Politics .... I thought it would be fitting..

The 2 party system isn't so bad, it'd be nice to have more parties at the state level, but I look at it this way. It's not like a Westminster type system where the party is more important then the individual. Every time there's a "free vote" in these systems it always seems like a big deal since in general MPs are always supposed to vote with their party. Despite all the partisan bickering at least here your congresspeople are always allowed to vote how they want. Plus the fact, the Democratic party of say Connecticut is far different then the Democratic party of say Mississippi, just like Republicans from New Hampshire vs Republicans from Oklahoma, the 2 parties have vague national platforms and everyone knows what they generally stand for, but many members of the same party often can have very conflicting views depending on what party of the party they're in.

I think it all works out pretty well in the end, 2 main parties trying to encompass the political views of 300 million people across one of the largest countries on earth. Combine this with an executive branch that has to represent an entire country for at least 4 years, senators that have to represent an entire state for 6 years and congressmen that have to represent their specific district just for 2, you wind up with 3 different parts of government that often have conflicting views and interest and must use the art of compromise often.

 

It's a big deal, because of Confidence Votes. Certain bills that are passed will change the Constitution and requires the majority of elected members to pass the bill - and if they defeat it - that means that the governing party has lost the confidence of the House, and the government topples. It no longer has the confidence of the House to govern.

Bills such as "Gay Marriage" for example, are a Confidence Vote. If the governing party presented the House with a bill that would legalize gay marriage, and it was defeated, then Parliament would be forced to close down shop and the country would have an election.

In the case of Canada, the Liberal Party was in power when they presented a bill to legalize gay marriage. The Conservatives were faced with a choice. They could either all decide to vote "No" because gay marriage goes against their party's platform and force the Canadian people to go to an election (even though we had just had one) or they could grit their teeth and vote the way that the individuals would like to vote and risk the chance of passing the bill.

These kinds of votes are important. They make more sense than allowing presidential vetoes to pass bills. In the presidential system, it's almost irrelevant if the Congress defeats a bill, because the president can just use his status to pass anything that he wants that goes along with his party line. It's unfair to the opposition party(ies) - because nobody voted in favour of passing the bill, it was defeated in Congress by both Dems and Reps and yet somehow the bill was still passed.

It's bypassing representative proportional democracy. To me, vetoing bills already voted on defeats legitimate representative authority to govern elected directly by the will of the majority.

In a Parliamentary System, the individual elected officials' votes matter more, because nobody can veto it. They are held responsible and accountable for their votes more so than in presidential system by their constituency as a result.

Remember, that voting in the legislature isn't about voting the way you want to. It's not an individualistic thing at all. It's voting in a way that is representative of the people that elected you otherwise you're going to be voted out.

 

I would like to say I have a response for this, but soon, there's chemicals on the brain and I feel i would not be able to fully express myself at the moment.

but I do have a response!

 

how the hell is that "working out pretty well?"
sounds like shit to me.

i'm registered as a democrat, but i am pretty apathetic politically

 

Because in reality, it doesn't really matter all too much.

 

it just seemed weird to say it works out pretty well and then list 5 reasons why it sucks

 

I'm an anarchist or you could call me very liberal. I'm a progressive, rational, being.

 

Ron Paul. that's it. Ron Paul. Ron Paul. Ron Paul.

I never paid attention to politics one bit cause no matter what the choices are going to suck cock nuggets and the country is still gonna keep sucking fat hairy asshole, until I heard about Ron Paul. I was tripping mushrooms and my friend was driving around the plaza and there was people fuckin everywhere with Ron Paul shirts on handing people pamphlets about him through the windows so I took one. Ron Paul is to me like Jesus is to a christian. My savior. My hope. My light.

 

if i became a leader and had a strong army behind me, i would unfuck the world.

Yet most would accuse me of numerous genocides, tyrany, and ruin of humanity.

But they would be the ones that are unable to understand, that you fix the problem when its growing, when its allready too big to fix, you kill it with fire and harpoons and start over.

 

The reasons I said though weren't reasons I thought it sucked it's reasons why I think it works out well.

Alright now I do have my answer

In terms of confidence votes, isn't it a bad thing though how members of a party are not generally supposed to have a free vote except on big and important votes, which can then bring down the entire government. Take the gay marriage ban here for example back in 2005 when the house Republicans tried to pass it. Now it would've been nice if they failed out of office at that point, but would it really have been right if they were forced from power over 1 vote like that if it failed. Now I know in theory it can be said if people still supported them they can just vote for them again, but that leads to situations like Italy and Israel

The veto power I believe makes a good separation of powers in the government. The parliamentary system has a very weak defined separation of powers between the executive of the prime minister and the legislative, i.e. the rest of parliament. It gives 2(well 3 if you count both congress chambers since they have roughly equal power) fully separated and elected parts of government that have to work together to stop the excess of the other. The president has as much mandate to sign or veto legislation that both senators and congresspeople do to vote yay or nay. And if it really angers the people that much, instead of placing the whole government as risk of failing, every 2 years a good deal of the government goes back up for reelection.

