Spreading Democracy:

While the Republican party has made hay over the past couple of decades by reviling the court system in the U. S. and attempted the absurd notion of spreading democracy at the point of a bayonet, an attempt to improve democracy is taking shape in Japan.

Today's New York Times contains an op-ed article by Robert E. Precht, entitled "Japan, the Jury," which explains how that country intends to move from a court system that does not use juries to one that does. This process will include sending jurors to the U. S. to work with jurors here.

As someone who has served on three juries in federal court in the U. S., I can attest to importance of the jury trial as an essential part of democracy. Without jury trials, for all their faults, democracy is little more than demagoguery.