[quote]Varqanir wrote:
Well, there is one way to solve the problem. Abolish the jury system and try all criminal cases by tribunal.
That would make everyone happy… except the criminals and their lawyers, of course.
I only partially jest.[/quote]
And tort cases by combat. Trial by combat - Wikipedia
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
Varqanir wrote:
Well, there is one way to solve the problem. Abolish the jury system and try all criminal cases by tribunal.
That would make everyone happy… except the criminals and their lawyers, of course.
I only partially jest.
And tort cases by combat. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_by_combat[/quote]
And just think: Bush and Gore could have settled the contested 2000 election through Trial by Stone.
Results probably woulda been the same.
It’s not slavery but it isn’t too far off the mark. At least we can get compensated $5/day…I know that’s a load off my mind. And calling it a duty…way to tug the patriot strings, eh? Sorry, I am not buying it.
I don’t like the jury system because jurists are idiots. I prefer having multiple judges rule over a case where the number of judges is determined by the severity of the crime.
Let paid professionals do their job and leave me alone. I don’t care about sitting on a panel to determine some poor bloke’s fate.
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
I don’t like the jury system because jurists are idiots.[/quote]
You probably meant “jurors”, and note the irony.
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
I don’t like the jury system because jurists are idiots. I prefer having multiple judges rule over a case where the number of judges is determined by the severity of the crime.
Let paid professionals do their job and leave me alone. I don’t care about sitting on a panel to determine some poor bloke’s fate.[/quote]
I am starting to think that instead of sending non-selected jurors home for the day, they should be required to watch a three or four hour documentary on the historical reasons behind a trial by a jury of one’s peers.
The jury is the school of democracy, as Toqueville pointed out. And it is a vital safeguard in a republic to ensure that citizens understand and participate in their own government and legislation.
Though I am rarely a proponent of Rousseau’s concept of being “forced to be free,” this is a relatively benign way of accomplishing that end. We live in a republic that balances individual rights with the rights of the community and the state, and neither descending into atomism nor collectivism will serve the ends of such a republic or its citizens. We oughtn’t force anyone to vote, but forcing them into a small measure of governmental participation is absolutely vital to ensure that the republic exists for all, and not for a few politically active patricians who may have their own ideas about how to run things.
In some senses, many people in the United States get a better government than they deserve.
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
I don’t like the jury system because jurists are idiots.
You probably meant “jurors”, and note the irony.
[/quote]
you probably meant ironist…
[quote]nephorm wrote:
In some senses, many people in the United States get a better government than they deserve.[/quote]
better than what?
People who vote get punished and people who do not get a free pass…
If you want to force democracy punish people who don’t vote so at least they are forced to take part in the “democratic” process.
[quote]nephorm wrote:
Though I am rarely a proponent of Rousseau’s concept of being “forced to be free,” this is a relatively benign way of accomplishing that end. We live in a republic that balances individual rights with the rights of the community and the state, and neither descending into atomism nor collectivism will serve the ends of such a republic or its citizens. We oughtn’t force anyone to vote, but forcing them into a small measure of governmental participation is absolutely vital to ensure that the republic exists for all, and not for a few politically active patricians who may have their own ideas about how to run things.
[/quote]
Well, then, Neph, you may be just the one to elicit an opinion from. On another thread about the draft, I mentioned that I saw the merit in Heinlein’s idea of granting the right of suffrage only to those who had completed a voluntary two year stint of national service (not necessarily military). Naturally, this would also be the prerequisite for holding elected office as well. I think this would, as Hedo put it, put the franchise largely in the hands of those who value personal responsibility and sacrifice over personal entitlement.
Don’t force people to be free, just make them choose to be citizens.
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
I don’t like the jury system because jurists are idiots.
You probably meant “jurors”, and note the irony.
[/quote]
I imagine that some jurists are also idiots.
[quote]
nephorm wrote:
Though I am rarely a proponent of Rousseau’s concept of being “forced to be free,” this is a relatively benign way of accomplishing that end. We live in a republic that balances individual rights with the rights of the community and the state, and neither descending into atomism nor collectivism will serve the ends of such a republic or its citizens. We oughtn’t force anyone to vote, but forcing them into a small measure of governmental participation is absolutely vital to ensure that the republic exists for all, and not for a few politically active patricians who may have their own ideas about how to run things.
Varqanir wrote:
Well, then, Neph, you may be just the one to elicit an opinion from. On another thread about the draft, I mentioned that I saw the merit in Heinlein’s idea of granting the right of suffrage only to those who had completed a voluntary two year stint of national service (not necessarily military). Naturally, this would also be the prerequisite for holding elected office as well. I think this would, as Hedo put it, put the franchise largely in the hands of those who value personal responsibility and sacrifice over personal entitlement.
