I genuinely hate to say this, but Dylan Matthews makes some good points in “Three Reasons the American Revolution Was a Mistake.” And here they are:
I’m reasonably confident a world where the revolution never happened would be better than the one we live in now, for three main reasons: slavery would’ve been abolished earlier, American Indians would’ve faced rampant persecution but not the outright ethnic cleansing Andrew Jackson and other American leaders perpetrated, and America would have a parliamentary system of government that makes policymaking easier and lessens the risk of democratic collapse.
Of course, in the Real World the southern plantation class would have fought tooth and nail to keep slavery whether the government was in Washington or London, so there still might have been a Civil War. I’m not sure why the people of the U.S. were so much more brutal toward the native Americans than Canadians were, and I’m not persuaded policies issued from London would have made much difference.
But the parliamentary system thing is what really breaks my heart, because I fear our system of government is growing unworkable. The two-party polarization that plagues us now is the natural result of our system; the way we hold elections makes third-party challenges nearly impossible. A parliamentary system is more responsive to the will of the people; it’s easier for smaller parties to win seats and form coalitions.
In the US, activists wanting to put a price on carbon emissions spent years trying to put together a coalition to make it happen, mobilizing sympathetic businesses and philanthropists and attempting to make bipartisan coalition — and they still failed to pass cap and trade, after millions of dollars and man hours. In the UK, the Conservative government decided it wanted a carbon tax. So there was a carbon tax. Just like that. Passing big, necessary legislation — in this case, legislation that’s literally necessary to save the planet — is a whole lot easier with parliaments than presidential systems.
This is no trivial matter. Efficient passage of legislation has huge humanitarian consequences. It makes measures of planetary importance, like carbon taxes, easier to get through; they still face political pushback, of course — Australia’s tax got repealed, after all — but they can be enacted in the first place, which is far harder in the US system. And the efficiency of parliamentary systems enables larger social welfare programs that reduce inequality and improve life for poor citizens. Government spending in parliamentary countries is about 5 percent of GDP higher, after controlling for other factors, than in presidential countries. If you believe in redistribution, that’s very good news indeed.
This is not to say everything is hunky-dory in the UK. People get angry with the government there, too.
Absolutely right. We have a gov’t that is non-responsive to the people they supposedly represent, which in the end means they don’t represent the people. With rampant gerrymandering and unequal representation in the Senate, we have a gov’t that doesn’t reflect the will of the people. More people vote for Democrats than republicans in this country, yet we have two houses of Congress that are controlled by the other team. The system is absolutely broken, and it would take a massive effort and political will to fix it, including Amendments, but there’s no chance of that happening. My Buddha, we can’t even come together to pass legislation that would legitimately help people, much less the entire system. My wife and myself have made efforts to establish relationships with people in other countries so that when the system becomes completely unworkable, or dangerous, my children have a place to go. We have good friend in France now that would take them in in a heartbeat. So I believe they can be safe. But completely sad that we have to even think about doing that. Greatest Country in the History of Mankind, my ass.
Sorry for the double post but if you ever get a chance, go and read the Anti-Federalist papers. In many ways they predicted the issues that we have right now. They got it right, they were just a couple of hundred years early. They are actually readable, which isn’t something you can say about the Federalist Papers. Often times, though, the Federalist Papers didn’t answers the AF concerns well, and were reduced to the, “We won the F-ing Revolution didn’t we? This is going to work” response. Gotta say, tough teaching high school kids government these days, I include some of the dysfunction, but what they really need to hear is, ‘This system is broken and needs to be scraped for a new one’. Sigh.
There’s an article online I read a few years ago about the ecology of Yellowstone Park being radically different even to the birds nesting & aquaculture because 20 years ago, they re-introduced wild wolves. The trickle-down effects were something no scientist anticipated.
Which relates to the post this way. The actual effects of even one change – the unintended consequences are radically different than you project. My favorite what-it is the one I have bet heavily on. What if you erected a wall of separation between big money & government? How would the rest of the political ecology – opportunity – justice – global warming – women’s rights – change if we accomplished that one thing?
