We won
We won
Good, more populism. That always works well. Seriously, why not just scrap it entirely, if you're going to do that?• A wholly or mainly elected house of Lords.
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
-- Thomas Jefferson: American Founding Father, clairvoyant and seditious traitor.
I think you will find that this coalition will give you a government that pretty much works on a platform of the sensible parts of both manifestoes while shedding the batfuck crazy stuff that was in them to keep the batfuck crazies quiet.Originally Posted by Spawnie
With a majority as big as they have in the House the government can afford to ignore those batfuck crazies too; they can afford sensible policies and push them through even if the crazies don't like them and vote against or abstain.
For the first time in a very long time I also have some hope for a British government that behaves a bit more like a normal government in the relations with the rest of the EU.
Congratulations America
Of course there is a law or a legal ordinance (verordnung) for almost every article in the Swiss constitution.
There is a very big difference. If it is part of the constitution it can only be changed by a referendum (obligatory/constitutive referendum). And it has to pass the majority of people and the majority of cantons. While a law can be changed by the parliament Laws only have to pass the majory of the people and only if the referendum is taken (for example by get 50,000 signatures).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referendum#Switzerland
And despite your comment, most changes of laws actually won't have a referendum, only the ones that are controversial.
"Wer Visionen hat, sollte zum Arzt gehen." - Helmut Schmidt
Yep I'm not too displeased with how things have turned out really.
For now.
Yeah well, that makes Switzerland special; you are more of a direct democracy than a representative democracy. Even though you have representatives, it's relatively easy to take back control from them and very often it's even required that they ask the people. It also means Switzerland is not a template for how things go in other countries.
Congratulations America
I totally agree, but the fact that way the Nationalrat is voted is at least defined in the constitution to be representative has little to do with the (semi-)direct democracy of the country. The passage I quoted could stay the same way even if we decide to get rid of your direct democratic rights.
"Wer Visionen hat, sollte zum Arzt gehen." - Helmut Schmidt
No, I support it because I think parties should get a number of seats approximately equivalent to their percentage of the vote. I don't see why this is such a controversial position, TBH.
The light that once I thought compassion still casting shadows in your action
The words you shared were cold transactions that bring me to curse what you've done
When you're up there absorbed in greatness with such success you've grown complacent
I hope you scorch your many faces when you fly too close to the sun
Yeah, exactly.I think you will find that this coalition will give you a government that pretty much works on a platform of the sensible parts of both manifestoes while shedding the batfuck crazy stuff that was in them to keep the batfuck crazies quiet.
The light that once I thought compassion still casting shadows in your action
The words you shared were cold transactions that bring me to curse what you've done
When you're up there absorbed in greatness with such success you've grown complacent
I hope you scorch your many faces when you fly too close to the sun
Why not abolish your Senate?Good, more populism. That always works well. Seriously, why not just scrap it entirely, if you're going to do that?
It should either be elected or abolished. The one thing that's been almost worse than having a Lords which people are born into, is a Lords were condition of entry is a £1mn donation to Tony Blair
FPTP lower-house determining the government, with a PR upper-house as an 'amending chamber' (not to just obstruct bills) would be a good compromise I think. Like Aus has.
I think so far it does indeed look like taking the best bits from both, which is a good thing. I think this is quite make-or-break for both parties. Its a good chance for the Lib-Dems especially to show that coalition government can work.
That kind of misses the point of a bicameral government, though doesn't it? Elect one, to represent "the will of the people" and appoint one to keep populism in check.
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
-- Thomas Jefferson: American Founding Father, clairvoyant and seditious traitor.
It shouldn't be. On the surface it is the most democratic.
Yeah, but the senate makes a decent stab at this, with the 6 year term to avoid populist fads and the state-wide election to avoid local concentrations of crazies. Appointments would be much more corrupt.
I think that's got very little to do with the selection method. It's got more to do with the way the 'chamber of reflection' works. If you make make both bodies full fledged legislators (of the type you have in the US and that Randblade seems to favour) you can expect both to be populist. If you'd deny either of the two chambers the right of initiative or amendment that chamber no longer has an incentive to follow populist impulses.
Our senate is frightfully boring. They typically fret about constitutionality and 'relation to existing legislation'. In almost 200 years only once did our senate bring down a government.
Congratulations America
I know I mentioned this before, but there's an excellent article showing how the direct election of senators spelled the end to states rights. All you have to do is look at when the 17th amendment passed and when imperial presidencies started to take shape.
Hope is the denial of reality
Well, to be fair, states rights were given a death blow 50 years earlier when the president went to war with states he didn't like, but sure, the 17th amendment was something of a final nail in the coffin, I suppose.
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
-- Thomas Jefferson: American Founding Father, clairvoyant and seditious traitor.
The War did weaken states rights, but only on some political issues. The direct election of senators got rid of the only actors who had an interest in preserving the rights of states.
Hope is the denial of reality
It ultimately settled the issue of what happens when the federal government disagrees with the states. That's not how it was worked out prior to the Civil War, silly kitty.
