Katie Armes

As Americans, there are very few things our country actually requires us to do. Jury duty is one of them.
Yes, jury duty is boring. It wastes your time and disrupts your schedule.
Jury duty is also vital to our justice system and an effective way of seeing how the law is applied.
So, given the necessity of jury duty to our society and the minimal trouble it gives a person, why would 25-year-old Grant Faber of Hillsboro, Ore., walk out of court in the midst of serving as a juror?
According to The Oregonian, because he was bored.
To me, this shows how disgustingly self-centered Americans have become. Faber didn’t even have anything particularly pressing to accomplish the day he walked out of court; he just thought he would rather do something else.
It is completely unacceptable for people to be unwilling to fulfill their obligation as a citizen of the United States and serve one day or one trial as a juror. Usually, trials don’t last more than two days.
Obviously, not everyone is going to serve on the jury of a murder trial, and some of the work jurors do isn’t exceptionally exciting. Nonetheless, this small sacrifice by every adult keeps our justice system running.
Many of our rights as Americans stem from the fact that other Americans serve on juries. Everyone has the right to a trial by jury and to be judged by a group of peers rather than by a panel of judges.
If Faber is unwilling to serve one day as a juror to give back to the system that is fundamental to his identity as an American, should he still have the right to a trial by jury himself?
Faber is only one person, but his selfishness demonstrates just one of the negative effects of America’s promotion of a strong sense of individualism. Yes, a healthy dose of individual drive has made the United States a successful country, but it sometimes leads people to believe that acting for the benefit of others without individual gain is pointless.
As Americans, we don’t want to jump through hoops. We’re innovative and independent.
Too bad Faber didn’t realize that the work he should have done as a juror had to be picked up by someone else.
He’ll now have his own arraignment, and a judge will decide what penalty he will face for taking an afternoon off. That’s a lot of time that other people have to pay for his laziness.
Ultimately, Faber serves as an example of how not to act. Instead of complaining about responsibilities that seem like a pain, try to think about the bigger picture. Chances are, whatever you’re doing has a much larger impact than you think.