I’m too tired to comment now!
The imbeciles in my area are blowing up/off so much sh*t that I can’t think!
KEEEEEERIST!
You’d think I lived in an active war zone!
And tomorrow is going to be even worse!
Oooooooooooooooooooy!
I think it’s silly to make assumptions about how people would have behaved if events in the past had been different. We have followed a path that may turn out to have been unworkable, but it has been fascinating to watch so far. And I shall do my best to keep the civilized world moving forward.
How well does that parliamentary system work in, say, Italy?
The problem is not the *system*, it is the people in power within the system. Almost any form of government—including a dictatorship—works tolerably well with good people running it. Similarly, almost any form of government works terribly with bad people running it.
We don’t have “public servants” in government offices around this country anymore, we have professional politicians.
And half of them – the GOP ones, and some Dem’s, probably – claim to hate government, but still want to work in it.
Why?
Good pay.
Great benefits and perks.
Power.
Sex?
And they spend their time in office pandering to rich contributors to get reelected – because they hate government so much, they want to keep their government jobs – all while looking for a soft place to land with a lobbying firm after they either lose or retire.
Our system once worked.
Maybe not great, but good enough.
The problem today is that one party has lost its mind. I panders to a base of psychopathic and sociopathic bigots.
And those bigots don’t want any compromise.
It’s their way, or no way.
Today’s conservatives don’t ‘just want to stand athwart history and yell “Stop” – as William F. Buckley once famously said – they now want to yell REVERSE!!!!”
Back to at least the 1950’s – but, more likely, back to the 1850’s.
Good topic and good comments. Just looking back over my own life I sometimes wonder what it would be like if I had made different decisions or if events had been different. Can”t say it would be better or worse, just different. Anyway, done is done and we can’t change the past, just do what we can right now. Now is the only time we really have and it is the moment of power.
I am reminded of the story of the Taoist farmer:
One day the farmer’s horse ran away. All the neighbors came and said: Oh my, such bad luck. The farmer said: Maybe. The next day the horse came back and brought a bunch of wild horses with him. The neighbors came by and said: Such good luck. The farmer said: Maybe. The next day the farmer’s son was riding one of the wild horses, fell off and broke his leg. Again, the neighbors said: Such bad luck. The farmer said: Maybe. The next day the government guys came around looking for young men to haul off to war. The son couldn’t go because of his broken leg. The neighbors came by and said: What good luck! The farmer said: Maybe.
The story could go on and on but I think it makes its point.
I guess the 4th of July is cause for celebrating but as with so many other things, it has gotten out of hand. Now people think it is all about getting drunk and making big explosions. At least in my neighborhood. Our governor wanted to put a ban on fireworks this year but couldn’t because of the law. So, he just asked people to be responsible. I’m skeptical. But I didn’t hear any last night although I expected to. Legally, it is only allowed from 9 AM to midnight today and the big boomers and the ones that leave the ground are forbidden. Of course, people don’t pay any attention to that. And the police don’t seem to be able to enforce it. For myself, I can tolerate it, but Mr. Spock gets terrified. His heart races and he trembles the whole time. And it can go on for hours. I have to give him Valium and play soothing music for him. It helps but it is still a difficult time for him. I am hoping the heat will deter some people, high of 103 degrees today, but it may not.
We are having a serious heat wave, it has been in the triple digits for about 2 weeks now and expected to last another week. Don’t like it one bit.
Imagine how much damage the rightwing could do in the USA if they held both houses of Congress plus the presidency. Now multiply that by a bazillion for the effects if they had a majority in a parliamentary system.
I appreciate people’s dismay at how things are working here now, and I have lived in and spent time in countries with parliamentary systems. It’s nowhere near being the cure all this type of post generally suggests (there have been a lot of bloggers making the claim), and it could be far more disastrous than what we have now.