Don’t force people to be free, just make them choose to be citizens.[/quote]
I’m not neph, but I’m going to chime in with my opinion anyway. I like the idea of restricting the franchise - but I’d restrict it to taxpayers to address the problem of democracy in America that de Toqueville observed ( http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/home.html ), namely that “The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.”
He was obviously not exactly right, in that Congress has definitely discovered how to bribe the public with the public’s money already - but I’d argue that the expansion of this activity by Congress has had an extremely negative effect on the country, mostly through opportunity costs.
Perhaps restricting it to both taxpayers and veterans would be even better - with the added benefit that the creep toward socialism would immediately reverse and today’s Progressives, e.g. the Democrats, would go the way of the Whigs.
More on point to this thread, taking away the franchise from those who refuse jury duty might work too - sort of an “opt out” rather than an “opt in” to citizenship…
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
More on point to this thread, taking away the franchise from those who refuse jury duty might work too - sort of an “opt out” rather than an “opt in” to citizenship…
[/quote]
That’s not a bad idea at all BB. I could absolutely get behind that.
mike
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
Perhaps restricting it to both taxpayers and veterans would be even better - with the added benefit that the creep toward socialism would immediately reverse and today’s Progressives, e.g. the Democrats, would go the way of the Whigs.
[/quote]
That’s funny. I said almost exactly the same thing over on the National Draft thread: that making national service a prerequisite for suffrage would spell the end of the Democratic Party as we know it.
[quote]Mikeyali wrote:
BostonBarrister wrote:
More on point to this thread, taking away the franchise from those who refuse jury duty might work too - sort of an “opt out” rather than an “opt in” to citizenship…
That’s not a bad idea at all BB. I could absolutely get behind that.
mike[/quote]
Jury duty is the payment we citizens make in exchange for the rights to a jury trial and a speedy trial. You either need to repeal the sixth amendment or just accept jury duty as a price of citizenship.
Voting privileges are not an equivalent substitute for jury duty, thus it makes absolutely no sense to trade in one for the other.
Jury duty is also not a one-for-one tradeoff: one single citizen’s right to a jury trial usually requires twelve jurors. This is why it is also not acceptable to trade your right to a jury trial in exchange for exclusion from jury duty. Your opting out of jury duty, for any price, does not just affect yourself, but your fellow citizens who may still expect a jury trial.
This is why trial rights and expectations of jury duty are given to all citizens. The system was not designed to allow individual citizens to trade in certain rights in order to be relieved of certain duties.
Finally, jury duty is not a duty to the state, it is a duty to your fellow citizens. It is also not a particularly onerous price to pay, considering the rights you receive in exchange for it.
I also find the thought appealing to somehow earn suffrage.
It shouldn’t be exclusively military duty, that’d be idiotic.
Automatically getting the right to vote is but one of democracy’s achilles’ heels.
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
Well, then, Neph, you may be just the one to elicit an opinion from. On another thread about the draft, I mentioned that I saw the merit in Heinlein’s idea of granting the right of suffrage only to those who had completed a voluntary two year stint of national service (not necessarily military). Naturally, this would also be the prerequisite for holding elected office as well. I think this would, as Hedo put it, put the franchise largely in the hands of those who value personal responsibility and sacrifice over personal entitlement.
Don’t force people to be free, just make them choose to be citizens.[/quote]
When voting was restricted to land-owners, it had much the same effect as I think BostonBarrister is referring to. We also had fewer cities, and a great deal of “free” land ready for anyone to claim who was willing to work for it. The problem with national service being a prerequisite for full citizenship rights is that, while appearing to be egalitarian, it punishes those people who do not have the means to drop everything (or even some things) to serve the state or their fellow citizens directly. It reminds me of Xenophon’s description of Persia, in which anyone was free to go to school regardless of class; but only the rich could afford losing the labor of their sons. So if we were manufacturing a republic that gave the appearance of egalitarianism, that is the image without the true being, I would embrace the idea.
As BB pointed out, limiting rights to taxpayers is another option. Yet, most of us pay at least some form of tax (sales tax). So it seems the standard would be income tax.
What of someone who works, but makes below the minimum taxable threshold? Would he have the option to go ahead and pay a percentage of his wages as tax to maintain his citizenship? If not, would we not, in effect, encourage the disenfranchisement of vast numbers of laborers?
After all, wouldn’t it be simple enough to either force wages down or raise the minimum salary required for taxable income? What of the farmer who has a bad year, or the man who has started his own business and puts all available funds into it? So these people would be disenfranchised exactly when they are at their most vulnerable.
I would not be entirely opposed to returning voting rights to those who hold some minimum amount of property. And perhaps the definition of property could be more flexible to accommodate our modern situation.
But of course, this is all moot because any proposal to limit voting rights would never survive the process of ratification.
