"The fate of the country does not depend on how you vote at the polls -- the worst man is as strong as the best at that game; it does not depend on what kind of paper you drop into the ballot-box once a year, but on what kind of man you drop from your chamber into the street every morning." ~ Henry David Thoreau
A major defect of what would be our system of justice if it were a system of justice is that it is not investigatory but gladiatorial. The idea is not to determine guilt or innocence, but to win. By no means always, but often, the cops will lie, the witnesses will lie, and prosecutor and defender will lie carefully within safe limits so as not to get disbarred. Public safety matters no more than truth.
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