The biggest barrier to a conservative parliamentary party in power is not the system (there’s basically nothing stopping them from doing whatever they want) is that social benefits, once entrenched, are dangerous to rip out, dangerous to the political party. There is every indication, for instance, that Harper and his party’s predecessors want to dismantle Canada’s universal healthcare, and since he’s been in power with a firm majority he has run roughshod over the Canadian landscape. But he has done nothing more than fiddle with healthcare, the Canadian rightwing’s method being to try to make it work less well or be not a free universal system. But getting rid of it bluntly is not in the cards, and this is not because of the system, because in a parliamentary system with a majority that is easy. It’s because it’s entrenched and people not only like it, they depend on it. That’s why he and every other conservative leader of recent years has been too scared to do what the parliamentary system would allow him to easily do.
There are negatives and positives of course. Often the fact that you have debate (more accurately, “debate”, since it’s usually just shouting at each other) in parliament means you need sharper minds in there, but Canada still has its fair share of nutcase tea party style politicians in national politics (Harper is one himself, but not nearly so much as others in his party; he knows how to ocassionally keep his mouth shut). The method of being able to call an election has the wonderful advantage of shorter running time, but also benefits the ruling party. It’s how Harper, in a weak position with a minority government was able to strategically call an election and wind up with a majority, to Canada’s detriment.
//Imagine how much damage the rightwing could do in the USA if they held both houses of Congress plus the presidency. Now multiply that by a bazillion for the effects if they had a majority in a parliamentary system.//
However, part of the reason our political system was able to get so crazy and polarized has to do with being locked into a two-party system. If there had been a parliamentary system for the past century or so, would that have happened? I’m not sure it would have.
One other point, a critical point, about parliamentary government. Under our system, people are voting in a lot of extreme right-wingers in Congress, but now seem reluctant to do it nationwide (ie., the presidency). Under a parliamentary system, however, to get an extreme rightwinger as PM all you need is for that person to win their local district’s (called a riding in Canada) and for the party to get a majority.
Now some tweaking to our system would be nice, perhaps in the French style. But the parliamentary system is not going to produce the better results we see in such systems because of the system itself. In fact it could easily be the opposite. Imagine our Republicans in majority power with the PM being the leader their party chose. I find that a frightening prospect, far more frightening than the mess we currently “enjoy”.
JDM.
Interesting points!
A fourth greeting I prepared for a group in NH made a blog post. You might like. It certainly applies to the Rebel Alliance here.
http://eurekafactory.net/2015/07/03/some-kind-of-different/
One other change that I would like to see in the French style is a limitation on the length of the campaign itself. I guess you could argue that people like Marine Le Pen are in campaign mode, but here it’s nonstop. The campaign begins about a week after the election. Our “public servants” are out raising money and schmoozing for the next go around, instead of doing their jobs. Although, maybe the more time they spend not passing laws written by ALEC or the Koch Bros, the better off we are.
We’re in a drought ourselves, grannyeagle. We had a forecast for some rain, but yesterday was a disappointment. If I believed in prayer, I’d be praying for rain full time. It’s too dry for pyrotechnics. Our neighbors used to have quite an aerial display, and I actually enjoyed it, except that it scared the heck out of our horses and dogs. The horses would be huddled in he barn breathing hard and the dogs would go downstairs to their fortress of solitude. They do the same thing when there’s a thunderstorm. The goats took it all in stride, maybe even enjoyed the lights in the sky.
They should fear the silence now. If the hay crop fails again, we’re screwed, and there will be a lot more afoot than loud noises. We don’t need the thunder and lightning but we surely need the water that comes with it. We’re looking at folding up the remains of the farm and moving on for retirement. That’s going to break our hearts in any case, but the remnants of our goatherd are twenty one old friends. Any farmer knows that if you give an animal a name it just makes it harder. I can tell you first hand that it’s the truth.
Sorry guys, I didn’t mean to burden you with my whole life story. Maybe there is something about the long decline of our political system that seems to creep into every corner of life and make it seem darker. My right wing friends are absolutely fit to be tied. Once in a while they post or email some paroxysm of hateful nonsense. That’s what they do most of time anyway. But, they are really in a dark place right now. I suppose some fireworks or a trip down to their local firing range might help them purge some of their black bile with some cathartic destruction. I hope that the healthcare plans they bought through the ACA will cover antidepressants. But, it would be in bad taste to ask.
