See, then we get into questions of completely overhauling the system, and so many people buy into that old "better the devil you know" argument. ;)
"only members of the professional lawyer circles"
There's an argument sometimes made that perhaps we adhere too closely to such things: that almost every Supreme Court justice of the last 50 years has gone to one of the same handful of schools, had the same background in law, the same sort of career... on the other hand, when one reads the court opinions, these folks, while certainly biased, do understand law and do more often than not base their opinions on those grounds. Exceptions exist, of course.
"They should be selected from something like a judicial parliament,"
I'd recommend also doing away with this "first past the post" nonsense and start adopting a more Australian and European electoral model. Everyone votes, period. Votes are made by preference. Anyone who gets a proportion of the vote gets a proportion of the say, making third parties viable and their demands something the major parties must compromise with.
Honestly, the idea that our specific form of government (meaning it's specific structure) is the only possible form it could ever take, or that it is the only form that could possibly preserve the rights enumerated in the Constitution, is perhaps too firmly wedded in our national consciousness. There are tons of great ways to do it; lots of other nations prove that! We should be more willing to look at what works, and what doesn't, and tailor our own system accordingly.
(I can understand reluctance to start pulling on loose threads, though, in fear of unraveling the entire tapestry.)
Credits & Style Info
Talk Politics. A place to discuss politics without egomaniacal mods
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 17/3/16 16:02 (UTC)"only members of the professional lawyer circles"
There's an argument sometimes made that perhaps we adhere too closely to such things: that almost every Supreme Court justice of the last 50 years has gone to one of the same handful of schools, had the same background in law, the same sort of career... on the other hand, when one reads the court opinions, these folks, while certainly biased, do understand law and do more often than not base their opinions on those grounds. Exceptions exist, of course.
"They should be selected from something like a judicial parliament,"
I'd recommend also doing away with this "first past the post" nonsense and start adopting a more Australian and European electoral model. Everyone votes, period. Votes are made by preference. Anyone who gets a proportion of the vote gets a proportion of the say, making third parties viable and their demands something the major parties must compromise with.
Honestly, the idea that our specific form of government (meaning it's specific structure) is the only possible form it could ever take, or that it is the only form that could possibly preserve the rights enumerated in the Constitution, is perhaps too firmly wedded in our national consciousness. There are tons of great ways to do it; lots of other nations prove that! We should be more willing to look at what works, and what doesn't, and tailor our own system accordingly.
(I can understand reluctance to start pulling on loose threads, though, in fear of unraveling the entire tapestry.)