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
-- Thomas Jefferson: American Founding Father, clairvoyant and seditious traitor.
I'm sorry, I don't remember it. I would be very interested. I will say that states' rights have never been a huge concern for me.
Depends. The Supreme Court was still there to stop the federal government from encroaching too much. The SC only started ruling for the federal government when the states willingly turned over most of their powers (which happened to coincide with the legislative branch turning over most of its powers to the executive branch).It ultimately settled the issue of what happens when the federal government disagrees with the states. That's not how it was worked out prior to the Civil War, silly kitty.
Hope is the denial of reality
I'll take your word for it. All I really get out of listening to you describe the history of our nation's slide into tyranny is a burning desire to nuke the Eastern Seaboard.
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
-- Thomas Jefferson: American Founding Father, clairvoyant and seditious traitor.
The northeast states weren't the ones who ratified it first (Mass. and NY excepting).
http://www.usconstitution.net/constamrat.html#Am17
Hope is the denial of reality
Doesn't matter, as the Eastern Seaboard is where D.C. is located. As well as Langley. And I'll be damned if I die before subjecting Boston to a nuclear holocaust.
So, your history is irrelevant to my thermonuclear designs.
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
-- Thomas Jefferson: American Founding Father, clairvoyant and seditious traitor.
Just make sure it's before the Red Sox win the next World Series.And make sure the wind is blowing to the north.
Hope is the denial of reality
Apparently, the coalition is planning a mass-repeal bill of Labor's wacky civil liberties violations over the past 13 years. The Lib-Dem manifesto has a 'freedom bill' in it, which offers:
quooaah-paah bitches.
- Scrap ID cards for everyone, including foreign nationals.
- Ensure that there are no restrictions in the right to trial by jury for serious offences including fraud.
- Restore the right to protest in Parliament Square, at the heart of our democracy.
- Abolish the flawed control orders regime.
- Renegotiate the unfair extradition treaty with the United States.
- Restore the right to public assembly for more than two people.
- Scrap the ContactPoint database of all children in Britain.
- Strengthen freedom of information by giving greater powers to the Information Commissioner and reducing exemptions.
- Stop criminalising trespass.
- Restore the public interest defence for whistleblowers.
- Prevent allegations of ‘bad character’ from being used in court.
- Restore the right to silence when accused in court.
- Prevent bailiffs from using force.
- Restrict the use of surveillance powers to the investigation of serious crimes and stop councils snooping.
- Restore the principle of double jeopardy in UK law.
- Remove innocent people from the DNA database.
- Reduce the maximum period of pre-charge detention to 14 days.
- Scrap the ministerial veto which allowed the Government to block the release of Cabinet minutes relating to the Iraq war.
- Require explicit parental consent for biometric information to be taken from children.
- Regulate CCTV following a Royal Commission on cameras.
The light that once I thought compassion still casting shadows in your action
The words you shared were cold transactions that bring me to curse what you've done
When you're up there absorbed in greatness with such success you've grown complacent
I hope you scorch your many faces when you fly too close to the sun
Goddamnit Britain stop ruining the rise of fascism
Again
In the future, the Berlin wall will be a mile high, and made of steel. You too will be made to crawl, to lick children's blood from jackboots. There will be no creativity, only productivity. Instead of love there will be fear and distrust, instead of surrender there will be submission. Contact will be replaced with isolation, and joy with shame. Hope will cease to exist as a concept. The Earth will be covered with steel and concrete. There will be an electronic policeman in every head. Your children will be born in chains, live only to serve, and die in anguish and ignorance.
The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
Thats fantastic. Labours civil liberties' violations were my chief bone of contention with them, far more than iraq and whatnot.
"Son," he said without preamble, "never trust a man who doesn't drink, because he's probably a self-righteous sort, a man who thinks he knows right from wrong all the time. Some of them are good men, but in the name of goodness, they cause most of the suffering in the world. They're the judges, the meddlers. And, son, never trust a man who drinks but refuses to get drunk. They're usually afraid of something deep down inside, either that they're a coward or a fool or mean and violent. You can't trust a man who's afraid of himself. But sometimes, son, you can trust a man who occasionally kneels before a toilet. The chances are that he is learning something about humility and his natural human foolishness, about how to survive himself. It's damned hard for a man to take himself too seriously when he's heaving his guts into a dirty toilet bowl.
So did the Conservatives
Could one of you Brits kindly explain this to me?
As in, what the hell is the deal here, and why do you crazy people care about blocking his extradition?
Really, only in the UK could an admitted felon get popular support for not being tried, based on whackball UFO theories.
Meanwhile, yous guys convict people for making jokes on Twitter to their friends.
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
-- Thomas Jefferson: American Founding Father, clairvoyant and seditious traitor.
Anti-Americanism. There was also a scandal about some British businessmen getting extradited to the US for fraud, despite Brits calling for the heads of businessmen who committed fraud in Britain.
EDIT: Feel this would derail the Election thread so I'm going to start up a new thread ...
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