I have been thinking about this for at least 20 years, and I even brought it up on another message board around then. I think the best form of government, is an aristocracy. No, not like they have in Saudi Arabia now, with the Saudi royal family. That's an oligarchy. Not like in medieval Europe. I mean in the original sense of the word. Aristocracy is from the Greek aristokratia, meaning "rule by the best people" (aristos, ‘best’ + -kratia ‘power’). The most qualified, the best informed, the best tempered, the most kind. But where are you going to find someone like that? Especially a large group of them? So, I guess a representative democracy, or a "republican" form of government, as Jefferson called it, is best. And again, I don't mean direct democracy. Because that's even worse. That leads to mob rule. Because people are on average pretty evil and stupid. Let's face it. Actually, on that same message board I talked about that above, that is, kind of what our Supreme Court is based on. Our Supreme Court is ingenious. It is an American invention. And it is imitated everywhere. Because they only protect rights, and they answer to no one. The only problem with that is, if they have so much power, they could misuse it. Of course they only misuse it when the wrong people are appointed there. So there has to be some check how their appointed, along with their authority. Always. And there should be term limits. Like with Supreme Court term in this country. I didn't support term limits for them before, because the Supreme Court is a wonderful invention as I said. And it's in the Constitution. But I do now. Also, I might as well add, the ideal court system, would be one that involves one that's in my law dictionary, the Law Dictionary by Steven H. Gifis. The Blue Ribbon Jury. A Blue Ribbon Jury used to involve only the best members of the community. The most educated, the most informed, the most intelligent, etc. But, Gifis points out, the Supreme Court finally put an end to that idea in 1975, saying that it violated the right to a jury by your peers. And I tend to agree. The US Constitution isn't perfect. But it's the best we've got. And if they held a constitutional convention, and some conservatives think we should, the religious zealots would find a way to dominate the process, and the writing of the new document. And, as Bill Maher has pointed out, a modern US conservative's constitution would only contain the three G's: Guns, God and Gays, in that order. Yes to guns, yes to God, and no to gays. So we'll keep it the way it is, for now. Also, around the time of the O. J. Simpson trial came out in 1994, someone brought up something interesting. The English common law jury system is flawed, and from a time when science and medicine were unreliable. Really, they said, what should happen is that a crime lab should solve the crime. And when they prove what happened, that should be the verdict. Which would work every time, unless the scientists at the crime lab are biased, or planting evidence. But they probably wouldn't usually. And that last one can be carefully addressed to in law too.
