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I feel like the government system in US makes way more sense then other countries.
1. Good system of checks and balances
2. Normal elections
Parliaments don’t make sense to me. And randomly calling for elections whenever there is a problem, makes it seem like the general elections are not very effective in producing leaders based on the citizens interests.I agree. 100%
Obama Would be gotten thrown out in 2 years, if we had a parliament.
“Obama Would be gotten thrown out in 2 years, if we had a parliament.”
And you would have gotten someone like Hillary or Jeb; is that really much better? They just vote for parties over there, not people. With no possibility of an outsider upset, it’s a phony democracy as far as I’m concerned. US is way better.@lakewhut
WRONG as usual.
In countries with both a President and a Parliament, it is the Prime Minister who can lose the office if the governing party doesn’t survive a no confidence vote. The President serves a set term and election for that office is not concurrent with Parliamentary elections.
CT lawyer
Obama would have been Prime Minister
Your can’t just transfer president president
The American president is the equivalent of the prime minister in parliamentary run countriesCT lawyer
Does your comment really warrant capitalized letters?In many countries, such as Israel, the president doesn’t really have any power. The equivalent of the president of the United States is the prime minister of Israel.
Lucy
Its a trade off. The US way basicly chooses a dictator for 4 years.
Consider in nearly 250 years of this country. Not one President was removed from office (Nixon might have been had he not resigned) No matter how unpopular he was, there is a thread of “worst presidents” all of them completed their terms.
sure we through around buzz words like “checks and balances” to make ourselves feel good, but these are largely pretend. True nly congress can declare war, but the last time that happened was WW2, and Im pretty sure there have been several wars since then. oops ope, call them “police actions” or some other phrase to make it ok.
Oh but the President cant pass laws, no problem just cal it “executive decision” now he can do what he wants.If your goal is stability, then yes the Us system is pretty good.
If your goal is something more democratic like following the will of the people, then a parliamentary sysem does a better job of keeping that in checkCTL stop lawyering. If we had a parliament and Obama was the PM, he’d be ousted in 2 years.
“If your goal is something more democratic like following the will of the people, then…”
Then have a direct democracy and forget parliamentary or representative democracy. Let the people vote directly on laws so the will of the people rule rather than the lesser democracy of a parliament.
For me it’s hard to say because I was subjected to years of indoctrination in this matter. They told us that America is the best – and they called it social studies. I recently spoke with a tourist from China who told me that China is the greatest government in the world…
RR: And which country’s social studies classes do not indoctrinate?
Joseph
That is too unwieldy for a country of nearly 330 million or even for Israel’s 8.7 million.
Again though yes as I said, it depends on what you view as the most important factors there are pluses and minuses to every form of government.
Joe – they all do.
recently spoke with a tourist from China who told me that China is the greatest government in the world…
China has the most people of any country, therefore it has the best government. If it didn’t, the Chinese would go somewhere else.
On a side note, what do you guys say about the Chinese new “merit system” that literally punishes non-conformers?
Sure seems like the best government to me…No, the two party system really manages to undermine the checks and balances.
@klugeryid
President Obama was President. That is the reality. If Lakewhut had written that if Mr. Obama had been Prime Minister in a parliamentary system I would not have called him out.@lakewhut
Stop posting inaccuracies and I’ll stop calling you out. Lawyers make their living by exposing inaccuracies and failure to follow the written words of laws and contracts. . It doesn’t matter what you meant to say you are bound by what is contained in the four corners of the document.Lucy
“Because we like the decisions hell make. ”
But we don’t know the decisions he’ll make. Take George W bush, nobody knew he would invade Iraq under false pretenses. At what point Bush’s approval rating dropped as low as 30%. Realistically there is not much that can be done (granted this is partly because of our 2 party system as RY points out). In a parlimantary system, if you lose the confidence of a majority of the country’s representatives you are out.
“but ultimately no one can “get away with murder”. No?”
Of course he can. Though it depends how you define “murder” Arguably the drone program targetting people without judge and jury is murder,
CTL
” and failure to follow the written words of laws and contracts.”
which of those categories does ywn coffee room fall into?
“It doesn’t matter what you meant to say you are bound by what is contained in the four corners of the document.”
what document? what are you talking about?
BTW
I’m not arguing that the US system is objectively worse, if you like it better, and many do that is fine. It certainly does have advantages I;’m just pointing why some may prefer another systemCTL, chill. Not every country that has a parliament has a president. There isn’t a president of the UK.
