Obama gets sued but not George Bush [modified]
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Very true and cearly stated. In the UK we have a coalition (first in many decades) and it is working much better than I thought, I think it keeps the larger party on their toes. Would frequent coalitions work here? I honestly don't know.
Join the cool kids - Come fold with us[^] "Program as if the technical support department is full of serial killers and they know your home address" - Ray Cassick Jr., RIP
Trollslayer wrote:
Would frequent coalitions work here? I honestly don't know.
Our problem seems to be the sovereign presidency concept embraced by every president at least since Nixon. In the U.K. the chief executive must please a majority of parliament or he can be fired quite easily. In the U.S. the chief executive is an equal of the entire Congress and, it seems, often thinks he is better than they are. He can be fired but only with an extraordinary effort. We do have semi-coalitions within the Congress - Blacks, Latinos and Jews, for instance, all represent separate groups with separate agendas, uneasily coexisting within the Democratic Party, while the Libertarians, Tea Party, and Big Government Republicans all exist, equally uneasily, in the Republican Party. The closest the U.S. has ever come to a coalition in the White House was when John Adams was elected President and Thomas Jefferson, who was the runner up, became his vice president. They were from different parties, didn't see eye to eye on anything and ended up not talking to each other. The situation was so bad, we changed how the vice president was elected to make sure it didn't happen again.
The 3-legged stool of understanding is held up by history, languages, and mathematics. Equipped with these three you can learn anything you want to learn. But if you lack any one of them you are just another ignorant peasant with dung on your boots. R. A. H.
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Trollslayer wrote:
Would frequent coalitions work here? I honestly don't know.
Our problem seems to be the sovereign presidency concept embraced by every president at least since Nixon. In the U.K. the chief executive must please a majority of parliament or he can be fired quite easily. In the U.S. the chief executive is an equal of the entire Congress and, it seems, often thinks he is better than they are. He can be fired but only with an extraordinary effort. We do have semi-coalitions within the Congress - Blacks, Latinos and Jews, for instance, all represent separate groups with separate agendas, uneasily coexisting within the Democratic Party, while the Libertarians, Tea Party, and Big Government Republicans all exist, equally uneasily, in the Republican Party. The closest the U.S. has ever come to a coalition in the White House was when John Adams was elected President and Thomas Jefferson, who was the runner up, became his vice president. They were from different parties, didn't see eye to eye on anything and ended up not talking to each other. The situation was so bad, we changed how the vice president was elected to make sure it didn't happen again.
The 3-legged stool of understanding is held up by history, languages, and mathematics. Equipped with these three you can learn anything you want to learn. But if you lack any one of them you are just another ignorant peasant with dung on your boots. R. A. H.
I've suspected this is the case but as an outsider didn't want to tell people what their country is like. One observation if I may - it seems the US president is treated more like royalty by the US than our royalty is by us or am I wrong?
Join the cool kids - Come fold with us[^] "Program as if the technical support department is full of serial killers and they know your home address" - Ray Cassick Jr., RIP
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Yes, I did vote. And whether I voted or not I can still call them morons and complained that we are in 4 pointless wars.
wolfbinary wrote:
illusions of a democracy
There is definitely some truth to that. The power rests with the moneyed class and it will get worse as the effects of Citizens United are felt. Tax cuts for the rich, attacks on unions, attacks on Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, public employees (which include teachers, firefighters police and many others that perform vital and important services to all of us) one set of laws for the rich and another for everyone else. In the past 40 years middle class incomes have stagnated while they have soared for the rich. The share of income going to the top 1% has gone from 7% to 24%. There is a class war going on in this country and the rich are winning.
In the UK there are limits to how much money can be spent on campaigns and penalties (especially the bad publicity) for those that get caught breaking them. Now if they only had to wear lie detectors...
Join the cool kids - Come fold with us[^] "Program as if the technical support department is full of serial killers and they know your home address" - Ray Cassick Jr., RIP
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In the UK there are limits to how much money can be spent on campaigns and penalties (especially the bad publicity) for those that get caught breaking them. Now if they only had to wear lie detectors...
Join the cool kids - Come fold with us[^] "Program as if the technical support department is full of serial killers and they know your home address" - Ray Cassick Jr., RIP
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I've suspected this is the case but as an outsider didn't want to tell people what their country is like. One observation if I may - it seems the US president is treated more like royalty by the US than our royalty is by us or am I wrong?
Join the cool kids - Come fold with us[^] "Program as if the technical support department is full of serial killers and they know your home address" - Ray Cassick Jr., RIP
Trollslayer wrote:
I've suspected this is the case but as an outsider didn't want to tell people what their country is like.
Our original agreement between the states (the Articles of Confederation) was set up on much more of a parliamentary model with the President being elected by the Congress. However, a number of the politicians especially including George Washington and Alexander Hamilton were unhappy with central government having very little power over the individual states. They wanted a strong executive half-king/half prime minister representing what they felt were the overriding interests of the nation-as-a-whole. George, of course, was also creating a job for himself. Thomas Jefferson, arguably the most intelligent and philosophical of all of the Founders as well as the prime author of the declaration of Independence, was not happy with the changes made while he was out of the country. However, he was committed to the concept of a democratic republic and bowed to the will of the majority.
Trollslayer wrote:
it seems the US president is treated more like royalty by the US than our royalty is by us or am I wrong?
It can also be said that we treat your royalty more like royalty than you do. ;) but you are not wrong. More and more when a president says "We," he does not mean the country, nor even the government. He is talking about himself.
The 3-legged stool of understanding is held up by history, languages, and mathematics. Equipped with these three you can learn anything you want to learn. But if you lack any one of them you are just another ignorant peasant with dung on your boots. R. A. H.
