[epscylonb]

I am convinced that that in the same vein as america pioneering the separation of church and state, the next big government evolution will be the separation of state and business.

It will be extremely hard to accomplish though because historically money and power have always been bedfellows.

The real problem is the people are complacent, most of what western governments legislate is in the interests of lobbyists, but people only care about lawmaking when they are personally poor or if it concerns foreign policy (TERRORISM).

I have always thought a jury system for legislation might be a good idea, get the sponsor of a bill to stand in front of 12 randomly picked citizens and have them explain what the bill will do, and most importantly, why they are trying to pass the bill.

[JoshTriplett]

That would turn legislation into marketing. We have a bad enough problem already with knee-jerk legislation passed because it sounds shiny.

Now, as a filter, introduced in addition to umpteen other ways to prevent legislation from passing, it sounds potentially helpful. Anything that makes legislation fail by default without an exceptionally good reason to pass would improve matters.

[seabee]

To a large extent this is the purpose of the House of Lords in UK parliament.

The selection process for its members is not at all democratic which leaves a bad taste in many people's mouths. But the general concept of an elected body whose members serve over several terms of government can be helpful to limit overtly populist or ill-thought-out legislation.

[epscylonb]

Yeah, I wasn't suggesting the jury be only check and balance, and I don't think it would be a silver bullet.

We are where we are because business (those who desire money) and politicians (those who desire power) have overlearned the system.

There is no reason why they couldn't overlearn the jury check as well, I can't think of a simple solution.

Perhaps we are doomed to cycles of people being complacent, which lets tyranny flourish only to be ended violently?.