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Comment by Tomte | Hacker News Reader

America optimizes for resilience against an oppressive government in some potential future and for that sacrifices a lot of things in the present.

I don't think that's even remotely sensible, but it seems to be part of America's cultural DNA.

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The American system was set up based on the real-life experiences of a group of humans who lived under an oppressive government. The "cultural DNA" recognizes that oppression is a natural state for authority and so what we attempt to optimize for, with varying degrees of success, is power federation.

This is not some abstract bullshit we use to justify arming ourselves. Very real suffering happens when power is consolidated with no checks, and the notion of trail-by-jury federates power in a very real way. Your opinion of the sensibility of this is not really a factor, to be honest.

The gold standard was once seen in the same terms- a necessary check on government power. It was supported by economic theory, moral principle, and countless examples of currency disasters in the absence of the gold standard. But eventually we got rid of the gold standard and very few economists want it back.

Even a system as old and battle-proven as trial by jury is not necessarily the best possible system today. Personally, I think it is still a good system, but that questioning it is still worthwhile.

You're missing key elements of History, which is skewing your perception of what motivated the events around the gold standard. I suggest you read about the crash of 1921.

It's not like trial by jury is an American invention. Like many other ex-colonies, the US basically kept the common-law legal system it inherited from English rule. Oddly enough, people who grumble most loudly about the malign influence of 'big government' seem to lean heavily (albeit often unconsciously) towards a civil law system, to the point of sometimes trying to parse Supreme Court cases by the standards of that approach.

Maybe trial by jury used to federate power, but with the current system of selecting only jurors that are "dim and pliable" as another commenter put it, I think this particular constitutional safeguard against power consolidation has been defeated.

That "resilience against an oppressive government" has already stopped working, as proven by NSA surveillance, civil assets forfeiture laws, Patriot Act, TPP, TTIP and others.

Perhaps you are failing to appreciate all the human suffering that occurred for these Enlightenment ideas to come into being and shape the thoughts of the first American legislators.

To think that governments can't become oppressive at the blink of an eye is not only short-sighted but ahistorical.

If you disagree with America's cultural DNA, your best option is to leave the country (honestly).

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