because lots of different people will like to
argue about what the Latin means, and most articles about
(12:57):
habeas corpus kind of gloss over this part. I think
because people understand it, including the people writing those articles.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
I mean, that's like how my middle school teacher described it,
of like you have to have like that.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Yeah, I think, and maybe a legal scholar will tell
me that I'm wrong, But I spend a really long
time researching this this week. I think this means body
like person, like you should have the person who is
in trouble should be brought to the court for assessment.
It means bring us this guy. It means like, well,
(13:26):
let's bring them here and we'll figure it out. Yeah.
Is habeas corpus? To quote the National Constitution Center, the
writ of habeas corpus is quote a means by which
a prisoner can test the legality of her detention. A
person who believes she is being imprisoned illegally can file
a petition asking a judge to issue a writ of
(13:48):
habeas corpus. When a prisoner files a petition for a
writ of habeas corpus, her custodian must explain why the
restraint is lawful. If the explanation does not satisfy the court,
they will order the custodian to release her. Basically, this
is the foundation of the idea that everyone is owed
their day in court. It is the basis of you
(14:10):
can't actually just hold people in jail indefinitely without accusing
them of a crime or setting up a trial. It
applies to US citizens and non citizens alike, and in
two thousand and eight it was expanded to include non
citizens outside the US who were held in US military detention.
There was a lot of arguing about Guantanamo Bay and
its legality, and specifically, in two thousand and eight they
(14:34):
expanded it to include people detained at Guantanamo Bay, but
in two thousand and six Congress said that it doesn't
apply to enemy combatants. So I'm sure that if Habeas
corpus continues, that's what they'll move to next, is they
will decide that everyone is an enemy combatant. The future
is bright. I'm wearing shades. It wouldn't be a supposedly
(14:57):
fundamental right in democracy if it weren't being suspended. Wait,
I actually can't tell. Oh, you actually put on real shades.
They look so much like the shades that Zoom can
put on automatically.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
Like a little filter.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
Yeah. Anyone who's curious if dad has the cool shades?
The answer is yes, so fucking cool. So it wouldn't
be a supposedly fundamental right in democracy if it hadn't
been suspended. Again and again, it's not without precedent for
the suspension of Habeas corpus. The way that they're talking
(15:31):
about doing it is without precedent. The first time we
suspended this writ was before we were even a country,
during the Revolutionary War. A bunch of governors became autocrats
by suspending the Writ of Habeas Corpus, which also goes
to show that this is an older concept than the Constitution.
(15:53):
When Habeas corpus is suspended, the executive branch can just
detain people however it wants, whenever it wants, with no oversight.
The suspension clause is in the Constitution and it doesn't
say who gets to do that suspending, And that's what
a lot of the arguing is about. Right now, it
has been universally understood that Congress is the one that
(16:15):
gets to suspend Habeas corpus because one, it's in a
section where almost everything is talking about Congress, though not
everything in that section is talking about Congress. And two,
it confers ultimate power to the executive branch, so like,
probably the executive branch shouldn't be the one that decides
to get to do it. It seems to me Habeas Corpus,
(16:37):
also called the Great Writ, is actually only mentioned in
the Constitution in the suspension clause. It's not written into
the Constitution that this exists. Because this is considered such
a fundamental right that it didn't even get spelled out.
Everyone just kind of knows about it at the time
that they're writing the Constitution. The entire clause, the entire
(17:02):
discussion of habeas corpus in the Constitution is quote, the
privilege of the rid of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless,
when in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety
may require it. We've suspended it four times in the past.
The first time we did it, it was actually first
enacted by the president. That's the thing that gets like
(17:23):
messy about all this, right, Like, I think I'm curious
your take on this, but I think we're focusing on
the wrong part of this. Everyone's like the president shouldn't
be able to suspend this. I think everyone should get
mad whenever this is suspended by anyone.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
Yeah, and I think it should be like, hey, this
is the exact amount of time, and also like this
is how we would justify it. I don't think it
should be suspended at all. Right, but like if there's
an alien invasion, I guess, like from outer space. I'm
trying to think of like an Independence Day style scenario here, right,
I still think the rule of law would be important.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Yeah, you might get like slowed down, you know, like
I was gonna take you as longer to find a
judge because half of them got killed by the aliens
form outer space.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Yeah, but like if there was like it should be like, yeah,
this is the exact amount of time and why we're
doing it, and like the carveouts, like if there is
a sci fi reason to do this. I'm really trying
to like not even play Devil's Advocate here, just trying
to think of a possible Independence Day was aggressive.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
I mean the first time they suspended it was the
Civil War, right, Yeah, And actually the first people suspended
were the Confederacy, So actually the Confederate States of America
suspended it before the United States of America did. But
like you can sort of see in a civil war.
But I'm also still sort of like, well then you
also have like rules around prisoners of war and it's
(18:44):
just a different thing, right, And so like actually I
think civilians should still have to I just think you
shouldn't be able to throw people in cages unless you
can say why you're throwing them in a cage in
a way that satisfies the judge. Yeah, but the previous
suspensions have also been like I really, well, they actually
haven't all been great, but they included carbouts. They were like,
(19:05):
this is what it's going to come kick back in
and shit like that.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Gotcha.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
I'm going to talk shit on Abraham Lincoln. This is
one of my favorite activities. You're lucky that you didn't
get me talking shit on the Revolutionary War, but you're
going to get me talk to shit on Abraham Lincoln.
The first time we did it, it was enacted by
the President Abraham Lincoln, aka the man who gets credit
for ending legal chattel slavery in the US, despite I
don't think he deserves all that much of that credit
and unjustly avoids getting the blame for overseeing the largest
(19:32):
mass execution in US history when on December twenty sixth,
eighteen sixty two, the US hanged thirty eight Dakota people
who had surrendered in their war against the United States.
And I want to talk about that. I'm going to
side quest on that because I think it's important to
understand when we decide and who we decide. The rule
(19:53):
of law applies to the Dakota were an independent nation
at war with the United States and then they surrendered.
We have rules about that. You're not allowed to execute
all the enemy soldiers, right. The United States disagrees. When
the Dakota surrendered, there were huge trials of enemy combatants.
(20:18):
About three hundred of them were sentenced to death. Abraham
Lincoln was like, well, I want to show that we're
tough but fair. I don't know that's his quote, but
that's his vibe of what he was trying to do.
So we went ahead and proved the exact opposite. He
was not fair. First, he was like, well, I'm only
going to pick the people who are convicted of sexual
assault as part of the raids. That's how I'm going
(20:38):
to pick the people I want to kill. But only
two of the three hundred plus people have been convicted
of that. So he was like, I don't know. I
was just hanging these thirty eight people, and all of
the articles about this are like he personally poured over
the manuscripts to decide who would die. He couldn't have
(21:00):
been reading too closely, because at least two of the
people who had been acquitted were hanged. One was a
white kid who'd been adopted by the Dakota when he
was little, who joined in their war against the United States,
which is a cool thing to do from my point
of view. His name was Wassakun, and I couldn't find
a pronunciation for that name. He was picked by Lincoln
(21:23):
to die despite having been acquitted, as far as I
can tells just literally an oversight. He claims that he
was like, I'm picking all these names carefully, and then
he was just like ah. And then this person, another
Dakota guy who was named Wi chank washto dom Pi,
had a super common nickname. So when they called his
nickname out, he stepped forward, and instead of someone else
with that nickname, he was executed. And the reason I
(21:47):
want to linger on this well one is because it
makes me really angry. When you win at war against
another country, you don't execute their soldiers. And a professor
at the University of Minnesota Law School, Carol Chomsky, who
was husband gnomes the more famous of the two. She
wrote quote, the trials of the Dakota were conducted unfairly
(22:08):
in a variety of ways. The evidence was sparse, the
tribunal was biased, the defendants were unrepresented in unfamiliar proceedings
conducted in a foreign language, and authority for convening the
tribunal was lacking. More fundamentally, neither the military commission nor
the reviewing authorities recognized that they were dealing with the
aftermath of a war fought with a sovereign nation, and
(22:28):
the men who surrendered were entitled to treatment in accordance
with that status. In order to mass execute these people,
the town had to declare martial law and forbid the
sale of alcohol because four thousand races showed up to
celebrate the hanging. So following the rule of law has
never been the US's strong suit, even with one of
(22:49):
the most venerated presidents we've had, But people have tried
to make it follow the law right like even in
this case there was a try. There shouldn't have been
a trial from my point of view because the prisoner
of war thing. But I don't know you whatever, and
so getting rid of habeas corpus is like just getting
rid of fucking even the pretense. Abraham Lincoln suspended the
(23:14):
rid of habeas corpus during the Civil War. This pissed
everyone off because everyone assumed it took an Act of
Congress to do that. He did it while there was
a specific case happening and Congress wasn't in session as
soon as Congress was in session. They were like yayay, yeah,
it's fine. They like passed the thing that was like,
it's fine that Lincoln did that.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
What was the court case?