[quote]nephorm wrote:
Varqanir wrote:
Well, then, Neph, you may be just the one to elicit an opinion from. On another thread about the draft, I mentioned that I saw the merit in Heinlein’s idea of granting the right of suffrage only to those who had completed a voluntary two year stint of national service (not necessarily military). Naturally, this would also be the prerequisite for holding elected office as well. I think this would, as Hedo put it, put the franchise largely in the hands of those who value personal responsibility and sacrifice over personal entitlement.
Don’t force people to be free, just make them choose to be citizens.
When voting was restricted to land-owners, it had much the same effect as I think BostonBarrister is referring to. We also had fewer cities, and a great deal of “free” land ready for anyone to claim who was willing to work for it. The problem with national service being a prerequisite for full citizenship rights is that, while appearing to be egalitarian, it punishes those people who do not have the means to drop everything (or even some things) to serve the state or their fellow citizens directly. It reminds me of Xenophon’s description of Persia, in which anyone was free to go to school regardless of class; but only the rich could afford losing the labor of their sons. So if we were manufacturing a republic that gave the appearance of egalitarianism, that is the image without the true being, I would embrace the idea.
As BB pointed out, limiting rights to taxpayers is another option. Yet, most of us pay at least some form of tax (sales tax). So it seems the standard would be income tax.
What of someone who works, but makes below the minimum taxable threshold? Would he have the option to go ahead and pay a percentage of his wages as tax to maintain his citizenship? If not, would we not, in effect, encourage the disenfranchisement of vast numbers of laborers?
After all, wouldn’t it be simple enough to either force wages down or raise the minimum salary required for taxable income? What of the farmer who has a bad year, or the man who has started his own business and puts all available funds into it? So these people would be disenfranchised exactly when they are at their most vulnerable.
I would not be entirely opposed to returning voting rights to those who hold some minimum amount of property. And perhaps the definition of property could be more flexible to accommodate our modern situation.
But of course, this is all moot because any proposal to limit voting rights would never survive the process of ratification.[/quote]
I’ll also add that redistribution in general isn’t just about charity; it’s about giving the poorer masses a stake in the survival of the system. Social welfare programs originated in Europe in the 19th century for two major reasons. One was that workers and peasants felt exploited by the system which didn’t represented their interests and seemingly offered them very little for their participation. Revolts with the aims of establishing universal suffrage and effecting radical redistribution or outright communism were a regular occurrence and a constant threat. Giving the poor the vote and/or welfare benefits bought off enough of them to keep the system viable in most states in Europe.
One way or another, the ruled must consent to be ruled within any given framework if a regime is to function. This consent can be gained through coercion or through (the perception at least of) benefits for the ruled. A critical mass of society must choose to be governed for reasons other than coercion in order for coercion to be a viable response to the rest. Moreover coercion becomes increasingly expensive and risky the more broadly it is applied, and historical examples abound of this. So from this perspective some degree of redistribution-- which is inherent in an expanded voting franchise-- may be the cheaper option, especially if it mitigates the possibility of of something far more radical.
The second reason for the introduction of democratic governance and redistributive policies was the discovery of the awesome power of nationalism in war. The French Revolution showed that the poorest conscripted rabble could be unstoppable fighting machines if they felt attachment to their state. The expansion of the vote, or in the case of Germany the state sponsored health care system, was central to the arms race of late 19th century Europe. The elites in each society felt the trade off of diluting power domestically and giving more to redistribution was necessary in order to compete militarily with their neighbors. By the outbreak of the First World War, the societies were militarized to a far greater extent than would otherwise be possible, and the leftists in most countries were not the fifth columns they otherwise would have been without suffrage and goodies. So as the military service thing goes for the threads argument, if you want the potential for a deeper mobilization for more critical wars, you have to give the maximum number of people a stake.
I think why no one wants to do it is is that its a waste of time.
A jury makes a decision and then if it doesn’t go the way they want it, they appeal and appeal and appeal and nothing ever gets done. The system is a joke and I’d rather be doing something else.
“We’re not talking about right or wrong here, we’re talking about the law.”
It’s not a form of slavery but it’s poorly ran.
It doesn’t take into consideration people that can’t drop what they are doing at all. For example i’m a self employed stock trader. I can’t tell my boss I won’t in. I also can’t make the stockmarket stop for the days i’m in jury duty. Going to jury duty means I run the risk of losing thousands if a bad day occurs in the market becuase i’m not at my computer to do anything. However I can’t be excused from jury duty because of this. Many other people have simliar issues.
Secondly not geared towards my personal grip with jury duty. Jury Duty is bias you put a bunch of people that don’t want to be in jury duty they will say whatever they can to get out or make the trial end faster. Some people actually want to do jury duty I did back when I graduated college. If you got the people that would like to do it you would get a fair trial.
They can fine me $1000 it’s better then me losing 10k.