The structure of USA’s society is that everyone travels to cities to work (where the office and/or restaurants / hangout spots are), but then travels to suburbia to sleep / pay taxes.
This means that the cityfolk are constantly doing jury duty for all the suburbanite visitors. Someone who lives in an urban area is pretty much going to get selected for jury duty as often as legally allowed.
I live in the suburbs, because I recognize that I get all the benefits of cities with almost none of the downsides. Don’t hate the player, hate the game. As long as I can afford the suburbia and as long as it leads to a better life, I’ll take advantage of it.
But in the vast majority of cases, its the cities that provide the value (IE: job creation, center of commerce and innovation, location of efficiency with public transit / steamworks / useful infrastructure)… while suburbs are basically trying to live as close to the city as possible without taking on the responsibilities (IE: taxes go to the suburb schools / suburb cops without paying into the city that makes the suburb livable)
Jury Duty is just one more thing that proves the pattern. People mostly don’t commit crimes in suburbia, because no one is doing commerce in suburbia (its more efficient to centralize commerce into the city). So when crimes are committed, they’re usually in the city (white-collar, suing, traffic crimes, etc. etc.). So the overworked city-justice system (already at a disadvantage due to higher crime due to being the center of commerce) is then overworked some more as they usually can’t recruit jurors.
Doubly-so for cities like New York City who are supporting the suburbs in New Jersey. New York City cannot cross state lines and grab jurors from New Jersey, even though we all damn well know that New Jersey residents constitute a huge portion of the traffic, commerce, crime, and other problems in NYC.
Less so for cities closer to the center of a state… especially if the State can better distribute jurors / taxes and have a more fair system.
The first picture is either Homestead act-era, which was “funded” by US Citizens just stealing lands from the natives (on purpose mind you), such as Homestead act of Oklahoma. Or its from an even older era funded by slavery and/or indentured servitude. I don’t know exactly what period panel#1 references, but… its not exactly nice politics.
Ex: If its 1800s, then free land in the frontier was a tactic for negotiating with Canada for where the borders would be set. If we got enough settlers out there, we knew that USA’s side of the border would be larger. Too bad about the natives though, amirite?
Early 1900s factory workers, a-la “The Jungle” era (Upton Sinclair), were children who got their hands regularly mangled by machinery and had to live in the slums. The idea of mortgages was non-existent and most people were trapped in a forever rent cycle, unable to build generational wealth. Bonus points, banks and their silver and/or gold deposits would disappear randomly every 20 years because the metal standards were utter crap to base an economy over.
Pre-WW2 was the Great Depression, and with 20%+ unemployment and the great dust bowl, farmers were moving into the cities and just being unemployed bums. (Their original homes on the plains lost their ability to grow food due to 1920s climate change issues). Post-WW2 was the economic miracle that led to a relatively easy life and is finally representative of Panel#2.
So I argue that panel#1 never existed and/or only existed due to literal conquest of other people (Native Americans mostly), and panel#2 is a very isolated time in our history.
[REPOST] Won't Let Me Go To Jury Duty? Enjoy Being Questioned In Court
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