Speaker 2 (23:37):
I can't remember the name of it. I stopped side
questing as far I cut back at a certain point.
It was a saboteur from the Confederacy, I think who
was arrested in the North. And I don't know why
that trial wasn't a military trial. I don't know why
that was a civil trial. It might have been because
he was a citizen of the Northern States, Okay, yeah,
(23:59):
And so I don't know the details of why not
enemy combatant in that context thought it. The next time
I was suspended was during reconstruction. This is probably the
one that I have the most sympathy for. It was
suspended during reconstruction in either nine or eleven counties in
South Carolina, depending on your source, in order to fight
the KKK, although I would still argue that fucking clansmen
(24:24):
deserve it to be told that there are clansmen, you know,
like you need to be able to accuse them of
a crime. And then it was suspended in the Philippines
in nineteen oh five when they tried not to be
a colonial territory anymore, and then in Hawaii after Pearl
Harbor in nineteen forty one, this led to martial law
in Hawaii. This is unrelated to the Japanese internment of
one hundred and twenty thousand Japanese Americans who were kept
(24:45):
in concentration camps during World War Two, which was done
by executive order. The argument I would make is that
rights aren't granted to us by the state. There are
concessions that people win from the state that we defend
through legislation, through organizing, and through direct action. That's habeas corpus,
the right to demand a legal justification for why you're
being captain in a cage.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
I'd also just like distress for people on this, like
habeas corpus. It's not just like, oh, you know, you're
accused of being a terrorist, and so we're putting you
in this cell even if like you're not. And it
doesn't have to be like political motivated reasoning. You could
get a parking ticket and they could just throw you
in jail for the rest of your life. You could
(25:27):
jaywalk and be executed by the state and there would
be no problem with that. It's not just if you're
thinking habeas corpus is suspended, that's bad. But like I'm
safe because I'm not you know, a political figure, or
I haven't committed a crime does not matter. You could
(25:48):
literally just be hanging out listening to music in your
home and the state would be justified to throw you
in prison for the rest of your life because they
don't like you or the color of your house is
the wrong shade.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Yeah, and they don't have to prove, you know, if
they're like, oh, well MS thirteen doesn't deserve due process
and you're like, oh, well you're MS thirteen, you're like, well,
no I'm not. You're like, well, I'm not going to
give you a chance to prove.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
It, right, Like if you're wearing a Chicago Bulls hat,
that now means you're MS thirteen. So and Chicago Bulls
gear can just be sent to a concentration camp overseas. Yeah,
that's where we're at. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
And the idea of like, oh, you have tattoos, so
you're in a gang, And it's like have you met
anyone under the age of like fifty five? Like do
you have any friends who are under the age of
fifty five, they have tattoos. Like that's done. That's over that.
Like we all have nose rings and we all have tattoos.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
Yeah, we all have IUDs yeah, and we all yeah,
we take birth control. We take birth control very scary,
and we have internet access like sorry.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
Yeah, so hey, yas corpus as a specific named thing.
And also just the concept of it comes into the
US from English common law, like so much of the
American legal system, and I just took that as like
common law. I don't know what that means. It means folks,
see right, which isn't actually entirely off. Common law is
(27:23):
the law that's not so much built up out of
legislation but is built upon precedent. It's the what we do.
And actually that is an important part of the American
legal system as well. Precedent is at least as important
as you know, legislation in terms of how laws are
happening and the history of English common law. I usually
I try to avoid English history, like whenever I can
(27:45):
on this show because I'm tired of it and they
get too much airway me.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
Watching Jeopardy, Like whenever there's a category that's like different
English kings and queens.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
Like, yeah, I don't know. I can't bring myself to
care about who beget whom on an island that was
a backwater until it suddenly ruled the entire world.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
Everyone has the same name.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
Yeah, yeah, it's like keeping track of pope's names. You're like,
but you all use the same one. That's not fair.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
I want someone to pick like a pope name like
trans woman, pick their name or against then like or
like literally a transition like Pope Lavender, or like if
you're an envy, it's like pope cyberpunk. Like, let's do it,
let's try it.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
I will say the name Pope Innocent is a pretty like.
I just finished watching Covenant, and I'm.
Speaker 3 (28:33):
Like, Conclave, Conclave, different movie, different movie, thank.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
You, thank you.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
Wait up, what's Covenant? It's it a war movie.
Speaker 3 (28:40):
It's a horror movie. It's like an I think there's
like a non horror movie.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
Okay, wait, what would everyone's pope name be?
Speaker 2 (28:48):
Now? Crap? Uh, well, I already picked Margaret.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
Magdalen. I don't know what about you all.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
Yeah, I'll Gooe Magdalen or just like cut to the
chase and pope prostitute, you.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
Know, yeah, yeah, go all in.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
No, there are so many cool pope names though, it's
hard to keep track of.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
But yeah, Francis was actually a really good one because
he's the patron sat of animals.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
I know. Actually Francis is like if I was a boy,
I'd probably pick Francis. I kind of like him.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Yeah, and I've heard that like one of the reasons
he chose Pope Leo was because of like the last
Pope Leo's like focus on the industrial Revolution and then
like AI and tech, which is like it's really cool
when people like the names are picked for specific reasons,
and it's always interesting to see why I have them.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
Yeah, I was, honestly, I mean, who knows what will
happen by the time anyone's listening to this in the future.
I was really grateful that that they picked someone who's
like on the right side about Palestine more than anything else,
like geopolitical shit, Like we're not going to get a
Catholic pope who thinks that trans women are women.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
But like they could have picked a like absolute like
evil monster who hates every There were options like that.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
Yeah, in the like.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Like people talk about the popes, and I'm like, guys,
it's the fucking pope, like this man's legs that migrants
are people?
Speaker 2 (30:09):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I like happy for that.
Speaker 3 (30:11):
It was like the fucking NFL NBA draft. That's how
it was being reported on. And like there was like
certain people where they would like have like their name
and like what they support, and there was like one
motherfucker where it was like this dude supports fucking nobody.
What do you mean.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
It's like I did.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
Love the Conclave fancams. That was so funny, so funny.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
What were the fancams?
Speaker 1 (30:34):
Just people like people putting together like fancams of different
possible nominees for the pope. Oh shit, Yeah, it was incredible.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
I didn't follow this as closely as you all. I
had friends who were following it closely who would message
me about it. Someone messaged me on the day that
it was Annown, message me Conclave and I was like,
I haven't seen it yet, and they're like, no, the
real one.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
Amazing.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
And then I watched the movie.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
It's a great movie.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
Yes, such a good movie. I was honestly like, it's
like up my alley in a lot of ways because
I like weird history and like weird Catholic shit.
Speaker 3 (31:07):
But like Catholicism is cinematic.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
Yeah, Minds is such a good actor, but it is
so disappointing how he pronounces his name.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
I know it is mac Quid. Doesn't know who that is.
It's the lead guy from the movie the guy. Who's
the guy, the guy? Okay, yeah, yeah, the.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
Guy and his name is spelled Ralph Fiennis. That has
pronounced ray fines. Yeah, it's really fucked up. Honestly, I say,
as someone with the last name of Abu Gazol is
a weird.
Speaker 3 (31:37):
Name, and you're right.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
Sorry, Magpie, No, it's okay. I don't know how to
transition ads. But here's some ads. Maybe one of them
is for a pope. I don't know, they're probably not.
I think we have that probably is a band category.
We probably don't get religion ads. I hope we don't.
