I grew up believing that modern democracy was firmly based on the principle of the separation of powers. You know, Magna Carta, Habeas Corpus, Montesquieu and all that stuff that you only have to remember if you want to develop a forked tongue and make a successful career out of it.
Anyway, what I retained of it all was that the proper place for a person to be tried and found guilty or innocent, whatever the case, was a court of law, where one had the right to an attorney and the benefit of cross-examination.
Now I realise I must have been absent-minded the day that the teacher expounded the intricacies of the system, for recently, while watching a committee of the American Congress in session, I was stunned to observe that they can actually function like a court of law. With one difference: no recourse to cross-examination, which I suppose saves a lot of time. Evolution, you could call it.
At one point in time, the action became so intense that I felt sucked into the television set. Suddenly, there I was, all naked, just with my round spectacles and my yarmulke, in front of the Spanish Inquisition. The strangest thing was that the inquisitors did not speak Spanish and some of them looked distinctly Jewish like myself. And whenever I did not tell them what they wanted to hear, they just hurled abuse at me. So it went on for hours.
Some of the inquisitors should just be glad there is no SPCA for humans, otherwise they would be in a whole lot of trouble. That's for sure. Wouldn't it be more humane just to waterboard people? I'm no politician or lawyer, but that's just a thought.
After that I began finding the concept of modern democracy more and more difficult to understand. These days I even find it hard to distinguish between Obama and Osama. I always have to tell myself Osama is the one without the beard. Or is it the other way around?
