[martin14]

JJ JJ:

Leadership positions in European parliamentary politics, by contrast, tend to be handed out through the makings of parliamentary coalition deals and the like, deals that are often only vaguely correlated to the public sentiment expressed in a particular election. Their party leaders likewise tend to selected by small groups of the most dedicated party insiders, yet still hold enormous power over their caucuses.

I'll disagree here as well. Having witnessed several elections in Europe,
I can confidently say every voter knows full well going into an election
who the potential coalition partners are when trying to form a government.
How ?.. Simple, the party leaders do discuss who they will / will not team with..
You do end up with a semi left-right split, and the stronger coalition partners
do get the more important ministries and such.

$1:

I think we focus too much on the strict numbers of parties when we look at Europe. There are a lot of European parties, yes, and they can get elected to parliament much easier as a result of the proportional representation electoral system most EU countries use. But again, these parties tend to be run very hierarchically, and block-vote with their leader 99% of the time, because that's the sort of action demanded in coalition-based parliamentary politics. European politics does not usually allow for a lot of dissent within the ranks of political parties, because possessing a "united front" in the parliament is so important to ensure government stability (or instability, if you are on the other side).

Small parties in Europe also tend to define their appeal in very narrow terms to get elected, usually by playing up an issue that the mainstream parties are ignoring. There's less of a reason for this sort of phenomena to emerge in the USA because a) direct election of members of the legislature gives those members a power base independent from the party, and b) a lack of hierarchical party leadership allows members to vote freely on issues without fear of consequence for voting "the wrong way."

Please prove me wrong when I say the Republicans and Democrats in the House
and Senate vote 95-99% along party lines.. sorry, can't see the difference

$1:

Re the Icelandic bit, this was just a political game played out by parties used
to making coalition governments to rule. It has nothing to do with Gisladottir
being gay.

I never said it did. I just highlighted the example of her rise to power as evidence of the less directly democratic way the European political systems operate, and thus the greater potential for a controversial political figure to achieve high office.

I believe I addressed this above.
I would say that the coalition system does allow more sides a voice, and thus
can introduce more 'controversy' into politics.
For example Jorg Heider in Austria, or the BNP in the Euro Parliament.

Yes, they are there; however, the same process that brought them into
some political power also prevents them from having too much success.
Unless their ideas have fairly broad appeal, they go nowhere because of the
work needed to build a consensus... something the USA could take a lesson from.

[Ombrageux]

You are correct on LBJ. It was I think the only time we had such massive reforms in the absence of war or collapse. This was exceptional, in no small part due to Johnson's rare legislative genius. No one has matched him since. (Although, it is also worth stressing how difficult it was to pass reforms, particularly in the South where "massive resistance" was long and bitter, and how the Great Society remained ultimately only half-fulfilled.)

Unitary systems have the benefit of electoral accountability, something absent in the U.S. political system. A British PM is elected, they have a big fat majority, they can do what they want with it. If the country does well or poorly over their years in office, they will have some trouble buck passing.

In the U.S., whatever the merits of checks and balances, there is little we can call "democratic". The Supreme Court has no democratic element. The Senate is a minoritarian body where legal entities (not people) are equal and representatives of 20% of the population can block legislation. The House is somewhat better. The Congress as a whole however is a vast, corrupt body that finds any democratic element hurt by the effects of fundraising and seniority. There's no particular reason why constituents who never vote out their representatives should have more voice than people who change theirs, but that's how the U.S. system works. (The main reason why Congress was dominated by Southern segregationists - whom never had to compete with Republicans - for decades up to the 1970s.) In addition, the effects of incumbency are very strong and localized, militating against true national elections and contestation of seats.

