Science Talk

Ms Devil's Advocate · Guest

Do not confuse "duty" with what other people expect of you; they are
utterly different. Duty is a debt you owe to yourself to fulfill
obligations you have assumed voluntarily. Paying that debt can entail
anything from years of patient work to instant willingness to die.
Difficult it may be, but the reward is self-respect. But there is no
reward at all for doing what other people expect of you, and to do so is
not merely difficult, but impossible. It is easier to deal with a
footpad than it is with the leech who wants "just a few minutes of your
time, please -- this won't take long." Time is your total capital, and
the minutes of your life are painfully few. If you allow yourself to
fall into the vice of agreeing to such requests, they quickly snowball
to the point where these parasites will use up 100 percent of your time
-- and squawk for more!
So learn to say No -- and be rude about it when necessary.
Otherwise you will not have time to carry out your duty, or to do your
own work, and certainly no time for love and happiness. The termites
will nibble away your life and leave none of it for you.
(This rule does not mean that you must not do a favor for a friend, or
even for a stranger. But let the choice be yours. Don't do it because it
is "expected" of you.) Robert A Heinlein

That being said, I got summoned for jury "duty" in August.

Amendment XIII.

1 Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for
crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist
within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. 2
Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate
legislation.

Now if I can't tell them "no thanks", isn't that the involuntary
servitude prohibited by the 13th?

Yet it says on the summons that if I fail to obey, I can be fined up to
$750 and/or imprisoned up to 6 months.

Is the Constitution just a list of suggestions?

"The Constitution is either a superior, paramount law, unchangeable by
ordinary means, or it is on a level with ordinary legislative acts and,
like other acts, is alterable when the legislature shall please to alter
it. If the former part of the alternative be true, then a legislative
act contrary to the Constitution is not law; if the latter part be true,
then written constitutions are absurd attempts, on the part of the
people, to limit a power in its own nature illimitable." Thus, the
Constitution is either The Supreme Law of the Land, superceding all
other laws, or the Constitution is a worthless piece of paper. If the
latter, government can do as it pleases. If the former, tyrants have
seized sovereignty illegally, it is the duty of the people to put them
in their proper place in history. - Chief Justice of the Supreme Court,
John Marshall - 1803