We try not do whatever you want around religion. They're
all fine and all bad equally. Here's the ads and
(32:04):
we're back, and we totally didn't spend all of the
time during the ads talking about attractive cardinals in the
movie Stanley Tucci, I think I would actually be better
at all this. It's like, I actually do watch a
lot of movies and TV and all that shit. I
just I'm a weird combo of face blind and don't
pay attention to names unless they're like literally in the
history books that I'm running scripts about. And so whenever
(32:25):
I watch movies with people, I'm like, wait, which one's
that guy? And they're like, literally the main character. We've
been watching this TV show for a week, and I'm like,
but he's wearing a different coat.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
I understand that struggle.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
No one can change clothes run. He's an outfit. That's
how we can track them. So there's this way that
people tend to understand the origins of Western democracy, and
I'm going to argue that this particular way of thinking
about things is incomplete. The usual story seems to start
with autocracy, you start with the king, you start with
(32:58):
ye oldie sortie times, and everything is only England, and
England's the only thing that matters. But unfortunately we're stuck
with it because they exported law all over the world.
So we got to talk about it.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
Wait, are we just skipping over like Athens and such?
Speaker 2 (33:11):
Well, in this context, yes, because I'm not going to
track from Greek democracy, I'm going to attract from like
folk democracy coming from gotcha. And actually, interestingly, I think
the Roman legal system doesn't influence the English legal system
as much as the folks moot stuff that we're going
to talk about, but fascinating, but I'm not certain about that.
I know there is Roman influence. So when people talk
(33:34):
about the like you have the only sort of times
of kings and monarchs and some rich nobles underneath them,
and then people are like, bo, what about democracy? And
I guess those people actually usually are reference in Greek
democracy when they claim these things. In this telling, it
is rich people clamoring for democracy. The merchant classes, the
people who got rich through the economic system that will
eventually create capitalism, are usually in the sort of English
(33:56):
and Western European sense, presented as the people who sort
of first are doing the voting, creating the parliaments and
the constitutions. The English Civil War is an example of this.
The rich overthrow the king for a while, and they're
actually worse to the poor overall, and they also genocide
the Irish, so I'm pretty mad about that. Then the
king comes back. But the work of building democracy in
(34:18):
the story is largely done by the rich slowly getting
more power through parliamentary systems or whatever. Only later do
the poor start having their way. By the time of
the French Revolution, the rich get better at turning poor
people against the nobility. But again usually it's the bourgeois
classes that are doing well in this reading. In this
story of the origins of democracy, it rises at the
(34:40):
same time as capitalism, and not coincidentally capitalism, the rule
of the rich is democracy in this telling. Most versions
of the history of Habeas corpus tie into this version
of events, because when you look up the history of
Habeas Corpus, you're going to get and it's not wrong
this stuff. But you start with the Magna Carta, which
(35:03):
is the first western constitution in Europe. This is a
really good example of they have no names. They have
one name. They literally could all be named King John.
If you read me anything that happened during English history,
if it happened more than two hundred years ago, and
named the King John, I would just believe you with
a straight face. King John had just lost a war
(35:24):
with France, and he was trying to get the barons
to pay him what was called scootage or scuttage or
some shit, which is basically, look, I'm either going to
can script you or you give me money, which is
a fairly common way to get money for your war.
The Confederacy were really good at this too. Honestly, the
Union probably did it too. Everyone fucking does this shit
give me money to rebuild a military. He had also
(35:47):
just been excommunicated by our friend, the Pope. I believe innocent.
I think it was one of the innocents, but I
might actually not sure. I literally didn't put the Pope
name in here, and it only comes up because we
were just talking about it. He's extra unpopular, this King John.
In twelve fifteen, a bunch of barons led a rebellion.
They conquered London and King John surrendered. Rather than depose him,
(36:10):
they made him sign a document giving rich people more rights.
This is called the Magna Carta. Is the first written
constitution in Europe. It really and truly was for rich people.
Peasants didn't gain shit out of it for centuries, but
it includes the seed of habeas corpus. Article thirty nine
of it says quote no Freeman, which is a pretty
(36:33):
important emphasis right there. No freeman shall be taken or imprisoned,
but by the lawful judgment of his peers, or by
the rule of the land. And like what a thing
to have to write down, like rite you have to
break the law to go to jail, you know, or
you have to get accused of breaking the law to
go to jail. Do you know when the poor started
(36:55):
getting their rights in England during this time? The fucking
Black Death when half the population died, of thirty to
fifty percent of the population died, there's a labor shortage.
Speaker 1 (37:08):
That's some leverage, baby, Yeah, that's some fucking leverage.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
Most of the articles you'll find about this, if they're
not like academic articles specifically about this, very specifically, are
pointing out the comparison to the COVID era. No one
wants to work anymore when people actually start having to
pay decent wages. Yeah, and so the peasants around this
time managed to get wages two or three times higher,
(37:33):
and a lot of times they still were like, no,
I just straight up don't want to work, Like everyone
I know just died, and I assume I'm about to die,
you know what, I don't feel like right selling my
precious time on this earth.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
Yeah, and it's not like they need to like get
a bunch of money to you know, buy products and services.
If you want a transition, yeah, we already did it.
If you don't, this is just a really good transition
that's been missed.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
Yeah, I know, especially since I really.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
That last look, just imagine that that was the one
we used last and yeah, we're all good.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
You know what, let's just throw it an extra ad
for potatoes.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
Potatoes delicious, that's the ad.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
Yeah, I'm trying to grow a bunch of my porch
again right now. I will probably fail like previous times
because I refuse to read instructions, But tomatoes are easier
to grow than potatoes. I'm just gonna say it anyway. Also,
during the Black Death, really silver lining here. The Black
Death was very bad. The silver lining here.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
The very like rusted over silver lining. Yeah, the one
that needs to be polished a hell of a lot.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
Yeah one you got to like wade through the corpses
of your family to get to It's bad. A lot
of property reverted to the commons just by default, because
a lot of stuff was abandoned because a lot of
people died, and it didn't overall pick poor versus rich
who died, you know, because they didn't understand how disease works.
(38:57):
Now that people understand how disease works, disease kills poor
people more. It's great. Not coincidentally, the rights of women
evolved after the Black Death as well, specifically a lot
of like property rights because they're like, well who owns this?
And you're like, well, my husband, did you know?
Speaker 1 (39:13):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (39:13):
I do? Now, fuck you, there's nobody around. By the
seventeenth century, Parliament was fighting the king again. Sixteen seventy nine,
you get the Habeas Corpus Act. This doesn't create Habeas
corpus that already exists. It gives deadlines for responding to
rits of Habeas corpus. It starts being like, hey, you know,
you actually got to take that shit seriously. If a
(39:33):
prisoner is like, hey, why am I in here, you
actually have a timeline that you got to give them
an answer. And from there it passed into the US Constitution.
It remains there to this day. Although nineteen ninety six
Congress passed the Anti Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act
I put a bunch of limitations on rits of habeas
(39:54):
corpus mostly around, like you could kind of write them
over and over again. You're on death row, Like why not,
you know, just be like, hey, why am I in here?
Speaker 3 (40:04):
Hey?
Speaker 2 (40:05):
Why am I in here? And then you get this
argument about Guantanamo Bay in two thousand and five and
two thousand and six, they were like, heyeas corpus does
not apply to people in Guantanamo Bay. Two thousand and
eight Supreme Court said, yeah, it does. This is a
true retelling. But I want to go back further because
(40:25):
I think it is a dangerous myth to entangle the
rise of democracy with the rise of capitalism and tie
it specifically to the Magna Carta, as if that were
like just fully formed out of their heads. They were like, well,
what if we do this thing? You know what if
we have a parliament, right, even if we keep our
narrative in England, we can tell a completely different story
(40:45):
by telling a larger story, a story I consider more accurate.
It is a story about how democratic practices and ideas
around due process actually originate way earlier, originating in tribal
or clan structures going back to the second millennium BC,
and most specifically, we can discuss them during the quote
(41:05):
unquote Dark Ages, the era between the end of Roman
rule in the early four hundreds and the Norman conquest
of ten sixty six. These ideas about bottom up decision
making and non punitive justice systems were just under the surface.
