On 3/8/07, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
On 08/03/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG
<guy.chapman(a)spamcop.net> wrote:
It took us a couple of hundred years to get the
balance right, and it's still changing. But over that entire period,
the country remained governable and tolerably well-regulated. Is that
so bad?
To paraphrase a fellow Englishman, Jimbocracy is the very worst system
of government, apart from all the others.
Indeed. We're doing things that have NEVER BEEN DONE BEFORE; if we
didn't do some *really stupid* things in the process, it'd be a clear
case of not being nearly adventurous enough.
Yah but see you're all back to talking about persons and personalities
whereas what's needed is an independent Commission Review, kinda like the
911 Commission, not to point fingers and find fallguys, but to examine
institutional failings and weaknesses, and make dispassionate
recommendations on how to avoid or manage future crisis.
Sure, but 911 Commission type structures are sometimes convenient
tactics used by governments to justify doing nothing.
What best accomplishes what you say is a separation of judicial and
legislative branches. In theory that keeps the politicians occupied
with a more objective consideration of the laws themselves, and the
courts busy with how those laws are applied in individual cases.
In these circumstances, where David is right in saying that they have
never been done before, it is too easy to be knocked off track by a
single unexpected issue like that of Essjay's credentials. We have to
be careful not to attach too much unwarranted weight to these one-off
incidents.
Ec