[lbo-talk] Juries and legislators (Was MJ jurors didn't necessarily think he was innocent)

andie nachgeborenen andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com
Tue Jun 14 14:29:50 PDT 2005


Has anyone here ever heard the deliberations of the
> US Congress in
> any of its functions described (non ironically) as
> "really
> thoughtful, serious, and articulate?" Why is there
> no System of
> government in this world
> that expects its legislators to act that way?
>
> Shane Mage

Rousseau actually has a serious answer to this question in On The Social Contract, if you are interested. The short version is that shaping people to consider the general will, roughly here meaning the real public interest, and not their private selfish interest, requires a highly special set of circumstances -- a very small society that has not got too much history of corruption or injustice or inequality, and where the siocial bond is not stretched to point where people in society relate only as strangers.

Modern advocates of the classical Republican (not GOP!) tradition like Cass Sunstein have tried to tell stories about why we might hope that a legislature would behave itself.

jks

--- Shane Mage <shmage at pipeline.com> wrote:


> Doug wrote:
> >
> "I think this was the guy on CNN last night, and he
> reminded me how
> excellent the jury system is. He was really
> thoughtful, serious, and
> articulate. When The System expects people to act
> that way, they
> really do."
>
> >
> "Mortals immortals, immortals mortals,
> living their deaths, dying their lives"
>
> Herakleitos of Ephesos, fr. 62
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