Quote Originally Posted by Aimless View Post
Hang on, would you accept that as sufficient reason for abolishing courts in our day? Courts around Galileo's time and earlier (as well as later) have done all sorts of things we consider to be wrong, unjust or insane. But we do not, in fact, live in Galileo's time. This sort of reasoning is truly puzzling to me. If science has in the past appeared to lead us astray, should we abandon the scientific method entirely? If doctors believed ludicrous things about the body before, does that mean we should reject modern medicine? If a doctor deliberately goes against best practice guidelines based on science and evidence, and in so doing harms a patient, do you believe we should have no other recourse than to let it slide? If people had terrible beliefs about human rights, or about what was right, does that mean we should reject any attempt to say, today, what our rights are, or what is the right thing to do? We can and should continue our attempts to find out what the truth is, whenever and wherever necessary. Past failures should not change our commitment to that mission.
Just because modern first world courts are better than Middle Ages/Renaissance courts doesn't mean they should be judging everything under the sun.

One key reasons modern courts are superior is because they take a great deal of care to determine what they should and should not have purview over. Stupid Internet fights are one area where they generally try to stay away (except in the UK apparently).