 |
Well the outcome might be like that or it might not, with 52% of the vote, under proportional representation, Democrates would take 52% of the seats so it might be more like your Senate, on the other hand there might be a number of independentsQuote:
Originally Posted by speechlesstx
What you are talking about is proportional representation under your Parliamentary system. So if we became more like you or Europe then we would have a better system ? Lolololololol ! No thanks ! I like the separation of powers even if it means a divided government . Actually ,I prefer a divided government with no one party having absolute control over the government .
We have separation of powers Tom and our High Court is reasonably non partisan although we do get the odd old queer appointed now and again, you may be surprised to learn that the balance of power in our parliament resembles yours on most occasions, the governing party being unable to legislate without the goodwill of the opposition, when the right wing has had it too good they do stupid things like Work Choices, and when the left wing has had it too good they do stupid things like the Carbon Tax, but we have mechanism, not often used that can unlock the dead lock and clear the dead wood
The founders designed our system for the Congress to be the most important branch of equal branches. That is why the Articles of the Constitution were arranged the way they are with Article One covereing the limited powers of the Legislature. And Article Two covering the Executive. I completely oppose a proportional representation based on a national popular vote . You want to know the difference here... The Dems are a regional party having the vast majority of their representatives in a handfull of highly populated urban states. If a party could gain a majority of representatives from those few states ,then they would have no incentives to represent the interests of the rest of the country . Both parties would concentrate all their efforts where the majority of the votes are .
Quote:
Originally Posted by tomder55
Tom, I think you forgot to mention SCOTUS
Tut
SCOTUS is the 3rd and theoretically least important under the founders system. Much of it's powers were seized because no one challenged the legitimacy of the 'Marbury v Madison' decision.
Quote:
Originally Posted by tomder55
Well, then the theory has proved to be incorrect.
Tut
The theory was sound . SCOTUS has done a lot of good ,but in my judgement more harm in reshaping the powers of government beyond what was intended .
Many things are sound in theory but don't work out in practice.Quote:
Originally Posted by tomder55
Are you talking about the same," black robed oligarchs" you keep telling us about?Quote:
Originally Posted by tomder55
Tut
Yup ;and in my view the error was in giving them lifetime appts . But also Congress and /or the President should've challenged the legitimacy of Marbury. The founders NEVER intended the Court's constitutional hegemony .
You know, Tom, you could almost be describing our system where the support for the right is concentrated in the country and the support fot the left is concentrated in cities and the industrial heartland. We are so sparsely populated in parts that some of our representatives have constituencies bigger than some of your states. Like you our legislature is the senior of the various branches of government, the other branches offering support and review. The force of democracy is not diminished here even if the voting system is a little different. I observed that in your last election it came down to concentrating your efforts to a very small geographical area. I have seen the map overlayed by electorial results of your country. The real difference between us is the leadership is directly answerable to the parliamentQuote:
Originally Posted by tomder55
The founders are gone and for whatever reason its today conditions and people who have shaped the government to meet today issues.Quote:
Originally Posted by tomder55
Our leaders in theory are accountable to the voters, and we have an election every two years on some level or another, so in effect we have an ever changing(?) parlimentary coalition, but we callour democracy federalist which in my opinion I purely semantic.Quote:
Originally Posted by paraclete
Also in theory our 3 branches of government are equal, as a check and balance to each other. Scotus is an appointment by the president that has to be confirmed by the senate. We have no review and support as you say since depending on who is in power, it a heated debate.
The president is the only one affected by the electoral college, as any other office is filled by popular vote, and its easy to predict the leaning of states, so that's why we know in advance where those swing states that can be swayed one way or another are located.
It a science. No government on earth is better or worse, but the people are the ones that make it effective or not.
The more people you have, the more complicated it gets. Size matters.
So scrap the Constitution and be done with it . It would be better than this charade of pretending to be a Constitutional Republic when we are in fact post-Constitutional.Quote:
The founders are gone and for whatever reason its today conditions and people who have shaped the government to meet today issues.