Western democracy would be a whole lot better and a
whole lot more democratic if it recognized its actual roots.
(41:28):
There's this old joke, what do I think about Western democracy?
Sounds like a good idea. Someone should try it, but
I know, thank you, which could lead very well into
this is the end of the episode. We're gonna talk about, well,
all the shit that I just pitched and cliffhangered on Wednesday.
What do you got to plug here at the end?
Like someone trying Western democracy? That was my setup, but
(41:49):
then I ruined it by over explaining it.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
Yeah. Yeah, So I'm running for Congress in the ninth
District of Illinois, and you can find what I'm about
at Cappreillinois dot com. That's Cat with a K. We
just recently made our volunteer discord server public, so come hang.
We need local and remote volunteers, and if you've got
a few bucks to spare it consider sending them to
my campaign. This is a grassroots progressive campaign. We're taking
(42:12):
zero corporate money, and we're also trying to use our
money in smarter, more effective ways that actually help people.
So if you got a few bucks to spare, consider
sending them our away. Our average donation is just about
thirty one bucks. And so instead of wasting it on
consultants who haven't won elections in a decade, or ads
that aren't actually effective and are just kind of plastered everywhere,
(42:33):
we're trying to do things like mutual aid and direct action.
So like we just in exchange for a food donation,
we gave people yard signs. We were able to fully
stock a food pantry last weekend our kickoff event to
keep it accessible. It wasn't like five hundred dollars a plate.
You had to bring a box of Pazard tampons, and
we ended up collecting our fifty six hundred for people
who can't afford them. And we just launch our high
school public service grant program for kids who want to
(42:54):
do mutual aid projects this summer. Yeah, Catfreillinois dot com.
Come hang and hope to see in the discord.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
Hell yeah, And if people want to hear us talking
more about other stuff. Kat was on a year or
so ago. We talked about community gardens.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
Actually almost yeah, it was the day I got laid off.
Speaker 2 (43:11):
Yeah, oh congrats.
Speaker 1 (43:12):
Yeah, that's right. That was the day I got laid
off and I was like bailing. And actually that episode
like we want to help kids build community gardens with
this grant program, and that partially inspired it. So thank
you for that.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
Oh hell yeah, well thanks to the people who built
all those community gardens and too. Yeah, and listen to
other podcasts if they exist, Sophie. Are their other podcasts?
Speaker 3 (43:38):
Yeah, cools and Media dot com.
Speaker 2 (43:41):
Hell yeah, Well, see you all on Wednesday.
Speaker 3 (43:44):
Bye, cool people who did cool stuff. It's a production
of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts and cool Zone Media,
visit our website cool Zonemedia dot com, or check us
out on the I Heard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you get your podcasts.
Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Hello, and welcome to Cool People Did Cool Stuff. You're
a weekly reminder that as bad thing happened, a good
thing try to happen. Sometimes does happen. Sometimes good thing happen,
and that's what make bad thing.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
Hi.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
I'm your host, Margaret Kiljoy, and this is a podcast
that I run twice a week, and I have a guest,
and my guest is Katabugazala. How are you.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
I'm doing great, Margaret, How are you?
Speaker 2 (00:27):
I am doing okay. I'm clearly a little bit frazzled.
I'm suddenly by the speed at which I'm talking thinking
I might have eaten more sugar than I thought today.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
I love that for you. That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Yeah. Kat is a journalist, a commentator, and now a
twenty twenty six candidate for US House of Representatives the
ninth district of Illinois.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
That is accurate. That is what I'm running for. And
we're almost at two months of the campaign now.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
And basically, like y'all are just trying to primary a
Democrat is not doing their job, Like I don't know
enough about the stuff I'm not trying to Yeah, I
don't know. I mean the words in your mouth about it.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
So the incumbent actually announced that she won't be seeking reelection.
Oh okay, her name is jan Schakowski and she has
been a progressive member of Congress. Oh, my grandmother, who
was like a GOP operative hated her, which is like
an endorsement of Schaikowski's character. She is not seeking a
fifteenth term, and I announced before she announced, not like
(01:23):
as a vendetta against her. But I think that there's
a problem in the party of not having competitive primaries.
And there hasn't been a competitive primary in this district
since nineteen ninety eight, five months before I was born.
And so we're trying to do like a different style
of campaigning, spending our money on good stuff like that
helps people instead of consultants and a bunch of ads
(01:46):
that might not be effectively strategized. I know, super radical.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Yeah, I feel like the best advertising for you is
how much everyone's trying to attack you right now. That's
how I keep being aware of your Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
People have been losing their minds in the funniest way.
I've been called Maga hamas Republican. Someone alleged that's as
the La Terror cell. I've been called a carpetbagger because
I'm a transplant and like that's also fine. We're just
trying to prove through art, like you don't have to
(02:18):
legally vote for me, Like there's not a law that
you have to vote for.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Me until you get into the office. And then I
see that that's one of your campaign promises is to
suspend democracy.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
And then we're all in on autocracy. Obviously. The fact
that I am dating Ben Collins of Onion fame is
a massive journalistic malpractice as well, because the Onion is
America's finest news source. And then someone did attack my
cat and that's like the one here. They went after you.
(02:47):
They were like in fuck your cat, and I was like, bro,
you you're winning the argument. Obviously. When you're like fuck
your cat, you're winning this argument.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Okay, as somebody who knows you and Ben, and how
dare they come after your heat?
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Okay? And like she was fine, but like we were like, what,
it's fucked up.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
I'm angry.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
I think that all the people, especially when they're at
the point where they're attacking your cat, that's probably just
good press for you.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
Point.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Yeah, someone today was like, because I said that I
worked from home when I was, you know, like creating content,
doing journalism, and they were like, so your office is
just a front, like to show that you're in the district.
And I posted a picture of me drafting my response
in the office, and I was like, you can come
by the office right now. Like I'm I am recording
this from the campaign office, as y'all can see my
(03:35):
field organizer. I'm an astroturft candidate. We all know this.
Astroturft candidates have twelve thousand individual donors. We all know this.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
I just they came after Heater the babe of a cat.
She's such a babe. What are you doing Mittens?
Speaker 1 (03:52):
She's just a girly pop Come on this big she's
so tiny.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
But yeah, that's where we're at.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
That's wild.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Well we're gonna talk about Wait, first, we're going to
talk about the rest of the people we're here, including
the other voice you're hearing, which is Sophie Hy Sophie.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
Hey, I'm still really mad about Here.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Is Anderson back there.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Anderson is right next to me and her sister Truman
has taking a nap at her great.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
And Renshaw is asleep at my feet. Incredibly is surprising
and lucky because he has been running around like wild
all day.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Wait is that a dog?
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Yeahh Wrenshaw's my dog.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
In early days of Anderson, back when she was like
borderline mouldoerish because she was like still a rescue and
was like a tiny little thing, I had this very
evil roommate who like in the middle of me being like, no, really,
you have to pay your rent on time. There's three
other people who live here.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
She was like, your.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
Dog's fat, and I was like, I'm gonna beat your
fucking ass. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
I mean that's the only response you can really have.
Like she can't advocate for herself. I mean she can
obviously because she's smart and speaks human language. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Like, actually Anderson steps in for Sophia sometimes when Sophie isn't.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
That's true. Their voices are identical.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
I'd let Anderson drive my car, okay, like she could
handle it, Like I would let her handle all of
my finances, drive my car, and like perform surgery.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
I trust her.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
I know she has no thumbs, but I would trust her.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
So I wish I didn't have thumbs. That would make
life it's simpler, you know.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
Some nice person would take care of you the way
I take care of of my dogs.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
It's just Ben.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
It just just Ben's like, oh, good.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Girl, good girl, Carol.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Well who takes care of us. Also, Eva is our
audio editor, and everyone has to say hi, hi.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
Eva, Hiva hi Eva, you for editing this audio. Audio
editing is source in my opinion, So you're a hero.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
I know.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
It's the most thankless job. It's actually the with other
podcasts that I work on. It's absolutely the choke point
where we're like, oh, we'd like to release more and more,
Like no one wants to edit this.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
No one wants to edit this, like the benefit of video,
you know.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Yeah, Like if you're a DIY podcast, pay your audio
editors before you pay anyone else, because it is the
job that doesn't build you a platform. It doesn't like anyway.