Good job, Doug. I posted the video on facebook. I hope it will ignite the minds of a few close friends. Keep on keepin’ on.
Doug,
A great, measured, and thoughtful message!
I’m widya – but you knew that!
goatherd,
I’m sorry to hear all of that.
In Upstate NY, we’re getting more rain than we need.
On the plus side, with the rain today, maybe that’ll dampen the fireworks tonight.
I love professionally produced fireworks.
I’ve been at 3 of he greatest American displays of all time:
-In 1976, the 200th anniversary of the Fourth of July signing of the DoI in NYC’s harbor.
-And the 100th celebrations of the Statue of Liberty and the Brooklyn Bridge.
Each one, better than the last.
What I can’t stand is local yokel adults and kids firing off their firecrackers after 10pm – especially the idiot’s who keep blowing-up sh*t after midnight. Sometimes they keep them going until 4am.
OY!
Another note. I said all the PM needs is to win their riding’ selection, but it’s even worse (worse, that is, assuming you’re talking a PM whose goals you find objectionable and would like to see out of office). They don’t even need to win, just have their party win a majority. Theoretically, I’m pretty sure, in Canada a party leader could even serve as PM without winning a seat, but that would require the PM’s party having someone else assume the leadership role in Parliment itself. That would be messy, so what’s done when that happens (it can and has, for instance recently in the provincial BC elections) is that a junior member of the party in a very safe riding steps down and the PM runs in that riding. It’s almost impossible to lose such a by-election, since you’re asking the locals to vote in someone who supports the same goals as the person they just voted in, and to be represented by the PM (which generally carries perks).
On the French front, I like the shorter campaign time, and the two round election thing, with the top two in the first election running against each other if no one gets the required majority, seems interesting. (There may well be some bad things arising from such a setup which I’m not aware of. I know there some described fir a similar suggested system in California).
My folks lived in Paris for five years; always said one of their regrets was to have been between elections and not able to see one in action.
Lastly, one of the major reasons the French have what they have (and it’s pretty good overall) is not their governmental system so much as the citizenry’s reactions to stuff they don’t like. They strike (taxi drivers are striking now over the issue of Uber) and if it’s a big enough issue and strikes don’t do it, they riot. They get listened to.
Gulag: True, professional fireworks put on by the city are fine. They are controlled, in one area and usually last only about an hour. I grew up in Indianapolis and looked forward to July 4. It was illegal for citizens to use them and we (my family) would drive out to Victory Field (the baseball stadium) after dark where they were shot off. Of course, nowadays, they have more spectacular ones. They do have a celebration here at our community college but since it gets dark so late, I don’t attend. I am an early to bed, early to rise person. If the law would allow only that display, it wouldn’t be a problem. This is one case where I long for the “good ol’ days”.
Doug: Loved seeing your face in that video. “Smile on your face and love in your heart”. That says it all.
grannyeagle & goatherd – It’s disturbing to hear how ‘the weather’ is affecting the future of my friends. Things will get much worse and in my lifetime, I’m convinced. Mankind is one of the most adaptable species on the planet but what we call ‘civilization’ is very fragile.
As the sweet lady watching me on final approach in DC said, “This is not good, people.” My flight was not what she may have feared – but the ominous tone she had describe how I see climate change scrambling the lives of my peeps.
Well, there’s one good sign Doug. I have just a few friends on facebook. But, your video got a good response. It even drew in one of the ‘baggers. When I post one of your videos or articles, I always try to make the point up front, that what you are trying to bring to light is not a partisan issue, as you always do. If they actually read the article, then they see that it is in everyone’s interest.
JDM: while I agree with you that a parliamentary system is not a magic bullet, at least in those countries a majority of the people, or a coalition of the majority, were voted in by the people. In our system that’s not the case. The will of the majority is not represented. That’s not a democracy. That’s disfunctional and goes to the heart of the legitimacy of our gov’t.