We don't have to scrap it, just continue to build on it no matter what we call our democracy. What's wrong with that?
Yes, time for a rewrite Tom, put it in plain language and spell out the rights, duties and responsibilities so you don't have constant wranglings over meaning and intentQuote:
Originally Posted by tomder55
That's the job of SCOTUS, all you have to do is bring the case.Quote:
so you don't have constant wranglings over meaning and intent
Seems the job they do just creates more wranglings
Americans love to wrangle and hold onto what they believe in and that's why we move so slowly as we are large and diverse, but that doesn't mean we all have to believe in the same things.
Wrangling is not a bad thing. It's the American way.
Really, has that information filtered down to your school system yet, so like Superman you are fighting a never ending fight for Truth, Justice and the American Way. Once we might have believed you, but it rings a little hollow today. From what we have seen truth is optional, justice is of course as always blind and only for those who can afford it , and the american way, well, how's that working out for you?
Why bother when our government makes the rules as it goes along and judges find powers for the government in the penumbras and emanations of the plain language of the Constitution ?Quote:
Originally Posted by talaniman
So its not the Constitution you don't like, it's the people who interpret and implement the laws? You think those old white gentlemen would have imagined 50 states and a civil war in between?
You must want your America back and don't want to share it with other Americans.
Obviously the founding fathers couldn't envisage much beyond, well, the Ohio and the Mississippi, after all most of it was in French and Spanish hands. Their concerns were much closer to home, staying out from under the British thumb, and they were fortunate, the British had bigger fish to fry, for which they would prove the beneficiaries. The British made a fatal mistake in 1814, they should have ended it then
It wasn't fatal and it ended up okay in the long run. We are best friends now. What's a war among friends?
You know I think the Constitution is timeless .It is not me who favors expanding the powers of the national government beyond the scope of the Constitution. All I've ever asked is that if changes are needed ,that it gets amended properly.Quote:
So its not the Constitution you don't like, it's the people who interpret and implement the laws? You think those old white gentlemen would have imagined 50 states and a civil war in between?
Yes I do think the founders imagined an expanded nation ;and expansion in knowledge of the sciences. Are you kidding ? By the time the founders passed away they had engineered the expansion of the nation in territorial size well beyond the Mississippi River.Many of the founders were the foremost scientist and philosophical minds of the enlightenment . Few of them limited themselves to being professional politicians as today's group of leaders do.
A civil war ? It was avoidable They set up a system that would've solved the slave issue without civil war . I blame SCOTUS and the Dredd Scott decision for the civil war. That decision by the appointed for life oligarchs wiped out a generation of compromise . Had the legislations been allowed to stand ,eventually the slave trade would've been abolished without bloodshed .
The Brits mistake was in thinking they could stomp on the rights of free men.Quote:
Originally Posted by paraclete
No Tom the Brits decided to free men long before it became fashionable in the United States, you want to talk about stomping on the rights of free men, why did it take until the later half of the twentieth century for your nation to stop stomping on the rights of free men, if in fact that is what they have actually done. You claim to be founded by members of the enlightenment, but they were only enlightened in their own direction, in enriching and entrenching themselves behind some flowery language
That is a complete falsehood. Most of the founders sacrificed personal wealth in public service.
You mean to say they got nothing out of it. Didn't someone tell them politics costs money or is that a twenty-first century phenominom. Your defense of these people is slavish and laughable, they may have had some good motives but behind it was defense of their own interests. I think they got into more than they could chewQuote:
Originally Posted by tomder55
Even back then public service had its perks. Politicians never go broke or lose any power or influence and that's for a lifetime just like those judges. We have always seen where there is a will, or interest, there are was to stretch the boundaries of any law.
All men being created equal is a nice idea, but we all know that some are worth a lot more than others is the reality, and has been forever.
Capitalism says its okay to be greedy and know how to make/take as much as you can. Why bribe a politician to make favorable laws for you when you can just lease/rent/or own them? And its LEGAL if not questionable. So its not the Constitution that's flawed Tom, it's the money that can manipulate it that's the problem.