Parliamentary systems I think revolve too much around the specific party vs the individual running. The party itself becomes more important because both the executive and legislative branch are fixed to be one of the same, of both party and branch of government. And the party loyalty needed in parliament to have the government function seems to make the whole thing pointless and parliament just become a rubber stamp for the party until something big comes up since you know how they're going to vote just about all the time, there's no compromising or ect.

And it works further on down the line. Despite how we all like to blame the federal government, most things that effect our life in the US are laws and policies set out by the various state governments, that themselves are totally separate from the feds, so I think we have a pretty good system of democracy all the way to the top.

 

^^^they all sound like reasons it sucks...

you think 2 parties can accurately represent the political views of 300 million?

whatever i'm back to being apathetic.

 

anarcho-primitivist

 

The point is they don't, the parties at a national level are, the parties as a whole on the national level generally have a vague platform if any really aside from vague ideas. Hence why the individuals running in whatever district become more important then the party itself.

 

Kinda sounds to me like you're just letting yourself become a tool, man. Politicians don't deserve the amount of praise you just gave that man. I think you should go back and read up a little more about Ron Paul and his politics before you make the guy out to be Christ. Don't get me wrong though, there are quite a few things about Ron Paul that are on point, as far as I'm concerned. But if you can honestly say you flatly agree with all he says, does, and stands for, then all you've ever read about him came out of a pamphlet.

 

I do have disagreements with him, abortion's for example. And religion. but he's still the best candidate i've ever seen.

 

Why the fuck would anyone be a primitivist

 

I'm an anarcho-capitalist. Libertarian to people with a knee jerk reaction to anarchism.

 

arguably anarcho capitalism caused this financial crisis and we need more regulation, not less. Hard to agree with that if you're anarchist but it makes sense to me. This and other things, such as a minimum wage, benefits and the nhs are examples of positive liberty a government can provide, which is why i'm opposed to a complete negative liberty philosophy. However, the government paints a benevolent picture, that we need them to govern us, as a paternalistic figure. We survived without government, as societies and as individuals and life went on, the government isn't necessary. They cause just as much harm as good, such as wars, corruption, look at Mugabe and Burma for example. The drug war is another example of a harmful government policy. This is why i'm more of a radical liberal then anarchist, a well run government that doesn't patronise and interefere, that stays within the boundaries of the harm principle is what i'd vote for.

 

See the whole basis of this crisis was government. Let's go back about 1 1/2 years, what started this crisis? The housing bubble bursting lead by what 2 companies? Freedie and Fannie. These were federally created companies that were pressured by the government to make risky loans. And because they were government created and it had never come up before, most people assumed that the companies were still government backed, which since we had to bail them out in the end they were.


And fast forward to now.

 

No. If the government tries to pass a really bad bill that requires the majority of the House and gets defeated, then why should they have the right to govern?

Please explain this, because it doesn't make any sense. The Prime Minister is firstly, just a Minister. He gets elected through his own constituency like all the other elected officials. If he loses his seat in Parliament because the people in his constituency voted him out, he's gone. That's a very strong tie between the executive and the legislature. Not to mention, that we have Cabinet Ministers that the Prime Minister appoints who are directly involved in the PMO (the Executive), Ministers belong to specific Federal Committees alongside their Cabinet posts if they have any and retain their MP seat.

In the Presidential System, a President has no constituency that he represents. He's just elected by a popularity contest and wins a golden ticket. He isn't held accountable the same way that other Congress man and women are by a constituency. Which means that this kind of separation of power can make the people weak and have less direct contact with the President. Even more so, because the President is indirectly elected by the Electoral College, so it's much more elitist to become President than it is to become Prime Minister.

Can you explain the last sentence? I have no idea what you were trying to say.

Can you give like, an example of this?

I totally disagree. In Parliamentary systems, we have Officials who cross the floor and change parties ALL THE TIME. In Canada, we have MPs who get elected at the Federal levels as Independents, New Democrats, Bloc Quebecois, Liberals, Conservatives, Alliance, Reform, etc. We have like, a new party elected into Parliament just about every 10 years. So it's not really a big deal what party you're in at all - it's more about who you are working with within the Legislature that counts.

See, the Official Opposition Party (whatever it may be) will appoint their own mock Cabinet Ministers. These people act as official Cabinet Ministers of the Opposition and are in charge of executing and bringing forth their own policy and programs to pass in the Legislature. This way, there could be 5 different parties all with official written policies on something like Income Tax Reform - and in order for the government to pass a bill on Income Tax Reform - the parties are all equipped with the tools necessary for negotiations. The parties are important, but I don't know how you think that the Legislature and Executive are one and the same and say that this means it is a weak system. Not sure how to expand on that thought.

Yeah, this means that there is a de-centralized federal government system. The federal government has less power and authority over state affairs. It's why people can/can't marry someone of their same sex in the US. This kind of system makes a federal system very weak, it cannot rule easily that Gays have the right to marry because of 50 state legislatures standing in the way - the federal government as a result has less authority to rule on Human Rights issues and very basic and important domestic policy.

We have Provinces in Canada. If you weren't aware, we have de-centralized systems of regional management just like the USA does. We elect Provincial governments to pass laws specific to our home Province. So, we do have a separation of powers but ours is a more centralized system of power.

In my view, the Parliamentary System is more democratic.