Eva's are audio editor andret and our theme music was
written for us by unwomen and so recently, uncol people
did cool stuff I've been thinking about for some weird reason.
(06:28):
Even as someone who's not particularly in love with the
concept of the state as a method of human organization
and society, I've certainly become very aware of a lot
of really good things that are currently being done for
us through governmental systems as we watch them get stripped
away one by one in our society. We talked about
vaccines last week, and this week we're going to talk
(06:51):
about the writ of Habeas corpus and what's the cool
people connection with it. Every single right we have comes
from somewhere, and usually they come from people who are
cool or sometimes complicated, people who are probably not cool
as individuals, but who accomplish something cool, which is honestly
(07:11):
a little bit more realistic because most of us aren't perfect.
So I am yeah, I know, that's why. Yeah, yeah,
but most people podcasters are oddly perfect. It's kind of
strange you'd think that they're not because of the destructive
effect we've had on society.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Women podcasters are Oh that's true.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Yeah yeah, I actually don't have a counterpoint to I'm like, no, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
You had to go through it and you have to
be like, well, you're right.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Yeah, I feel really bad when Nope, I'm not going
to talk shit on podcasts in general as the field
I work in. Anyway, everyone is equally entitled to start
a podcast, regardless of their gender identity.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Look I'm not saying you can't start a podcast. I'm
just saying women podcasters are perfect.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Yeah, exactly, and it's hard to compete, you know.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
So the story of Habeas Corpus, and I'm going to
explain what it is in a second before we actually
explain what it is, Habeas Corpus is basically like due process.
I mean there's a more specific thing, right, but the
idea that like, they can't just throw you in a
jail because they feel like it, which is a pretty
fundamental idea.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
I'm a fan.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Yeah, some of its concepts, although not its name, can
be traced back to pre Roman Britain and the folk
legal system of different clan groups there. And that's what
we're gonna do this week because I think it's a
good story and I think it helps us understand what's
at stake, because as probably most people who are listening
(08:38):
to this are aware, or you're listening in the future
and you're like, ah, I remember when people at Habeas Corpus.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
That was cute.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
The Trump administration is openly talking about considering suspending Habeas Corpus.
You ever heard of this, I know you? Have you
ever heard of this? Guy? Named Stephen Miller.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Yeah, I've heard of him.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
I believe he can legally be described as a right
wing goon. I think that that's a.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
I would say, like a hard boiled egg that is
filled with hate instead of an embryo of a chicken.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Yeah that's fair. Okay, I can picture this man because
he's the hard boiled egg wear in a suit. But yeah,
I can't always keep all their origin stories apart. Do
you remember more about this particular man.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
So, Steven Miller is basically like a Trump goon. He
helped ray like a bunch of Trump's speeches, and every
single thing he says is wrong and evil. I've seen
him way more than most people, or that like any
human being should. While I was wondering Fox News and
he comes on essentially says the most racist shit you've
(09:42):
ever heard from someone's mouth and thinks that it's okay.
He also has a really annoying voice, especially from a
party that loves to complain about like vocal fry and
like especially like women's voices. He sounds like a valley girl.
It's like listening to any clip of him, and I've
never heard more of a valley girl voice.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
I've never won to listen to him before, but now
I'm like, oh, maybe I will.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Next time. You see a clip, just like listen to
it and you're like, oh my god. It sounds like
like an early two thousand sexist comedy idea of a bimbo,
except instead of a hot girl, it's Stephen Miller.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
He's just jealous that he can't twirl his hair around
his finger.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Exactly because once again, hardboiled egg. Yeah, so he was
like a Trump goon and basically helped provide the architecture,
like the foundation for some of Trump's most racist policies,
and that's what he continues to do to this day.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Yeah, that tracks because on May ninth, twenty twenty five,
he threatened to suspend habeas corpus, which is basically him
saying he wants to suspend the rule of law. It
is the declare marshal law thing. Practically, he said, quote
that's an option we're actively looking at. Theoretically, in the
(10:55):
United States, the right to the writ of habeas corpus
can only be susp bended when, in to quote Article
one of the Constitution, cases of rebellion or invasion, the
public safety may require it I think that there is
a word for a right that can be taken away
by the government whenever they want, and that word is
(11:16):
not right. That word is privilege. Because the Constitution says
that you can take away people's right to habeas corpus.
It's supposed to be only used in extreme emergencies. But
here we go. The Trump administration consistently presents the existence
of migrants and people seeking asylum as an invasion. Trump
wants wartime powers, so he needs a war, so he's
(11:39):
calling the border a war. Federal judges keep saying, look,
immigration is not invasion. What the fuck is wrong with you?
Even I think the ones who don't like it, the
shitty ones, there's still like, that's just not actually what
invasion is.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Yeah, an invasion you would have like an authority saying
let's invade this, and not people trying to find a
better life.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Yeah, so what is habeas corpus? Well, it is these
goods and services. That's what they're trying to take away
from you. They're trying to take away from you your
liberty to listen to ads.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
They don't want you to listen to ads and support
the rule of law.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Yeah, that's right. Here's some ads. You can listen to
them if you want, or you can skip them. I
don't care and er back. Habeas corpus. Habeas corpus is
medieval Latin, is not ancient Latin or whatever. It's medieval Latin,
and it's Latin for you must have the body for
(12:36):
a really, really long time. I assume this meant you, like,
can't get charged with murder if there's no dead body.
That was just like what I thought it meant. I
thought it was like, oh, you need like you need
the evidence, right, Yeah, it actually means body like person.
I spent a long time. I read like eight articles
about this, because lots of different people will like to
argue about what the Latin means, and most articles about
(12:57):
habeas corpus kind of gloss over this part. I think
because people understand it, including the people writing those articles.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
I mean, that's like how my middle school teacher described it,
of like you have to have like that.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Yeah, I think, and maybe a legal scholar will tell
me that I'm wrong, But I spend a really long
time researching this this week. I think this means body
like person, like you should have the person who is
in trouble should be brought to the court for assessment.
It means bring us this guy. It means like, well,
(13:26):
let's bring them here and we'll figure it out. Yeah.
Is habeas corpus? To quote the National Constitution Center, the
writ of habeas corpus is quote a means by which
a prisoner can test the legality of her detention. A
person who believes she is being imprisoned illegally can file
a petition asking a judge to issue a writ of
(13:48):
habeas corpus. When a prisoner files a petition for a
writ of habeas corpus, her custodian must explain why the
restraint is lawful. If the explanation does not satisfy the court,
they will order the custodian to release her. Basically, this
is the foundation of the idea that everyone is owed
their day in court. It is the basis of you
(14:10):
can't actually just hold people in jail indefinitely without accusing
them of a crime or setting up a trial. It
applies to US citizens and non citizens alike, and in
two thousand and eight it was expanded to include non
citizens outside the US who were held in US military detention.
There was a lot of arguing about Guantanamo Bay and
its legality, and specifically, in two thousand and eight they
(14:34):
expanded it to include people detained at Guantanamo Bay, but
in two thousand and six Congress said that it doesn't
apply to enemy combatants. So I'm sure that if Habeas
corpus continues, that's what they'll move to next, is they
will decide that everyone is an enemy combatant. The future
is bright. I'm wearing shades. It wouldn't be a supposedly
(14:57):
fundamental right in democracy if it weren't being suspended. Wait,
I actually can't tell. Oh, you actually put on real shades.
They look so much like the shades that Zoom can
put on automatically.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
Like a little filter.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
Yeah. Anyone who's curious if dad has the cool shades?
The answer is yes, so fucking cool. So it wouldn't
be a supposedly fundamental right in democracy if it hadn't
been suspended. Again and again, it's not without precedent for
the suspension of Habeas corpus. The way that they're talking
(15:31):
about doing it is without precedent. The first time we
suspended this writ was before we were even a country,
during the Revolutionary War. A bunch of governors became autocrats
by suspending the Writ of Habeas Corpus, which also goes
to show that this is an older concept than the Constitution.
(15:53):
When Habeas corpus is suspended, the executive branch can just
detain people however it wants, whenever it wants, with no oversight.
