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>In fact, as a Canadian, I find the idea of electing judges to be so thoroughly strange that it almost defies belief. Why the hell would you want your judicial
by BoxOfRain 5y ago
>In fact, as a Canadian, I find the idea of electing judges to be so thoroughly strange that it almost defies belief. Why the hell would you want your judicial branch to be "democratic", as in directly and immediately beholden to the whims of the mob?
As a Briton I agree. It's also why I'm quite sceptical of the concrete benefits of a directly elected House of Lords and the replacement of the monarchy with a presidential system which are popular ideas in some political circles. I'm no fan ideologically of the trappings of a landed gentry and there's plenty of room for heavy reforms there but having a strictly apolitical head of state and a semi-technocratic oversight body has its advantages. Democracy isn't necessarily measured by the amount of government positions which are directly or indirectly elected - there's more nuances than that.
- handrous 5y agoThere's a quiet and small (there are tens of us! Tens, I say!) group of Americans who aren't so sure de facto direct election of the President is a good idea (in fact, it isn't direct, and wasn't intended to be, but in effect sort-of is direct, because the system wasn't set up to defend against what amounts to a variety of attacks on it that broke it almost immediately and gave us what we still have today, which is a worst-of-both-worlds hybrid) or that changing our Senate so that they're directly elected was the right move.