[Atlas Sneezed]

"If he could have mustered 2 minutes of self control, he wouldn't be in jail."

You mean, if he could have mustered 8 hours of time away from his productive job supporting his family, to tell a "civil servant" judge what he needed to hear to compensate for the judge's own self esteem deficiencies (in comparison to his competent law school colleagues who are earning triple his salary, voluntarily paid), he wouldn't have been sentenced by that judge?

[Steel Wolf]

No, I mean that if he had followed that pesky Constitution thingy and showed up for jury duty, and not cursed out a public official for no reason whatsoever, he could have put in for his exemption and gone home. Sure, he would have had to miss a couple hours of work, and spring for a ride to the courthouse and back.

What is astounding is that allegedly patriotic and civic minded Americans see this as so unreasonable. There isn't so much as a hint of any wrongdoing on the part of the civil servants; they just asked him to show up as required by law.

You might not like the IRS, and think that they have been unfairly taking your hard earned money. Does that mean you can call them up and say '(explative) you, I'm not paying my taxes, bitch'. No, you can't. You could make as many ad hominem attacks against IRS agents you like, but you'd be on the wrong side of the law.