Three Bad Ideas

Money makes people happy. Congress should represent the diversity of the US population. Juries should look like the accused. What do you think of these ideas? Why? Well, her is what I think:

Money = Happiness: This is true to a limited extent. Up to a certain income level happiness does tend to increase, then the rate of increase slows down. At some point (An average income of maybe $3500 a year) the change in happiness for a nation's population does not increase rapidly. Individuals are the same way. Beyond a certain income level increased income does not significantly increase happiness. Of course everyone wants to believe that a huge payday will make them happy, happy, happy.

According to an article in Tuesday's Washington Post Express, lottery winners and people who are paralyzed from the neck down report being equally happy one year later. I'm not convinced that this finding supports a genetic "happiness point" but it does suggest that we tend to return to a modest level of happiness after a high or low.

Congress: Isn't Congress the opposite of Progress? That one was too easy to resist. Anyway, I once heard a colleague opine that Congress should represent the diversity of the United States population. Why? "Why not?" was the answer. Well, why not stick with the idea that Congress shall consist of the individuals that the people send to Congress as their representatives? Anyway, our diverse Congress would only satisfy people until we realize that there aren't any African-American lesbians or Hispanic midgets. Statistically, there should probably be one of each in Congress.

Our Peers L:ook Like Us: We have the right to a trial by a jury of our peers. What does that mean? Why doesn't someone go and look it up! I am pretty sure it means that we have the Constitutional right to have our fates decided by fellow citizens rather than professional jurists, a milirary tribunal, or a lone judge. Or maybe it does mean that a black defendent needs to have a mostly black jury? Oddly, I find some merit in that particular idea. There is a long history of slavery and systematic oppression of black people in he United States after all. Nobody else has any excuse for thinking a jury should look like them! The rest of you are just SOL if the jury isn't mostly Asian, mostly female, mostly white, or whatever you are.

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