In this context we have legislatively castrated, unaccountable presidents. They can easily claim the legislature/judiciary is not cooperating, and indeed, it is often a legitimate block to their campaign pledges. The problem is this becomes systematic. Presidents since Jimmy Carter have run against "Washington" or "government" in general. They arrive, find themselves impotent, leaving the "problems" still remaining, for new candidates to pick up the same message. So we end up with a total disconnect between words and practice. This to me is the only reason for the survival of "Darwinist-libertarian" and anti-welfare state rhetoric in the U.S. Quite simply, Reagan or Gingrich could always attack the State everyone's grandmother or sick cousin relied upon because there was always a Tip O'Neill or Clinton to "block" it. In the U.K., Thatcher had no such constraints. She pursued the logic ever further until the universal disgust in the face of the poll tax. British conservative ideology never recovered, even today, on the eve of victory, they do so as fuzzy, "Green" conservatives, not the ideologues that still exist in North America. (On the Democratic side, we see a similar rhetorical disconnect between "cleaning up Washington" and the need to embrace it to pass their agenda. Carter, Clinton and Obama all used this meme, although the last brought the strategy to a spectacular new level. "Washington" remains as dirty as ever. Interestingly, the "Washington cleanup" is, unlike for the right, not necessarily accompanied by a legislative program beyond things like campaign finance reform.)

[PublicAnimalNo9]

Martin14 Martin14:

Please prove me wrong when I say the Republicans and Democrats in the House
and Senate vote 95-99% along party lines.. sorry, can't see the difference

It's even worse in Canada. Both Moosejaw AND The Cretin abused the parliamentary system on occassion by forcing MPs to vote the party line(or at the very least accede to the PMs demands) or lose their positions in the party. Kinda defeats the ENTIRE purpose of us electing officials when they aren't allowed to represent their respective constuencies.

[coreenw]

Headed for the popcorn playhouse....

[Yogi]

[Brenda]

Did you actually read it Yogi? If so... please enlighten me. WTF is this about?

[Thanos]

It appears to be some sort of spirited defense of David Ahenakew's blatant Jew-hatred combined with a wildly bizarre attempt to provide lots of laughs for the rest of us.

Chauchee's gone and got ripped on the sacred stink weed again, methinks.

[Mustang1]

WTF was that moonbat trip to holywhatthehell land? Anyone got a super secret whackjob decoder ring? Damn.

[Thanos]

Apparently about half-way through the acid kicked in. After that it was all just speaking-in-tongues transmitted through a keyboard.

Think of Homer Simpson when he got the vibrating easy-chair as a good example. Whirrrrrrrr-blbpbplblbpblbpbpbllblrrrrpprlrllahhhhahhaahhahah! Sounds about the same when you compare the two.

[Goober_McGee]

wtf did I just read?

[Lemmy]

The thread title had me anticipating racey photographs of scantily-clad Swedish or Russian girls frolicking about a pile of bear skins.

Strangely, I wasn't disappointed. The bat-shit comedy was more entertaining to me than any pair of titties would have been.

[Yogi]

We could ask for a temporary immigration to be established. We could create a village and save a nation. Much like the native reservation, we could create a self-sufficient European farm village. We could bring in young Haitian couples, for example. Couples without children. We could give them a small house and some farm land to till. We could educate their children for 25 years. Then we could send them home again. This is better than immigration because then we can use the lands over and over again.


I actually did read most of her diatribe!!!

She is promoting the idea that Canada, in the forefront, as well as other nations, Europe, pretty much all the developed world, build free settlements for 'have-not' nations. ( In view of todays earthquakes ( Where the hell is Kate? I had to hear about this on the tv news!!!) and expected tsunammi's in Haiti... and the fact that our G.G. is of Haitian descent... )

Also, she is proposing that someone of Native Indian origins replace our current P.M., nay, the P.M.'s office, as 'Chief' of Canada!!!

[Brenda]

Omg, guys, thank you so much for doing my homework for me and giving me the bookreport

[saturn_656]

Rule #234 - When tripping on acid, do not post on CKA. Or anywhere for that matter.

[wildrosegirl]