Jerome Fine replies: I think this thread is not appropriate - it is too old - and likely will not change. Human nature seems mostly to be to believe what we want to hear rather than to listen to what is being said and then try and figure out what will actually happen or what the truth actually is. More to the point, it is not so much that mostly nincompoops run for office, but, in my opinion, that they actually are voted into office. There are too many examples, so I won't even bother. I might give ONLY one example. In the house, at the very end of the 105th, the Democrats wanted witnesses and the Republicans did not. In the senate in the 106th, the Democrats want no witnesses and the Republicans want then. Of course, being politicians, they spout very high sounding reasons which are somewhat true - it is likely there is at least 1% of the truth in every reason - but the real reasons or at least the predominant ones are rarely mentioned and almost never admitted. And the public who are the voters and the news media in particular almost never demand the truth to be spoken and even more rarely ask the right questions. The primary reason the Democrats were anxious for witnesses in the house, in my opinion, was that it was more likely that the 106th congress with 5 fewer Republicans might just have enough Republicans to cross over to defeat the impeachment vote. If the 105th had delayed by even 2 weeks, the 106th would have had to vote to impeach and there might have been a different result. The fact that the 105th rushed the impeachment vote through at the very last second (well last day or 2) seems to me to be obvious. Now in the senate, the Republicans who want witnesses are likely calling for them so as to be able to introduce new material. On the other hand, if the house voted on mainly party lines (98% was the figure I think), then without new material to consider, most Democrats probably are confident that at worst the same thing would happened in the senate. Of course with 67 votes being required to remove Clinton and there being 55 to 45, a vote along mostly party lines would fail to remove Clinton. But, do the Democrats or Republicans actually say that? And do the media even ask the question? So, when I hear that politicians are mostly nincompoops, in turn I also must believe that the voters must also be the same. ONLY when there is a lot more truth and openness in both government and corporations and all of the things that we humans do with each other will things actually get better. In general, I would start by making every government conversation and document open to the public, except where privacy concerns chosen by the voters are of concern. In particular, this would include EVERY single aspect of the criminal justice system where all conversations and documents which led up to a trial would have to be completely open to the defence once a trial began, including copies of taped conversations by investigators which would be required to be turned over to the defence as well (every person working in or for the justice system would be required to record every conversation at work so as to ensure that the reason for every decision was known). There have been a large number of cases recently in both Canada and other so-called democratic countries in which justice went so far as to convict totally innocent people based on wilful blindness by the justice system at best or biased intent with wilful knowledge of hidden evidence favourable to the defence at worst. And that is when the justice system seems to be acting in an honest manner. What about the number of times a justice system official commits perjury and there is not even a charge laid, let alone a conviction? Sincerely yours, Jerome Fine P.S. Sorry, I got carried away with how I see this trial being held (Clinton) and many other trials, one of which in particular showed perjury being committed by a police officer while the trail was being televised and no consequences, not even being charged with perjury. And no one even mentions that aspect. And the perjury was not allowed to be properly demonstrated before the jury since when the defence asked to question the police officer who had committed perjury, the judge would not allow the questions by the defence to be done in front of the jury. HAS EVERYONE FORGOTTEN? Please don't think I am saying the Canadian justice system is any better. I think they are all very poor. BUT, let us also be thankful that we live in a so-called democracy (well it is better than what was in place 1000 years ago - it is improving). I just think that the key aspect is the truth and unless we all insist on the truth all the time, we can't complain when the truth rarely appears. P.P.S. Considering that this is in the message formats thread which discussed the human topic, maybe it is not so far off?