Recent posts

#21

Off the Record / Re: Youtube Recommendations

Last post by Syt - Today at 12:24:49 PM

A look back at Pirates! on C64, Pirates! Gold on Sega Genesis and Pirates! Live the Life on Windows:

I spent so much time with Pirates! on C64 - the first time I encountered an open world sandbox game. And with its lack of in game references I became very well acquainted with the locations of ports in 17th century Caribbean using my dad's atlas.

(And I could tell what ship I was encountering, based on the sound of the 1541-II disk drive when loading the graphic. )

#22

Off the Record / Re: What does a TRUMP presiden...

Last post by Tonitrus - Today at 12:18:39 PM

But even then, one of the first practical acts* of a theoretical new Democratic administration (and lets also assume a Senate majority) will have to be to expand the membership of the USSC.

*maybe before/after having most of the current administration arrested for corruption/malfeasance/abuse of office.

#23

Off the Record / Re: Brexit and the waning days...

Last post by crazy canuck - Today at 12:17:44 PM

Concentrating power just concentrates power - you concentrate power in a few hands with no checks in balances to fight the rich and suddenly you have created your own enemy.

Checks and balances are annoying when your guy is being checked and balanced but the best system invented so far to maintain a democracy.

Where are the checks and balances to which you refer? Sounds great in theory - it's in practice that it starts crumbling.  Take the US as the most recent tragic example.

Sure but no matter what system you build (and this is in reply to Sheilbh as well), anything beyond sheer physical coercion requires the consent of the ruled and the powerful to accept the rules.

First stop is the ones in power agreeing implicitly not to use their power to diminish other branches of power. If they try those other branches should push back before it is too late. Failing that, the electorate should step in to stop those efforts.

Obviously if all those steps fail then the system fails but this is not something you can remedy except by giving up and just going straight for your preferred form of autocracy.

Again, that is a very American centric view if the world. A parliamentary system does have competing branches of government.  The flaw in the US system is it did create competing branches and hoped each branch would be a check on the others. 

The Parliament system encourages cooperation.  For a third time (because you keep ignoring this point) a non confidence vote, like a budget vote, means there is a new general election.  That tends to focus the mind on what compromises are possible.

It also gives a lot of power to back benchers if someone like Trump (or Vance) were to arise.

A parlamentiary as opposed to presidential democracy is better no argument there, but just from my limited knowledge I can raise Hungary as a parlamentiary democracy that has failed. It even had a very modern two-rounds election system which was far superior to something like the British first past the post nonsense but once an actor like Orban got a constitutional majority it all went to hell.

Yeah, that addresses the other part of what makes a Parliamentary system work. It's not just the way the rules are drafted (again very much an American perspective) it's all the Parliamentary traditions that go with it.  In Canada we have drifted a bit toward the American legalistic model (as has the UK) and so I am not sure how strongly I can now make this argument as a generalization.  But I think a lot of MPs still view their primary allegiance to the riding that elected them.

And as I think about it, that is another strength of the Parliamentary system.  There is no national election for Prime Minister.  Politics is still intensely local.

I am outside what I know for sure now, but my impression is Orban took control gradually by changing the rules of the game.  In Canada that would be near impossible given our amending formula for constitutional change.  Another safeguard in our Federation (thank you Quebec ) Also, I think it is fair to say Hungarians were doing their best to figure it out as they went, rather than being able to fall back on deeply ingrained traditions.

[the past 6 months]

#24

Off the Record / Re: What does a TRUMP presiden...

Last post by Tonitrus - Today at 12:13:23 PM

At this point, I don't think Supreme Court decisions can be taken as precedential.  No one thinks that the holdings the Court has been announcing over the past 6 months expanding executive power will be honored if the Democrats ever retake the White House. 

Let's make that at least 1.5 years (to encompass the immunity decision).

#25

Off the Record / Re: Brexit and the waning days...

Last post by crazy canuck - Today at 12:12:05 PM

Again, that is a very American centric view if the world. A parliamentary system does have competing branches of government.  The flaw in the US system is it did create competing branches and hoped each branch would be a check on the others. 

The Parliament system encourages cooperation.  For a third time (because you keep ignoring this point) a non confidence vote, like a budget vote, means there is a new general election.  That tends to focus the mind on what compromises are possible.

It also gives a lot of power to back benchers if someone like Trump (or Vance) were to arise.