The suspension clause is in the Constitution and it doesn't
say who gets to do that suspending, And that's what
a lot of the arguing is about. Right now, it
has been universally understood that Congress is the one that
(16:15):
gets to suspend Habeas corpus because one, it's in a
section where almost everything is talking about Congress, though not
everything in that section is talking about Congress. And two,
it confers ultimate power to the executive branch, so like,
probably the executive branch shouldn't be the one that decides
to get to do it. It seems to me Habeas Corpus,
(16:37):
also called the Great Writ, is actually only mentioned in
the Constitution in the suspension clause. It's not written into
the Constitution that this exists. Because this is considered such
a fundamental right that it didn't even get spelled out.
Everyone just kind of knows about it at the time
that they're writing the Constitution. The entire clause, the entire
(17:02):
discussion of habeas corpus in the Constitution is quote, the
privilege of the rid of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless,
when in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety
may require it. We've suspended it four times in the past.
The first time we did it, it was actually first
enacted by the president. That's the thing that gets like
(17:23):
messy about all this, right, Like, I think I'm curious
your take on this, but I think we're focusing on
the wrong part of this. Everyone's like the president shouldn't
be able to suspend this. I think everyone should get
mad whenever this is suspended by anyone.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
Yeah, and I think it should be like, hey, this
is the exact amount of time, and also like this
is how we would justify it. I don't think it
should be suspended at all. Right, but like if there's
an alien invasion, I guess, like from outer space. I'm
trying to think of like an Independence Day style scenario here, right,
I still think the rule of law would be important.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Yeah, you might get like slowed down, you know, like
I was gonna take you as longer to find a
judge because half of them got killed by the aliens
form outer space.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Yeah, but like if there was like it should be like, yeah,
this is the exact amount of time and why we're
doing it, and like the carveouts, like if there is
a sci fi reason to do this. I'm really trying
to like not even play Devil's Advocate here, just trying
to think of a possible Independence Day was aggressive.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
I mean the first time they suspended it was the
Civil War, right, Yeah, And actually the first people suspended
were the Confederacy, So actually the Confederate States of America
suspended it before the United States of America did. But
like you can sort of see in a civil war.
But I'm also still sort of like, well then you
also have like rules around prisoners of war and it's
(18:44):
just a different thing, right, And so like actually I
think civilians should still have to I just think you
shouldn't be able to throw people in cages unless you
can say why you're throwing them in a cage in
a way that satisfies the judge. Yeah, but the previous
suspensions have also been like I really, well, they actually
haven't all been great, but they included carbouts. They were like,
(19:05):
this is what it's going to come kick back in
and shit like that.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Gotcha.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
I'm going to talk shit on Abraham Lincoln. This is
one of my favorite activities. You're lucky that you didn't
get me talking shit on the Revolutionary War, but you're
going to get me talk to shit on Abraham Lincoln.
The first time we did it, it was enacted by
the President Abraham Lincoln, aka the man who gets credit
for ending legal chattel slavery in the US, despite I
don't think he deserves all that much of that credit
and unjustly avoids getting the blame for overseeing the largest
(19:32):
mass execution in US history when on December twenty sixth,
eighteen sixty two, the US hanged thirty eight Dakota people
who had surrendered in their war against the United States.
And I want to talk about that. I'm going to
side quest on that because I think it's important to
understand when we decide and who we decide. The rule
(19:53):
of law applies to the Dakota were an independent nation
at war with the United States and then they surrendered.
We have rules about that. You're not allowed to execute
all the enemy soldiers, right. The United States disagrees. When
the Dakota surrendered, there were huge trials of enemy combatants.
(20:18):
About three hundred of them were sentenced to death. Abraham
Lincoln was like, well, I want to show that we're
tough but fair. I don't know that's his quote, but
that's his vibe of what he was trying to do.
So we went ahead and proved the exact opposite. He
was not fair. First, he was like, well, I'm only
going to pick the people who are convicted of sexual
assault as part of the raids. That's how I'm going
(20:38):
to pick the people I want to kill. But only
two of the three hundred plus people have been convicted
of that. So he was like, I don't know. I
was just hanging these thirty eight people, and all of
the articles about this are like he personally poured over
the manuscripts to decide who would die. He couldn't have
(21:00):
been reading too closely, because at least two of the
people who had been acquitted were hanged. One was a
white kid who'd been adopted by the Dakota when he
was little, who joined in their war against the United States,
which is a cool thing to do from my point
of view. His name was Wassakun, and I couldn't find
a pronunciation for that name. He was picked by Lincoln
(21:23):
to die despite having been acquitted, as far as I
can tells just literally an oversight. He claims that he
was like, I'm picking all these names carefully, and then
he was just like ah. And then this person, another
Dakota guy who was named Wi chank washto dom Pi,
had a super common nickname. So when they called his
nickname out, he stepped forward, and instead of someone else
with that nickname, he was executed. And the reason I
(21:47):
want to linger on this well one is because it
makes me really angry. When you win at war against
another country, you don't execute their soldiers. And a professor
at the University of Minnesota Law School, Carol Chomsky, who
was husband gnomes the more famous of the two. She
wrote quote, the trials of the Dakota were conducted unfairly
(22:08):
in a variety of ways. The evidence was sparse, the
tribunal was biased, the defendants were unrepresented in unfamiliar proceedings
conducted in a foreign language, and authority for convening the
tribunal was lacking. More fundamentally, neither the military commission nor
the reviewing authorities recognized that they were dealing with the
aftermath of a war fought with a sovereign nation, and
(22:28):
the men who surrendered were entitled to treatment in accordance
with that status. In order to mass execute these people,
the town had to declare martial law and forbid the
sale of alcohol because four thousand races showed up to
celebrate the hanging. So following the rule of law has
never been the US's strong suit, even with one of
(22:49):
the most venerated presidents we've had, But people have tried
to make it follow the law right like even in
this case there was a try. There shouldn't have been
a trial from my point of view because the prisoner
of war thing. But I don't know you whatever, and
so getting rid of habeas corpus is like just getting
rid of fucking even the pretense. Abraham Lincoln suspended the
(23:14):
rid of habeas corpus during the Civil War. This pissed
everyone off because everyone assumed it took an Act of
Congress to do that. He did it while there was
a specific case happening and Congress wasn't in session as
soon as Congress was in session. They were like yayay, yeah,
it's fine. They like passed the thing that was like,
it's fine that Lincoln did that.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
What was the court case?
Speaker 2 (23:37):
I can't remember the name of it. I stopped side
questing as far I cut back at a certain point.
It was a saboteur from the Confederacy, I think who
was arrested in the North. And I don't know why
that trial wasn't a military trial. I don't know why
that was a civil trial. It might have been because
he was a citizen of the Northern States, Okay, yeah,
(23:59):
And so I don't know the details of why not
enemy combatant in that context thought it. The next time
I was suspended was during reconstruction. This is probably the
one that I have the most sympathy for. It was
suspended during reconstruction in either nine or eleven counties in
South Carolina, depending on your source, in order to fight
the KKK, although I would still argue that fucking clansmen
(24:24):
deserve it to be told that there are clansmen, you know,
like you need to be able to accuse them of
a crime. And then it was suspended in the Philippines
in nineteen oh five when they tried not to be
a colonial territory anymore, and then in Hawaii after Pearl
Harbor in nineteen forty one, this led to martial law
in Hawaii. This is unrelated to the Japanese internment of
one hundred and twenty thousand Japanese Americans who were kept
(24:45):
in concentration camps during World War Two, which was done
by executive order. The argument I would make is that
rights aren't granted to us by the state. There are
concessions that people win from the state that we defend
through legislation, through organizing, and through direct action. That's habeas corpus,
the right to demand a legal justification for why you're
being captain in a cage.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
I'd also just like distress for people on this, like
habeas corpus. It's not just like, oh, you know, you're
accused of being a terrorist, and so we're putting you
in this cell even if like you're not. And it
doesn't have to be like political motivated reasoning. You could
get a parking ticket and they could just throw you
in jail for the rest of your life. You could
(25:27):
jaywalk and be executed by the state and there would
be no problem with that. It's not just if you're
thinking habeas corpus is suspended, that's bad. But like I'm
safe because I'm not you know, a political figure, or
I haven't committed a crime does not matter. You could
(25:48):
literally just be hanging out listening to music in your
home and the state would be justified to throw you
in prison for the rest of your life because they
don't like you or the color of your house is
the wrong shade.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Yeah, and they don't have to prove, you know, if
they're like, oh, well MS thirteen doesn't deserve due process
and you're like, oh, well you're MS thirteen, you're like, well,
no I'm not. You're like, well, I'm not going to
give you a chance to prove.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
It, right, Like if you're wearing a Chicago Bulls hat,
that now means you're MS thirteen. So and Chicago Bulls
gear can just be sent to a concentration camp overseas. Yeah,
that's where we're at. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
And the idea of like, oh, you have tattoos, so
you're in a gang, And it's like have you met
anyone under the age of like fifty five? Like do
you have any friends who are under the age of
fifty five, they have tattoos. Like that's done. That's over that.