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In the UK there are limits to how much money can be spent on campaigns and penalties (especially the bad publicity) for those that get caught breaking them. Now if they only had to wear lie detectors...
Join the cool kids - Come fold with us[^] "Program as if the technical support department is full of serial killers and they know your home address" - Ray Cassick Jr., RIP
Trollslayer wrote:
In the UK there are limits to how much money can be spent on campaigns
There are benefits to those limits, certainly, but they appear to make incumbency even more of an advantage than it is over here. The ability to campaign for almost two years and to spend almost obscene amounts of money is certainly one of the primary reasons the last election wasn't between McCain and Clinton. One problem both countries share is that we are always voting for or against people who want the job. Anyone with the hubris to think that he/she knows how to reorder the country and what to forbid and what to allow is already a danger to the rest of us.
The 3-legged stool of understanding is held up by history, languages, and mathematics. Equipped with these three you can learn anything you want to learn. But if you lack any one of them you are just another ignorant peasant with dung on your boots. R. A. H.
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I'm not him, but I hear what you are saying. However, you have to remember that the two parties have colluded with each other to insure that in most states it doesn't matter whether you vote of not. (Only two States, Nebraska and Maine, do not follow the winner-takes-all rule when it comes to apportioning the electoral college vote.) I used to live in Massachusetts - it didn't matter who I voted for. It was a foregone conclusion that the People's Republic of Massachusetts would vote for the democratic nominee. Now I live in South Carolina. Regardless of who I vote for, the Confederate Sovereignty of South Carolina will be solidly in the Republican camp. This has side benefits which I don't make light of - few robo-calls, no blitz advertising campaigns...Unfortunately, these benefits exist because both parties can take the voters for granted. It would not require getting rid of the electoral college (which would have to be a constitutional amendment) but only the Democrats in Massachusetts and the Republicans in South Carolina following the lead of Maine and Nebraska and apportioning the electoral vote according to the split in the popular vote. Once a group gains power, they seek to add more power, and they never, ever, give up what they have. As a result, our elections have become more and more of a sham, and those who are elected less and less interested in the promises they made, or the people they are supposed to serve.
The 3-legged stool of understanding is held up by history, languages, and mathematics. Equipped with these three you can learn anything you want to learn. But if you lack any one of them you are just another ignorant peasant with dung on your boots. R. A. H.
Agreed, but it still begs the question of what is the solution.
Well, who doesn't release stuff like that ? Microsoft software is just as bad. Christian Graus That's called seagull management (or sometimes pigeon management)... Fly in, flap your arms and squawk a lot, crap all over everything and fly out again... by _Damian S_
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Agreed, but it still begs the question of what is the solution.
Well, who doesn't release stuff like that ? Microsoft software is just as bad. Christian Graus That's called seagull management (or sometimes pigeon management)... Fly in, flap your arms and squawk a lot, crap all over everything and fly out again... by _Damian S_
wolfbinary wrote:
Agreed, but it still begs the question of what is the solution.
But that, in turn, I am afraid, begs the question as to why you think there is a solution. Historically, no republic has lasted 200 years without becoming a democracy and no democracy has lasted 200 years without becoming a mobocracy. "It is not, perhaps, unreasonable to conclude, that a pure and perfect democracy is a thing not attainable by man, constituted as he is of contending elements of vice and virtue, and ever mainly influenced by the predominant principle of self-interest. It may, indeed, be confidently asserted, that there never was that government called a republic, which was not ultimately ruled by a single will, and, therefore, (however bold may seem the paradox,) virtually and substantially a monarchy." ~ Alexander Fraser Tytler, "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy." ~ Alexis de Tocqueville.
The 3-legged stool of understanding is held up by history, languages, and mathematics. Equipped with these three you can learn anything you want to learn. But if you lack any one of them you are just another ignorant peasant with dung on your boots. R. A. H.
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Slacker007 wrote:
I still think Bush is a putz
I think the last umpty-ump Presidents have been putzes. ;)
The 3-legged stool of understanding is held up by history, languages, and mathematics. Equipped with these three you can learn anything you want to learn. But if you lack any one of them you are just another ignorant peasant with dung on your boots. R. A. H.
Oakman wrote:
I think the last umpty-ump Presidents have been putzes.
I agree. I also think that you can't effectively lead troops unless you've served as one. Just my 2 sense.
"Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forward." Kierkegaard, Søren
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wolfbinary wrote:
Agreed, but it still begs the question of what is the solution.
But that, in turn, I am afraid, begs the question as to why you think there is a solution. Historically, no republic has lasted 200 years without becoming a democracy and no democracy has lasted 200 years without becoming a mobocracy. "It is not, perhaps, unreasonable to conclude, that a pure and perfect democracy is a thing not attainable by man, constituted as he is of contending elements of vice and virtue, and ever mainly influenced by the predominant principle of self-interest. It may, indeed, be confidently asserted, that there never was that government called a republic, which was not ultimately ruled by a single will, and, therefore, (however bold may seem the paradox,) virtually and substantially a monarchy." ~ Alexander Fraser Tytler, "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy." ~ Alexis de Tocqueville.
The 3-legged stool of understanding is held up by history, languages, and mathematics. Equipped with these three you can learn anything you want to learn. But if you lack any one of them you are just another ignorant peasant with dung on your boots. R. A. H.
Oakman wrote:
But that, in turn, I am afraid, begs the question as to why you think there is a solution.
Well we'd never gone to the moon before either, and that made history. I would say that no solution is giving up and not learning from the history you're talking about. By the way I've read the last quote. You know the saying about history repeating itself.
Well, who doesn't release stuff like that ? Microsoft software is just as bad. Christian Graus That's called seagull management (or sometimes pigeon management)... Fly in, flap your arms and squawk a lot, crap all over everything and fly out again... by _Damian S_
