[staccatomeasure]

You're argument that entrusting certain officials with making good publicly known decisions "works really well right up until it fails really badly" based off of a weird GW parable has me scratching my head.

And regarding small claims courts - the amount of damage a judge can do is directly related to how much a person is worth, just like fines for civil infractions. It can be nearly nothing or it can be life altering.

Anyway, the solution to this particular problem would be fine-limits (like in other states) and things like license-renewal restrictions (like you get for not paying a speeding ticket).

Edit: I suppose if people don't pay property taxes continually you have to sell the house to stop the tax revenue loss. Enforcing market-price restrictions might be difficult as lack of sale persists the problem. Maybe taking equity in the house at market price or something like that could work. Any way you look at it though $145 shouldn't be such a high-pri. Unpaid speeding tickets amount to more than that.

[derleth]

> You're argument that entrusting certain officials with making good publicly known decisions "works really well right up until it fails really badly" based off of a weird GW parable has me scratching my head.

You're the one who advocated that judges be allowed to ignore the law and judge entirely based on their own good judgement. I pointed out that there are few people who even have good enough judgement to abdicate at the right time.

> And regarding small claims courts - the amount of damage a judge can do is directly related to how much a person is worth, just like fines for civil infractions. It can be nearly nothing or it can be life altering.

That's why we have laws and we make judges follow those laws. It ill-serves society to force extremely good judges to follow poorly-thought-out laws, but the losses on that end are more than made up for by forcing the idiot and asshole judges to adhere to laws written by people who aren't explicitly out to screw you over.

[staccatomeasure]

I never said they should be able to ignore the law and judge entirely based on their own good judgement.

A single point of reference argument about people not having good enough judgement to abdicate (which relied on a case of abdication?) isn't a sealed argument that people/judges have bad judgement.

"but the losses on that end are more than made up for by forcing the idiot and asshole judges to adhere to laws written by people who aren't explicitly out to screw you over." Based on what? Why are judges explicitly out to screw you over? And are you joking that judges are more out to screw you over than law makers?

And your argument about idiot and asshole judges out to screw you over is coming from where? If I had to guess I'd say that most judges follow the status quo, a smallish portion can be pricks at times (but within the boundaries of the law), and the ones who truly go out of their way to be exceptional are doing so in the name of civil rights and civil liberties.