Word: systemize
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Former Supreme Court Justice Warren Burger called the American court-martial system "the most enlightened military code in history" - but few would call it perfect. In an unusual public ceremony in Seattle last year, the Army apologized for the wrongful convictions of 28 African-American soldiers of the 43 tried in the largest and longest court-martial of World War II. Most of the men were convicted of rioting amid a 1944 melee at Fort Lawton in which an Italian prisoner of war was lynched; two were convicted of manslaughter. A 2005 book detailing misconduct by prosecutors prompted an Army...
...automatically apply to soldiers - but since World War II, military trials have come to more closely resemble civilian trials. Different branches of the armed forces used varying military codes until 1950, when Congress enacted the Uniform Code of Military Justice, now the basis of the military-justice system. Under the code, defendants share many of the same rights as civilians, including the right against self-incrimination and guaranteed access to counsel. But important differences still remain: jury members are chosen by the officer convening the court-martial, and many military convictions cannot be appealed to the Supreme Court...
...investigated the subject, what was something that surprised you? The American train system surprised me. The American rail network is more extensive than commonly supposed, but it's not used for passenger transport; it's used for freight transport. Interestingly enough, Europeans use their railways for passengers but not for freight...
What about the U.S. tax system? How does it compare to Europe's? The U.S. tax rate is at the low end of the European scale. The big difference is we have no national VAT, or value-added tax. We rely on income and property tax for revenue, and our corporate tax is higher than that of most European nations. And yet our system is very progressive. Rich Americans pay a larger share of their income in taxes than the richest Europeans do. We have a low absolute level of taxation, but it's progressive by European standards...
...average European pays a much higher percentage in overall budget every time they buy something, but European governments give it back in the form of social benefits. American social benefits tend to be limited to the poor, so there's a much clearer [wealth] redistribution through the tax system than there is in Europe...