Something Americans aren't taught in Civics 101

[GliderGuider]

Your Constitutional system of checks and balances has a fatal flaw. It breaks down completely if one insane clown posse gains control of all three branches of government.

Maybe your Founding Fathers weren't quite as smart as you told yourselves they were.

Please accept this expression of grief and deep sympathy from a parliamentary democracy.

[no_hypocrisy]

1. My take-away from Constitutional Law in law school was that

democracies can be terminated through democratic means.

[lunatica]

2. Benjamin Franklin saw this coming

I hope we prove him wrong.

[Talk Is Cheap]

3. I would argue that there is one step even above 'checks and balances'...

And that's ensuring that the will of the people (a majority) is always the primary force to have a democracy - a accurate election system.

With gerrymandering and election fraud, the will of the people has been removed from the equation.

[DonCoquixote]

4. all modern democracies have flaws

Parliament does have a check against Donald Trump, on the other hand, as Stephen Harper proved, it is possible for someone to get in with only 40% of the votes, but still do a lot of damage. Do keep in mind, even Canada's new boy wonder, Justin Trudeau, is very eager to build the Keystone pipeline, as well as do a lot of other oil projects that many of his voters do not like. You can argue that a noose kills in a different way than a guillotine; a dead body remains just the same.

[GliderGuider]

6. Agreed. Politicians can be problematic in any system.

I tend toward anarchism, and withdraw my support from politics in general by not voting and advocating against voting. As a result I had to withdraw from DU during the primaries and election.

On the other hand, my background is solid socialism going back to to the early 1930s when my grandparents helped found the CCF in Manitoba. But while I have a strongly progressive heart, I have lost all faith in politics as a social institution. Harper, Trudeau, Trump and all the other national leadership shenanigans in the rest of the world aren't causing me to change my mind...

[DonCoquixote]

15. true, but allow me to clarify

because I don't want you to think this is just me trying to bash Canada. The problem is is that multinational corporations are so big that they have the money to figure out how to break any system. After all, in theory, China should be a communist nation. However, they have big corporations, rich oligarchs, and so many cars that their air looks like an oil spill. the only difference between America and let's say Russia, is that their states are a lot more involved in the corporate end,, where is in America the idea of any government only any corporation is considered disgusting. However as China and Russia show the state one corporations really do not mind swinging their weight around, as frankly they are more effective means to keep the masses in control than anything Stalin ever did. There is an effective way to control people,but mix fear , greed and pride, and you will not have any need for scary men in trenchcoats and black vans.

Even anarchism seems not to hold out much hope because anarchism by its nature discourages large groups. When you have a bunch of smaller groups that may be effective in the short run, until the rich men figure out which branches they have to cut in order to make the whole tree fall.

[GliderGuider]

17. I agree with you on all points.

Don't worry, I never thought you were bashing Canada. If I did, I'd have apologized immediately!

And you're right about anarchism too. Most political (or apolitical) systems seem to be fine in theory, but dodgy in practice. I blame people. Without them, things would work just fine!

[DonCoquixote]

19. smile

Systems can work, but only to the extent that we hold them accountable. Religion and Race are two great mechanisms for making any group, be they small or large, forget the main job is to watch what the government and the merchants who own them are actually doing.

[ManiacJoe]

5. That was taught to SOME of us.

The US government works best when neither party controls all three House, Senate, and Presidency. Democrats controlling all three are just as bad as Republicans controlling all three; they just do different damage.

[GliderGuider]

7. But there is no mechanism to ensure that different parties control each branch.

That's the fatal flaw.

[ManiacJoe]

8. Very true.

[OrwellwasRight]

9. Your post is an insult

Last edited Sat Jan 7, 2017, 07:22 PM - Edit history (1)

to the real Insane Clown Posse

[csziggy]

11. We need a death match to find out who is crazier

Trump Tweets versus Insane Clown Posse!


It would be EPIC!

[OrwellwasRight]

12. I love your

smilie! And it would be epic.

[politicat]

18. I would get cable just to watch that on Pay Per View.

Multiple times.

[malaise]

10. Yep - I've always preferred liberal democracy a la Parliamentary

model.
Groper Don the Con wouldn't even have qualified for party leadership.

[LeftishBrit]

13. True; but parliamentary democracies aren't always a panacea

If there is a first-past-the-post system, as in the UK, then a party may win considerable power with a minority of the vote; and the Prime Minister has disproportionate importance. If the PM is a strong leader, they may end up as a sort of elected dictator (Thatcher, Blair); if a weak leader, their Ministers may get disproportionate influence, and/or the government and country may reach a point of near-collapse (Cameron).

If there is a PR system, small and extreme parties may hold the government hostage (Israel) or government may be a chronic state of instability and chaos (Italy often).

Canada does seem, at least from the outside - though technically I'm a citizen of Canada as well as the UK - to do fairly well, but that might be more a matter of a deep instinctive Canadian distrust of extremism, than the nature of the Parliamentary system. And even there, though Harper wasn't The Unspeakable, he wasn't ideal either.

[GliderGuider]

16. No political system can be completely secure - they're all made of people.

I think you're right on the money about Canadian distrust of extremism. Harper was about as far as we've gone recently, and he was booted rather resoundingly once we'd had enough.

Here we run into the contrasting mottos of the US and Canada: "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" vs. "Peace, order and good government." That says a lot about the difference in national characters. I'm still surprised that Canada has maintained such a degree of distinction, given our physical and cultural proximity to the elephant.

But depending on national character to secure your political system is more than a bit foolish. As the saying goes, "Hope is not a strategy." Nothing can take the place of sound political laws, with mechanisms to keep those who won't abide by them out of the system.

[DonCoquixote]

20. Canadians do distrust extremism

The closest they get to it is that awful "it's Zed, not Zee!" beer commercial which shows on the Jumbo Tron when I go watch my Tampa Bay Lightning play a Canadian team. However, I also chalk the difference up to the fact they had to deal with Acadia. Simplt put, extremism would have ensured Montreal and Ottawa might as well have been different planets. It's no accident that the person who did the most damage was harper, who hails from Alberta, aka Northern texas, aka the people who have some Trumpers.

However, you are right about national character not being a substitute for laws; hell, if anything America's big problem is that it tries to use national character in place of laws, while ignoring the fact that the billionaires do not care if the country is ruined in the process. Trump won because he knew that the cowboys and self styled "heartland" was chafing at the bit to replace laws with "character" which means a heap helping of Religion and a lot of racism.

PS: I do think many Canadians and the leftish Americans will be together as we deal with a common enemy: The Russian/Dixie alliance, which in effect might as well be called an empire now. It will be scary to see rex Tillerson sell our portion of the artic for oil, and to allows Russia to muscle Canada out of it's part. I would love to be wrong, but don;t tellme you cannot see Putin and his buddy Rex try that. Put so many pipelines you will be able to see them from Michigan.

[GliderGuider]

21. An excellent piece of analysis.

[handmade34]

14. much too often

"...Americans aren't taught...Civics 101"