“However, part of the reason our political system was able to get so crazy and polarized has to do with being locked into a two-party system. If there had been a parliamentary system for the past century or so, would that have happened? I’m not sure it would have.”
In the Westminster system specifically, then yes. British politics utilizes first past the post voting as well, which lends itself to two dominant political parties. And really, the multi-party voting systems of more freewheeling parliamentary systems isn’t much better than ours in terms of getting things accomplished, produces some anti-democratic results, and fundamentally puts more control into the hands of elite part structures.
The superiority of the Westminster system is that governments can actually enact legislation and govern in response to elections, and there are clear lines of respinsibility for actions that voters can respond to, in contrast to our high volume veto point system.
Doug: You live in a vulnerable area yourself. Some psychics/prophets/scientists are predicting that when the seas rise as a result of climate change, Florida will be swallowed up. Or at least part of it. There was a remote viewer guy on CoasttoCoastAm last night who was saying the very same thing. And it is probably going to happen within the next 20 years. Scary stuff, indeed.
If I remember correctly, I read somewhere that John Adams warned about the country developing party systems. I’m too lazy to look it up right now. It’s obvious it is not working as a democracy. Now I know this sounds crazy but I wonder if it might not be a good thing if the Repugs controlled the presidency and both the Senate and House. Then they couldn’t blame anything on the Democrats and We the People could see them for what they really are. Perhaps some balance could result. Just a thought.
What we need are better citizens. Republicans, like trolls, who always want to say something, ALWAYS vote. Democrats (not you guys, but all too many) vote only in Presidential election years. Thus, the 2010 disaster. The 2014 Thom Tillis disaster. Our ONLY Senator was replaced by an idiot who, in the state legislature, had cut voting rights, unemployment benefits, clinic access, voted against Medicaid expansion, pro-fracking– all profoundly unpopular positions even in a purple state like NC.
Maybe I’m missing something, but other than the ACA, I cannot think of any legislation that has come out of Congress of which the intent was truly for “the people,” since Medicare. And even with the ACA, that wouldn’t have come about had it not been for the huge windfall built in for the health care and pharma industries. Which is why single payer seems like a bridge too far under the current system.
The fact is, legislators represent those who pay the “contributions” to get them elected. And anyone who thinks there aren’t strings attached is kidding themselves. Sure, there may be rhetoric around the margins and hot air about stuff that motivates folks, but when it comes down to it, unless its in line with the wealthy contributors, forget it.
The problem is not so much the two party system, but the people in it. Many if not most are careerists, whose only concern is staying in office, and then staying on the good side of those who can provide them a golden parachute to bail out of congress in and land in a pile of money. And even though you will find democrats who do speak for the concerns of the average person, the leadership of both parties are bought and paid for, lock, stock and barrel.
While I don’t ascribe to the “no difference between the parties” school of thought, I do believe the leadership of both parties are totally corrupted and when it comes down to it, would sell their grandma to deliver for their benefactors happy. See Pelosi, TPP.
Who knows? I’d think probably not only two parties – although note that there often seems to be only two major parties and then less powerful ones (still the smaller ones can do either very good or very awful things; contrast the NDP in Canada and Golden Dawn in Greece). But then you have the problem of an even more minority party getting into power, say one made of the part of the tea party that thinks Boehner or McCain are too leftwing. I’m not sure either is preferable, and I don’t know how you avoid those problems. But the type of system itself isn’t enough to do it. I guess I’m saying the fault doesn’t lie in our stars.
And Buckyblue, a good point on Parliment itself, but think about the PM. The PM is voted on only by the party leaders and those few people in the PM’s riding. The voters then might vote based on who the party leader is, but that’s an interesting thing in regard to Maha’s question about polarization. If you have less polarization, voters might more often split tickets, but the more polarized the politicians are, the fewer split tickets you’d be likely to see. And if there’s an effect the other direction, then splitting tickets (assuming, I’d think, less polarization than today – I wonder how much ticket splitting there is by voters now) would tend to create a less polarized government. Voters can’t split a ticket in the Canadian parliamentary system (can you in any?). At any rate, only a tiny fraction of the country directly votes on who the PM will be.