Like we all have nose rings and we all have tattoos.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
Yeah, we all have IUDs yeah, and we all yeah,
we take birth control. We take birth control very scary,
and we have internet access like sorry.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
Yeah, so hey, yas corpus as a specific named thing.
And also just the concept of it comes into the
US from English common law, like so much of the
American legal system, and I just took that as like
common law. I don't know what that means. It means folks,
see right, which isn't actually entirely off. Common law is
(27:23):
the law that's not so much built up out of
legislation but is built upon precedent. It's the what we do.
And actually that is an important part of the American
legal system as well. Precedent is at least as important
as you know, legislation in terms of how laws are
happening and the history of English common law. I usually
I try to avoid English history, like whenever I can
(27:45):
on this show because I'm tired of it and they
get too much airway me.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
Watching Jeopardy, Like whenever there's a category that's like different
English kings and queens.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
Like, yeah, I don't know. I can't bring myself to
care about who beget whom on an island that was
a backwater until it suddenly ruled the entire world.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
Everyone has the same name.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
Yeah, yeah, it's like keeping track of pope's names. You're like,
but you all use the same one. That's not fair.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
I want someone to pick like a pope name like
trans woman, pick their name or against then like or
like literally a transition like Pope Lavender, or like if
you're an envy, it's like pope cyberpunk. Like, let's do it,
let's try it.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
I will say the name Pope Innocent is a pretty like.
I just finished watching Covenant, and I'm.
Speaker 3 (28:33):
Like, Conclave, Conclave, different movie, different movie, thank.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
You, thank you.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
Wait up, what's Covenant? It's it a war movie.
Speaker 3 (28:40):
It's a horror movie. It's like an I think there's
like a non horror movie.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
Okay, wait, what would everyone's pope name be?
Speaker 2 (28:48):
Now? Crap? Uh, well, I already picked Margaret.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
Magdalen. I don't know what about you all.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
Yeah, I'll Gooe Magdalen or just like cut to the
chase and pope prostitute, you.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
Know, yeah, yeah, go all in.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
No, there are so many cool pope names though, it's
hard to keep track of.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
But yeah, Francis was actually a really good one because
he's the patron sat of animals.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
I know. Actually Francis is like if I was a boy,
I'd probably pick Francis. I kind of like him.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Yeah, and I've heard that like one of the reasons
he chose Pope Leo was because of like the last
Pope Leo's like focus on the industrial Revolution and then
like AI and tech, which is like it's really cool
when people like the names are picked for specific reasons,
and it's always interesting to see why I have them.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
Yeah, I was, honestly, I mean, who knows what will
happen by the time anyone's listening to this in the future.
I was really grateful that that they picked someone who's
like on the right side about Palestine more than anything else,
like geopolitical shit, Like we're not going to get a
Catholic pope who thinks that trans women are women.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
But like they could have picked a like absolute like
evil monster who hates every There were options like that.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
Yeah, in the like.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Like people talk about the popes, and I'm like, guys,
it's the fucking pope, like this man's legs that migrants
are people?
Speaker 2 (30:09):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I like happy for that.
Speaker 3 (30:11):
It was like the fucking NFL NBA draft. That's how
it was being reported on. And like there was like
certain people where they would like have like their name
and like what they support, and there was like one
motherfucker where it was like this dude supports fucking nobody.
What do you mean.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
It's like I did.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
Love the Conclave fancams. That was so funny, so funny.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
What were the fancams?
Speaker 1 (30:34):
Just people like people putting together like fancams of different
possible nominees for the pope. Oh shit, Yeah, it was incredible.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
I didn't follow this as closely as you all. I
had friends who were following it closely who would message
me about it. Someone messaged me on the day that
it was Annown, message me Conclave and I was like,
I haven't seen it yet, and they're like, no, the
real one.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
Amazing.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
And then I watched the movie.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
It's a great movie.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
Yes, such a good movie. I was honestly like, it's
like up my alley in a lot of ways because
I like weird history and like weird Catholic shit.
Speaker 3 (31:07):
But like Catholicism is cinematic.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
Yeah, Minds is such a good actor, but it is
so disappointing how he pronounces his name.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
I know it is mac Quid. Doesn't know who that is.
It's the lead guy from the movie the guy. Who's
the guy, the guy? Okay, yeah, yeah, the.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
Guy and his name is spelled Ralph Fiennis. That has
pronounced ray fines. Yeah, it's really fucked up. Honestly, I say,
as someone with the last name of Abu Gazol is
a weird.
Speaker 3 (31:37):
Name, and you're right.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
Sorry, Magpie, No, it's okay. I don't know how to
transition ads. But here's some ads. Maybe one of them
is for a pope. I don't know, they're probably not.
I think we have that probably is a band category.
We probably don't get religion ads. I hope we don't.
We try not do whatever you want around religion. They're
all fine and all bad equally. Here's the ads and
(32:04):
we're back, and we totally didn't spend all of the
time during the ads talking about attractive cardinals in the
movie Stanley Tucci, I think I would actually be better
at all this. It's like, I actually do watch a
lot of movies and TV and all that shit. I
just I'm a weird combo of face blind and don't
pay attention to names unless they're like literally in the
history books that I'm running scripts about. And so whenever
(32:25):
I watch movies with people, I'm like, wait, which one's
that guy? And they're like, literally the main character. We've
been watching this TV show for a week, and I'm like,
but he's wearing a different coat.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
I understand that struggle.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
No one can change clothes run. He's an outfit. That's
how we can track them. So there's this way that
people tend to understand the origins of Western democracy, and
I'm going to argue that this particular way of thinking
about things is incomplete. The usual story seems to start
with autocracy, you start with the king, you start with
(32:58):
ye oldie sortie times, and everything is only England, and
England's the only thing that matters. But unfortunately we're stuck
with it because they exported law all over the world.
So we got to talk about it.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
Wait, are we just skipping over like Athens and such?
Speaker 2 (33:11):
Well, in this context, yes, because I'm not going to
track from Greek democracy, I'm going to attract from like
folk democracy coming from gotcha. And actually, interestingly, I think
the Roman legal system doesn't influence the English legal system
as much as the folks moot stuff that we're going
to talk about, but fascinating, but I'm not certain about that.
I know there is Roman influence. So when people talk
(33:34):
about the like you have the only sort of times
of kings and monarchs and some rich nobles underneath them,
and then people are like, bo, what about democracy? And
I guess those people actually usually are reference in Greek
democracy when they claim these things. In this telling, it
is rich people clamoring for democracy. The merchant classes, the
people who got rich through the economic system that will
eventually create capitalism, are usually in the sort of English
(33:56):
and Western European sense, presented as the people who sort
of first are doing the voting, creating the parliaments and
the constitutions. The English Civil War is an example of this.
The rich overthrow the king for a while, and they're
actually worse to the poor overall, and they also genocide
the Irish, so I'm pretty mad about that. Then the
king comes back. But the work of building democracy in
(34:18):
the story is largely done by the rich slowly getting
more power through parliamentary systems or whatever. Only later do
the poor start having their way. By the time of
the French Revolution, the rich get better at turning poor
people against the nobility. But again usually it's the bourgeois
classes that are doing well in this reading. In this
story of the origins of democracy, it rises at the
(34:40):
same time as capitalism, and not coincidentally capitalism, the rule
of the rich is democracy in this telling. Most versions
of the history of Habeas corpus tie into this version
of events, because when you look up the history of
Habeas Corpus, you're going to get and it's not wrong
this stuff. But you start with the Magna Carta, which
(35:03):
is the first western constitution in Europe. This is a
really good example of they have no names. They have
one name. They literally could all be named King John.