Wouldn't matter if it's a SCOTUS for life, or a month.
maybe you should read up on it instead of speculation based on 21st century values. Save your cynicism for your leaders today . The founders don't deserve it .
Samuel Adams had to borrow clothing to go to Philadelphia for the 2nd Continental Congress.
Jefferson began his public life at 26 .He ended it at 66 years and in all that time added nothing to his personal wealth .
Here is a letter he wrote after returning home from a decade of service .
To Jean Nicolas Demeunier Monticello, Virginia, Apr. 29, 1795 < The Letters of Thomas Jefferson 1743-1826 < Thomas Jefferson < Presidents < American History From Revolution To Reconstruction and beyondQuote:
On returning home after an absence of ten years, I found my farms so much deranged that I saw evidently they would be a burden to me instead of a support till I could regenerate them; and, consequently, that it was necessary for me to find some other resource in the meantime. I thought for a while of taking up the manufacture of potash, which requires but small advances of money. I concluded at length, however, to begin a manufacture of nails, which needs little or no capital, and I now employ a dozen little boys from ten to sixteen years of age, overlooking all the details of their business myself, and drawing from it a profit on which I can get along till I can put my farms into a course of yielding profit. My new trade of nail-making is to me in this country what an additional title of nobility or the ensigns of a new order are in Europe.
Jefferson was technically bankrupt at the time of his death.
Patrick Henry had to leave public service to tend to his personal finances and had to be coaxed back into public service. Washington often kept the army together out of his own pockets . He was wealthy ,but did not increase in wealth in his times of public service.
That is just a few examples . They all took greater risks than our pols today ;and in the case of the wealthy ones ,risked all on something that was hardly a sure thing .
Okay I don't mind being corrected with facts. Since the founders are gone and we only have today as an example, I will stick to how Today's politician gets richer than when he/she started their public services. Whether it's a cush lobby job, or hired by former donors.
Fair enough?
Politicians getting richer, isn't that why they went into politics? Do you really think their intention wasn't to advantage themselves in the process? We had one senior politician who was known as the ten thousand dollar man, that was a while ago, we now have one former politician who is likely to be called the hundred million dollar man
Consider that in some places, the US for example its not in the best interests of politicians to do the right thing by the whole country. 100% election participation would be a nightmare for those seeking to exploit the flaws in the system for personal gain.
You lost me Tal
The bigger the electorial participation, the more chance that hidden self interest can gain a foothole. The more that can be done for the whole, NOT just the few.
An informed, engaged electorate is the solution in my opinion to corruption, and exploitation. That was the intent of our founding fathers for a government of the people, by the people, for the people.
I don't quite follow how the electorate can be informed when the media totes Obama's water and all he'd tell us was that the other guy is a greedy, evil, dog abuser instead of any actual second term agenda.Quote:
Originally Posted by talaniman
It is possible the electorate is better informed than it has been in the past, this has led to a polarisation, but it has not led to the electorate being more engaged or the politicians less corrupt. The bigger the electoral participation the more likely that you can "keep the b@stards honest" as the leader of one of our minor parties put it, but you mean electoral participation as number of voters and I mean electoral participation as number of candidates
I gather my own facts and do the math according to what the candidate says or WRITES himself.Quote:
Originally Posted by speechlesstx
Its not always as cut and dried as the media says so check the sources before you believe them.
What is a second term agenda other than reinforcing the policies of the first term. There seems to be an idea that new ideas just spring up because an election campaign exists. The reality is the pressing issues of years have not been successfully dealt with, and concluded, so how can there realistically be new initiatives. The idea that you can fish and cut bait doesn't apply. There will be no moving on until the deficit is under control
Tal, I couldn't agree more. But if you think the electorate isn't swayed by the media and a negative campaign that's awfully naïve.
| All times are GMT -7. The time now is 04:06 PM. |