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Ah, now the progressives attack our constitution

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Re: Ah, now the progressives attack our constitution
Post by JimHacker   » Thu Feb 07, 2013 6:45 am

JimHacker
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I've always suspected tha part of the reason American politics is so incredibly partisan is precisely becuase the american constitution renders its institutions impotent unless they work together. This may have even been the intended effect, seeing as some seemed to believe that the less government going on the better.

While logically all the US institutions should compromise and work together to achieve what's necessary, the way they're all given overlapping powers and areas of responsibility whilst simultaneously being absolutely safe (their power can't be diminished even if the others gang up on them for being a dick) means the entrenched conflict is pretty much inevietable.

The Australian system is pretty different. Its pretty close to the UK system because in a Parliamentary system the parties themselves are more likely to compromise with each other but there are fewer MPs who are willing to 'cross the aisle' or betray their own party. You may get a couple of backbenchers to vote for the other side sometimes but this is hardly ever enough to make a difference and is normally as much to do with internal party clique-politics rather than national politics. This makes it seem like a worse system than the US one as party discipline is even tighter and 'voting on personal conscience or interests of constituents' isn't even on the horizon for most politicians. But the parties themselves are more likely to compromise when necessary.

@Daryl, the only reason our system looks a little different at the moment is because we have a coalition government which occurs about once every 60 years and tends to destabalise the status quo.
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Re: Ah, now the progressives attack our constitution
Post by Spacekiwi   » Thu Feb 07, 2013 2:07 pm

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We had first past the post here in New Zealand until 1991, before moving to MMP. since then every government has been a coalition, and our current one is made of the main right wing party, and the smaller left wing party. our coalitions seem to work out fine, for the policies at least. the politicians tend to swap around a lot though as they make donkeys rears of of them selves.
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Re: Ah, now the progressives attack our constitution
Post by Darman   » Fri Feb 08, 2013 12:43 am

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Spacekiwi wrote:-snipped to important part-

the politicians tend to swap around a lot though as they make donkeys rears of of them selves.


Sometimes I think that the entertainment value we get from them is the only reason worth keeping them around.

Don't get me wrong, politicians can be nice people. But as a class I'm not particularly fond of them. At least in my state (and I'm sure its more or less the same everywhere) they seem more concerned with getting their family, friends, family's friends, or friends' family good cushy jobs/contracts/concessions from the state govt then they are in fixing the state. And my state is in the top 5 states with the worst business climate in the USA for the past... I wanna say 5 years. Give or take a year. You'd think they'd have tried so fix it by now but nooooo.....


Sorry... I turned this into a rant about why I dislike my politicians... (the vast majority of whom I voted against...)
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Re: Ah, now the progressives attack our constitution
Post by Spacekiwi   » Fri Feb 08, 2013 6:08 am

Spacekiwi
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Darman wrote:
Spacekiwi wrote:-snipped to important part-

the politicians tend to swap around a lot though as they make donkeys rears of of them selves.


Sometimes I think that the entertainment value we get from them is the only reason worth keeping them around.

Don't get me wrong, politicians can be nice people. But as a class I'm not particularly fond of them. At least in my state (and I'm sure its more or less the same everywhere) they seem more concerned with getting their family, friends, family's friends, or friends' family good cushy jobs/contracts/concessions from the state govt then they are in fixing the state. And my state is in the top 5 states with the worst business climate in the USA for the past... I wanna say 5 years. Give or take a year. You'd think they'd have tried so fix it by now but nooooo.....


Sorry... I turned this into a rant about why I dislike my politicians... (the vast majority of whom I voted against...)



the last really liked politician in our government was a rastafarian who was a Greens party member, and skated to work. he didnt do much, and that was why he was liked. =D
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its not paranoia if its justified... :D
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