in the united states, the principle of jury nullificatin is a just check on the government

"do you believe that if someone commits a crime that they should not be punished?" Define crime, because I am almost certain our definitions are not the same. "would you say that it is the duty of the government to keep the people in check?" No I would not. For the government (a small group compared to the general public) to control the populace would cause our government to be a type of oligarchy. In a way the people keep themselves in check by making local laws and by keeping a sense of justice in a community. An anarchist community survives in a similar way by the will of the people to live in a just community. Because of this, I do not believe it is necessary to keep the people in check, and if I do not believe it is needed, then by proxy I do not believe it is their job. On a different note, the people do not really hold enough power to have a need to be kept in check. They vote, but through the dispersal of abilities the individual loses most destructive power, unlike government officials who have been given extreme amounts of harmful capabilities. With the amount of power they have and the amount of officials, they have a stronger power with more of a need to be kept "in check". I am realizing, now that I myself have used the term "in check", that it is a term mildly depending on definition. My apologies for not realizing it on my part. "it is in fact the jury that makes the decision of the verdict, not the judge, correct?" Yes it is the jury. They make the final decision. I have nothing more to say to that. "can you give atleast two examples of current laws in the us that are wrong or unjust?" Alright. First I have to wonder if we are only talking about laws, or if we are talking about precepts as well. For instance there is the precept that income tax is required of a person, though no where in any book of law is it written that we must pay income tax. I invite you to look for yourself if you do not believe me. This is a precept though, but you can still be put in prison just as easily for it. There's wiretapping which leads into "thought crime". That's an interesting one. President Bush was the first to really push this topic. In short, if they suspect you may be thinking of committing a crime, then they can charge you. There's one law about to be passed here in Oklahoma that states that if a minor dies from alcohol abuse on your property, you are then charged with life in prison under the assumption that you are guilty of murder until you can prove yourself innocent. Is it to be believed that you are now guilty until proven innocent? I hardly think that seems accurate. One other question to get this straight, do you want laws affecting the individual, or laws affecting a group, federal laws, or state laws? My main point of confusion goes back to my original question of, do you want precepts, or do you want legitimate laws. If you could please clarify this, then I would be more than happy to respond with an appropriate answer. "are the government not made up of the american people?" Your last question strikes me as being a bit open ended, but I will do my best to explain my answer. Though our government, in principle, is designed to be controlled by the people, it isn't quite so today. Referring back to my statement on how corporations and lobbyists are considered as one person. This removes the individual right of the people making up the corporation. Also take a look at campaign finance reform. An individual can only give a certain amount of money to a candidate while a corporation can give far more. So the corporation has more power than the individual. Therefor I would almost say that the government is made up of corporations and groups, which are made of people. Though these are made up of the people, it is impossible for the individual to be entirely represented, just as it is impossible to represent every citizen simply because of the ration between citizens and reps. So, in a way, the government is made up of the people, but in another way it is not. Things in the government have been done without the people's knowledge as well, so the government currently is not what the people necessarily intended, so because of that alone the government isn't made up purely of the people's ideas. I apologize for rambling, but I believe it was all relevant. I'm almost sure my answers will not satisfy you. I wrote them too quickly and didn't have a chance to explain them as thoroughly as I'd like for lack of time. I'm very sorry for that.