John Owen Quotes
After hearing the evidence, I will record a verdict of natural causes.
This was a time when the church and establishment only recognized the Bible and the views of the authorities as a means of knowing and validating knowledge. By appealing to the individual’s own judgment and empiricism he was far ahead of his time. See {586126}.
Trotsky was castigated in Russia and found “guilty” of a host of crimes for his dissident communist views. The American communists generally fell into line, but a number of the leading intellectuals established their own Commission—headed by John Dewey to investigate Trotsky. Their finding created the first major split in American communist circles and started a process of intellectual alienation from the Communist party. Trotsky was in exile in Mexico where Stalin’s agents tracked him down and assassinated him further alienating many American intellectuals.
This is a very important and fundamental quotation. Jefferson, John Adams, John Jay and many other Founding Fathers told us that the jury of peers was the final arbiter of a court case. However, many modern judges and legislatures have tried to erode that principle. In most states judges instructs juries that they are the final arbiter of the facts but he/she is the final arbiter of the law and how it should be applied in the case. But the founders wanted the jury to be the final arbiters of the law as well as the facts as is illustrated here and in {640588} and {640589}. For a more modern concurring view, see {640590}
John Owen was an English Nonconformist church leader, theologian, and academic administrator at the University of Oxford.