If you read me anything that happened during English history,
if it happened more than two hundred years ago, and
named the King John, I would just believe you with
a straight face. King John had just lost a war
(35:24):
with France, and he was trying to get the barons
to pay him what was called scootage or scuttage or
some shit, which is basically, look, I'm either going to
can script you or you give me money, which is
a fairly common way to get money for your war.
The Confederacy were really good at this too. Honestly, the
Union probably did it too. Everyone fucking does this shit
give me money to rebuild a military. He had also
(35:47):
just been excommunicated by our friend, the Pope. I believe innocent.
I think it was one of the innocents, but I
might actually not sure. I literally didn't put the Pope
name in here, and it only comes up because we
were just talking about it. He's extra unpopular, this King John.
In twelve fifteen, a bunch of barons led a rebellion.
They conquered London and King John surrendered. Rather than depose him,
(36:10):
they made him sign a document giving rich people more rights.
This is called the Magna Carta. Is the first written
constitution in Europe. It really and truly was for rich people.
Peasants didn't gain shit out of it for centuries, but
it includes the seed of habeas corpus. Article thirty nine
of it says quote no Freeman, which is a pretty
(36:33):
important emphasis right there. No freeman shall be taken or imprisoned,
but by the lawful judgment of his peers, or by
the rule of the land. And like what a thing
to have to write down, like rite you have to
break the law to go to jail, you know, or
you have to get accused of breaking the law to
go to jail. Do you know when the poor started
(36:55):
getting their rights in England during this time? The fucking
Black Death when half the population died, of thirty to
fifty percent of the population died, there's a labor shortage.
Speaker 1 (37:08):
That's some leverage, baby, Yeah, that's some fucking leverage.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
Most of the articles you'll find about this, if they're
not like academic articles specifically about this, very specifically, are
pointing out the comparison to the COVID era. No one
wants to work anymore when people actually start having to
pay decent wages. Yeah, and so the peasants around this
time managed to get wages two or three times higher,
(37:33):
and a lot of times they still were like, no,
I just straight up don't want to work, Like everyone
I know just died, and I assume I'm about to die,
you know what, I don't feel like right selling my
precious time on this earth.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
Yeah, and it's not like they need to like get
a bunch of money to you know, buy products and services.
If you want a transition, yeah, we already did it.
If you don't, this is just a really good transition
that's been missed.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
Yeah, I know, especially since I really.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
That last look, just imagine that that was the one
we used last and yeah, we're all good.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
You know what, let's just throw it an extra ad
for potatoes.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
Potatoes delicious, that's the ad.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
Yeah, I'm trying to grow a bunch of my porch
again right now. I will probably fail like previous times
because I refuse to read instructions, But tomatoes are easier
to grow than potatoes. I'm just gonna say it anyway. Also,
during the Black Death, really silver lining here. The Black
Death was very bad. The silver lining here.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
The very like rusted over silver lining. Yeah, the one
that needs to be polished a hell of a lot.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
Yeah one you got to like wade through the corpses
of your family to get to It's bad. A lot
of property reverted to the commons just by default, because
a lot of stuff was abandoned because a lot of
people died, and it didn't overall pick poor versus rich
who died, you know, because they didn't understand how disease works.
(38:57):
Now that people understand how disease works, disease kills poor
people more. It's great. Not coincidentally, the rights of women
evolved after the Black Death as well, specifically a lot
of like property rights because they're like, well who owns this?
And you're like, well, my husband, did you know?
Speaker 1 (39:13):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (39:13):
I do? Now, fuck you, there's nobody around. By the
seventeenth century, Parliament was fighting the king again. Sixteen seventy nine,
you get the Habeas Corpus Act. This doesn't create Habeas
corpus that already exists. It gives deadlines for responding to
rits of Habeas corpus. It starts being like, hey, you know,
you actually got to take that shit seriously. If a
(39:33):
prisoner is like, hey, why am I in here, you
actually have a timeline that you got to give them
an answer. And from there it passed into the US Constitution.
It remains there to this day. Although nineteen ninety six
Congress passed the Anti Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act
I put a bunch of limitations on rits of habeas
(39:54):
corpus mostly around, like you could kind of write them
over and over again. You're on death row, Like why not,
you know, just be like, hey, why am I in here?
Speaker 3 (40:04):
Hey?
Speaker 2 (40:05):
Why am I in here? And then you get this
argument about Guantanamo Bay in two thousand and five and
two thousand and six, they were like, heyeas corpus does
not apply to people in Guantanamo Bay. Two thousand and
eight Supreme Court said, yeah, it does. This is a
true retelling. But I want to go back further because
(40:25):
I think it is a dangerous myth to entangle the
rise of democracy with the rise of capitalism and tie
it specifically to the Magna Carta, as if that were
like just fully formed out of their heads. They were like, well,
what if we do this thing? You know what if
we have a parliament, right, even if we keep our
narrative in England, we can tell a completely different story
(40:45):
by telling a larger story, a story I consider more accurate.
It is a story about how democratic practices and ideas
around due process actually originate way earlier, originating in tribal
or clan structures going back to the second millennium BC,
and most specifically, we can discuss them during the quote
(41:05):
unquote Dark Ages, the era between the end of Roman
rule in the early four hundreds and the Norman conquest
of ten sixty six. These ideas about bottom up decision
making and non punitive justice systems were just under the surface.
Western democracy would be a whole lot better and a
whole lot more democratic if it recognized its actual roots.
(41:28):
There's this old joke, what do I think about Western democracy?
Sounds like a good idea. Someone should try it, but
I know, thank you, which could lead very well into
this is the end of the episode. We're gonna talk about, well,
all the shit that I just pitched and cliffhangered on Wednesday.
What do you got to plug here at the end?
Like someone trying Western democracy? That was my setup, but
(41:49):
then I ruined it by over explaining it.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
Yeah. Yeah, So I'm running for Congress in the ninth
District of Illinois, and you can find what I'm about
at Cappreillinois dot com. That's Cat with a K. We
just recently made our volunteer discord server public, so come hang.
We need local and remote volunteers, and if you've got
a few bucks to spare it consider sending them to
my campaign. This is a grassroots progressive campaign. We're taking
(42:12):
zero corporate money, and we're also trying to use our
money in smarter, more effective ways that actually help people.
So if you got a few bucks to spare, consider
sending them our away. Our average donation is just about
thirty one bucks. And so instead of wasting it on
consultants who haven't won elections in a decade, or ads
that aren't actually effective and are just kind of plastered everywhere,
(42:33):
we're trying to do things like mutual aid and direct action.
So like we just in exchange for a food donation,
we gave people yard signs. We were able to fully
stock a food pantry last weekend our kickoff event to
keep it accessible. It wasn't like five hundred dollars a plate.
You had to bring a box of Pazard tampons, and
we ended up collecting our fifty six hundred for people
who can't afford them. And we just launch our high
school public service grant program for kids who want to
(42:54):
do mutual aid projects this summer. Yeah, Catfreillinois dot com.
Come hang and hope to see in the discord.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
Hell yeah, And if people want to hear us talking
more about other stuff. Kat was on a year or
so ago. We talked about community gardens.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
Actually almost yeah, it was the day I got laid off.
Speaker 2 (43:11):
Yeah, oh congrats.
Speaker 1 (43:12):
Yeah, that's right. That was the day I got laid
off and I was like bailing. And actually that episode
like we want to help kids build community gardens with
this grant program, and that partially inspired it. So thank
you for that.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
Oh hell yeah, well thanks to the people who built
all those community gardens and too. Yeah, and listen to
other podcasts if they exist, Sophie. Are their other podcasts?
Speaker 3 (43:38):
Yeah, cools and Media dot com.
Speaker 2 (43:41):
Hell yeah, Well, see you all on Wednesday.
Speaker 3 (43:44):
Bye, cool people who did cool stuff. It's a production
of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts and cool Zone Media,
visit our website cool Zonemedia dot com, or check us
out on the I Heard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Margaret Killjoy
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