On 5/17/06, andie nachgeborenen <andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com> wrote:
> The jury system was developed at a time when things
> were a lot less democratic than they are now. . . .
grassroots democracy -- as opposed to central-state democracy -- is very old. Back in English pre-capitalist times in English agriculture, for example, communities would regularly redistribute land among themselves in order to maintain equality. (This was despite the top-down system of feudalism, etc.) Of course, it wasn't perfect (being combined with patriarchy, etc.), but neither is the parliamentary democracy of today.
-- Jim Devine / "the world still seems stuck in greed-lock, ruled by fossilized fools fueled by fossil fuels." -- Swami Beyondananda