Sarah Palin is not such a small-town girl after all. The Dems would do well to avoid pissing her off. H/T Joe
George Bush announces plan to move US troops from Iraq to Afghanistan. Al Queda has moved so must we.
Supermarkets accused of taking advantage of food inflation to increase prices. Surprise, surprise. Supermarkets are all about profit.
Police in crisis after jury rejects £10m terror case. Until we have juries selected on the basis of IQ and education as opposed to a bunch of fools who could not think of a decent excuse to get out of it, our legal system will continue to fail. Some decent judges would help.
Deadly airstrike on school set up by bin Laden friend, Jalal-uddin Haqqani. Good. Keep it up. As usual liberals are wetting themselves over it.
Tuesday, 9 September 2008
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2 comments:
Until we have juries selected on the basis of IQ and education as opposed to a bunch of fools who could not think of a decent excuse to get out of it, our legal system will continue to fail. Some decent judges would help.
There's two parts to this - the problem and the solution. I'm quite prepared to accept your description of the problem. However your solution will make things worse.
At the moment there is a disincentive to doing jury service particularly for longer trials. A random selection ought to provide a good cross section of intelligence but people who have average to good jobs cannot afford to give up months to sit on a panel. Consequently they opt out. Given that a good job is a reasonable proxy for intelligence, it's no surprise you have your problem. However, there are many people, who have dropped out of education who are quite happy to sit on a panel. They qualify on education and IQ but likely lean to the "criminals are victims" POV. I think that's a factor you've ignored.
As for your solution. Who will determine who has a high enough IQ or education? Do you propose that juries are manned by typical academics, who qualify on both counts? The ruling elite in the west would love to be able to rid themselves of jury members who are too stupid to come to the right verdict. eg. Juries are too stupid to get the right verdict in most rape trials. Before you call for more elitist dominance in society be very aware that the current ruling elite has a very different idea of what constitutes sufficient intelligence. Only morons oppose immigration, membership of the EU or the free market. Note how our betters are bewildered by the rating success of Palin. Most of our educated elite not only wouldn't vote for her, some would like to bar such people from office.
Fascism and Socialism share a common belief that man needs to be led by an educated elite - philosopher kings. We don't need to be protected from ordinary people. We need to be protected from the educated elite.
JohnM. I take your point. I suppose my real argument is thet jurors must have reached a decent level of education before they qualify. A few years ago a 21 yr old friend of mine ended up as foreman because he was the only one who owned a suit. Two of the other jurors had only a basic understanding of English. A jury is only as good as the people on it. As for the 'educated elite' most of them are not the elite they are just a bunch of dumbass liberals with two bit degrees in bullshit subjects like sociology.
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