Why such a big fuss over a hat? Because it’s not really about the hat.

The symbolic significance of headgear, identifying social rank and personal affiliations, goes back centuries. Doffing one’s hat is a recognized sign of respect. Silently wearing a hat then, could be a non-disruptive expression of disdain for the ritual being presented — or a simple declaration that a warm head is more important than the judge’s feelings. Maybe the court officer was offended by the words “Don’t Tread on Me” printed on Eyre’s hat.

Whatever the officer thought of Eyre’s hat, his order to remove it in a cold courtroom was a deliberate display of power. He wanted to send a message that the courtroom is his turf. The pettiest rules of decorum serve to designate privilege and rank. This is why a police officer wearing a hat in the courtroom shortly after Eyre’s arrest was not accosted. This is also why the judge sits in a high chair and wears a special costume — and why people in the courtroom are expected to stand up when His Majesty enters.

But why should people respect the court system or eagerly submit to its representatives? A court is little more than a money-seizing monopoly presided over by a politician in a fancy dress. Agents of any court deserve respect only when they respect individual liberty, something they seldom do unless it happens to be convenient for the power structure they are tasked to uphold.

The pettiest tyranny enables and emboldens the deadliest tyranny. Every day, individuals who are harming nobody are assaulted by heavily-armed agents of the state and hauled away to confinement centers of violent domination. For any violence that victims suffer along the way, the default is to blame them, not their badge-bearing assailants.

The court, an obscene theater of power relations that intentionally uses language incomprehensible to the average person, is an integral part of the system that supports war crimes and corporate looting. Government’s pretensions of rank and legitimacy support power relations that encourage some people to victimize others, and respecting court rituals supports the system’s pretensions.

I tend to observe formalities of dress and hat-wearing, but this doesn’t make me a better person than those who do not observe them. It just means that I take a different approach to social situations and use different standards to feel I’ve upheld my personal dignity. The way in which a person asserts himself in the presence of would-be authorities is an important personal decision that no individual should make for another.

In 1776 Thomas Paine wrote, “Of more worth is one honest man to society, and in the sight of God, than all the crowned ruffians that ever lived.” Today, Americans are accosted by ruffians brandishing a variety of costumes. Honesty will do the world more good than all the decorum that covers decadence and tyranny.

For months, Julian Heicklen, a septuagenarian libertarian, has distributed pamphlets about jury nullification in front of federal courthouses. He has been arrested on numerous occasions at the district court in Manhattan. Each arrest has seen Heicklen going limp and being carried or dragged away by federal officers. But he keeps coming back.

Heicklen’s pamphlets were not about any specific case, but explained the power of juries to acquit people who appear to have violated laws the jury considers unjust. Jury nullification has helped set free William Penn, John Peter Zenger, fugitive slaves, and violators of alcohol prohibition. More recently a Montana man arrested for possessing a very small amount of marijuana went free because the state was unable to seat a jury that might convict him. Jury nullification clearly holds potential to be a substantial check on government power.

For attempting to teach the public about this power, Julian Heicklen is charged with jury tampering. Clearly, the state intends to prevent potential jurors from making informed decisions. Government agents are doing what they can to make sure they get their way when cases go to trial. This is why they tamper with juries by preventing them from understanding their power.

To the state, power comes first, and justice comes somewhere afterward. The state must keep its power intact and the criminal justice system, an obscene farce of revenue gathering and career building, is there to do it. Much has been invested in prisons and police, and the investors are using their position to ensure the profits keep coming. Politicians need muscle to push forth their ambition, and they want a system that keeps the muscle strong.

In government courts, the prosecutor and judge are on the same team and the defense attorney’s rules are set by the institution that is trying to fine or imprison the defendant. They are monopolies within a system that enforces its own monopoly. Pamphleteers who teach prospective jurors about their power help give individuals a chance to effectively oppose the state. While jury power may be abused by those who wish to do injustice to other people, it at least allows some measure of participation and decisionmaking to those who are usually supposed to let the Important People make the important decisions. And unchecked state power abuses people as part of its normal operations.

When individuals who harm nobody are at risk of having their home invaded by heavily-armed enforcers who will haul them in chains to a cage full of violent and angry people, and forced to pay not only for this “service” but for the rest of the violent system, any tool for disrupting the violence is probably a good thing. Jury nullification is one such tool. No matter how much the state tampers with the administration of justice, Julian Heicklen is on the side of liberty.