And lawyers like fighting for the rights of terrorists and illegal immigrants for $1.
Lucy, party loyalty means that if the same party has multiple branches, it’s almost like the same person.
The Founding Fathers did not design the American constitutional framework for a political party system nor did they expect it. It only developed after George Washington was President without being part of any political party.
Lucy
while on your OP I dont’ disagree per se. I this statement “You voted on brexit, so just do it. Backing out now is lame and embarassing”I strongly disagree
I don’t even understand the logic of it, assuming they now realize it was a mistake, are yo u really saying they should go ahead with a catastrophic decision just because they once thought it was good, just to avoid being “lame”Just the opposite, following through on a bad policy to avoid being lame, is in fact lame and embarrassing.
(If you still support brexit, becuase t\you think it is good policy, thats a sepperate thing )
@Ubiquitin
The document in this case is Lakewhut’s post
I can only reply to his written words, what he thinks or meant to post is not evidentLucy, please learn proper English. It is “than”.
CTL, in some parliamentary systems there is no President. There is a monarch who serves as head of state. In France the President (currently Macron) has much more power than the PM – whom he appoints.
The American government was supposed to represent the Aristotelian ideal of a combination of democracy (the House), oligarchy (the Senate – which was originally chosen by the state legislatures) and monarchy (POTUS). It has the advantage of stability but the disadvantage of a very unpopular POTUS staying until the end of his term (although the Congress can thwart him by refusing to pass his legislation and overriding his vetoes).
C TL
I don’t get your point
To be pedantic, Israel does not have a president either.
They have a נשיא.If the US had a parliament system, Obama (or some other Democrat) would have become prime minister in 2006 and would have been replaced in 2010. However one needs to remember that in parliamentary systems there are never “mid-term” elections, and tghe dynamic of choosing a leader impacts more on the election of the legislators.
“It has the advantage of stability but the disadvantage of a very unpopular POTUS staying until the end of his term”
In defense of the system, the term limits in the Roman Republic were much shorter. Maybe our’s are just the wrong length.
My problem with the Israeli system is that parties that get ~5% of the vote can end up being the “swing party” in building a coalition and get a disproportionate amount of say in government. Why should a party with 5% support get more say than the party that came in second place? I acknowledge that this helps the frum parties, but it’s extremely anti-democratic.
Neville; Why do you think a party with 5% of the vote has more say than a larger party in a coalition government?
In the current Israeli coalition debacle, any party of 5 seats or larger would of had the same “say” had they decided to exercise it.NC
“Why should a party with 5% support get more say than the party that came in second place? I ”while I hear your point, and am no really arguing , that isn’t completely accurate.
The second largest party, CAN join the coalition if they so choose, of course they would have to compromise on many (most?) of their ideals .
The way I see it, while in the US just the majority party has say and (practically speaking) nothing can be doen about that for 4 years. In Israel even the majority party needs to include SOME other points ofview, granted it usally isnt the view of the 2nd largest party (though it can be) but with one exception, (in late 60’s) they allways need to accommodate some other point of view, and usually more than one otherLucy
” So in a way they have a faster changeover rate than (thanks avik) we do”
Yes no question about that, I diont h think a single Isralei Government completed its full term (there may have been one or 2 in the early days when Labor dominated)
Neville, actually it is 3.25%. the idea is to give minorities a say and the possibility of defending their interests. This is also a form of democracy and exists in some European countries. There are also some countries where one house of the legislature is elected by proportional representation and one by the winner-take-all method (which means that 49.9% of the voters might be disenfranchised and encourages gerrymandering).
Avi K, it’s just CTL trying to defend Obama, whenever he can. He feels good that he may have caught me on a technicality, when he didn’t.
“Avi K, it’s just CTL trying to defend Obama, whenever he can. He feels good that he may have caught me on a technicality, when he didn’t.”
I don’t know that it had anything to do with Obama. He likes catching people on technicalities, which is fine by itself. This is barely even a technicality; it’s just different countries using different words for their head of state. CTL is more than capable of making good points, but he and I share a bad habit of fighting to the bitter end and going down with the sinking ship when we make a silly statement.Avi: I understand the logic behind it. But, if a minority makes up only 3.25% of the population, then that’s how much sway they should have in a democracy (in my opinion). In practice, this would not be good for chareidim in Israel or Jews in America. So, I guess I’m talking on a mostly theoretical basis.
If there’s 120 seats in the parliament then winning 1/120th of the vote (i.e. less than 1%) should suffice to be awarded one parliamentary seat.
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