I still think you are very much wrong, or coming from a similarly Canadian-centric parliamentarian view.  The "non-confidence vote" only works if the members/backbenchers of the party in power think it is to their advantage/ambition to scuttle the current leader.  You would be hard-pressed to convince me that if we translated Trump/MAGA/GOP into a parliamentary system, that Trump would be under any kind of threat.  Sure, he might be more vulnerable in theory, but only marginally so.

Well, yes - I am coming very much from a Canadian Parliamentary tradition because that is the topic we are discussing.  And yes, obviously I am being hard pressed to convince you.  But I think that is mainly because you are not addressing the specific differences I have been identifying between our two systems of governance.

And even then...what stops a Prime Minister, with a loyal cabinet and administrative control of the police/security services from doing anything different than Trump is doing now?  What happens if a PM says "fuck your vote of no-confidence, I am not leaving power...try and stop me"...or "nope, no new general election is necessary just because we didn't pass a budget...we'll just keep going as we were"?  And has enough support, or I suppose, apathy, in the cabinet or other gears of power to stop it?

Clearly from a US perspective.  Our Prime Minister is not the Commander in Chief of our armed forces, nor does the Prime Minister direct, or have any authority over any police forces in Canada, whether federal (the RCMP) or provincial (and certainly not provincial). You have to have a better understanding of how Canadian Federalism works to know how off the wall this sort of suggestion is.  If you want to play out this sort of absurd scenario, it would be the forces of the provinces making a polite trip to Ottawa to explain the reality to a Trumpist PM that he has no such power. 

There are no really superior, real safeguards in a parliamentary system than in ours...other than the theoretical hope that the administration, security services/military, or other pillars of power (including the willingness of the people/society to engage in mass protest), will do the right thing and stop the wannabe-dictator at the top.

Actually, my argument all along is the opposite. Your system has obvious systemic flaws that make the rise of Trump possible.  Those same flaws do not exist in a Parliamentary system. I know it is hard for Americans, who had been told their whole lives, that they live in the very best country, with the very best system of government. But that claim was always contingent on assumptions that began to be inaccurate before the ink on the US constitution was dry. For example, the assumption that politician would act individually rather than in a party system.

These are the flaws of any democratic/republican system...and ours was always as subject to failure, just as Hungary was, or others.  They can all sink when those involved lose their ethics to ambition, nationalism, or some other anti-democratic drive.  Ultimately, "my system is better" doesn't get one very far if the other more important factors are crumbling around us.

I think that Americans are forced to this sort of generalization. Now that they know their system of government has deep flaws, it's natural to now think that everyone has those flaws.  And really, if you have to look to a country that was under communist rule for the better part of the 20th century, and then tried but failed to create a liberal democratic government in the 21st century, your argument has some holes.

Ultimately, unless the Americans address the flaws in their system of governance, they will continue to make Trumpist governance possible. Putting your head in the sand and repeating that everyone has the same problems is not the answer.

#26

Off the Record / Re: Israel-Hamas War 2023

Last post by Sophie Scholl - Today at 12:03:35 PM

Even dead Israelis, apparently, are far more important than living Gazans. 

"The fragile ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war was tested Tuesday as the slower-than-hoped return of deceased hostages from Gaza prompted an Israeli military agency to declare a "violation" of the truce agreement that it would respond to by halving the number of trucks allowed to bring humanitarian aid into the devastated territory."

https://apnews.com/article/gaza-israel-hamas-hostages-ceasefire-10-14-2025-665a1cbe249f08c8513ceceaa04db201

#27

Off the Record / Re: Israel-Hamas War 2023

Last post by Razgovory - Today at 11:15:02 AM

I dunno. Are you organizing any marches for them?

Yeah, from the deli.  But seriously, not caring about Palestinians dying is racism!

#28

Off the Record / Re: What does a TRUMP presiden...

Last post by crazy canuck - Today at 11:04:55 AM

They will bend over backwards to figure out a random argument why all this doesn't apply to Democrat presidents.

"Trump is no longer President, therefore the case is clearly distinguishable"

#29

Off the Record / Re: Stocks and Trading Thread ...

Last post by Josquius - Today at 09:36:24 AM

I'm fancying STMicroelectronics as a 'next Rolls Royce'- low downside, potentially great upside.
Thoughts?

#30

Off the Record / Re: What does a TRUMP presiden...

Last post by Syt - Today at 08:19:47 AM

They will bend over backwards to figure out a random argument why all this doesn't apply to Democrat presidents.