The Government Shutdown Countdown Lowdown MEGATHREAD

[viper37]

If the Americans had not rebelled or if they had at least kept the superior form of government that is Parliamentary Democracy they would not not be in this mess.

Obama would have suspended the parliament and ruled by decree?  Or they would have had 6 Prime Ministers since 2012?

[crazy canuck]

If the Americans had not rebelled or if they had at least kept the superior form of government that is Parliamentary Democracy they would not not be in this mess.

Obama would have suspended the parliament and ruled by decree?  Or they would have had 6 Prime Ministers since 2012?

In a two party state someone is going to get a majority.  The problem in the US is that different parties control different parts of the government.

But even more fundamentally, if they had a Parliamentary Democracy perhaps they would have developed more parties to represent a broader range of views and the Tea Party nuts would be off in a corner with nobody listening to them.

[merithyn]

I think the bigger issue is that there's no way to fire any of them mid-session.

[lustindarkness]

Term limits.

[11B4V]

Term limits.

Yes, yes and yes

[DGuller]

Yes, because it's the old farts that are the problem. 

[Viking]

I do agree that the Parliamentary system is better than the one that we have.

I'm not sure that having boehner as prime minister would be preferrible

[Caliga]

I'm not sure that having boehner as prime minister would be preferrible

If we had changed our system of government at some point, I wouldn't expect to see the same people in the seats now.

[Jacob]

Article on the Tea Party and how the US came to the shut down. There may be more of the same coming, unless some of the underlying dynamics change.

On the dynamics of the tea-party's levers over the GOP:

We argued in many ways that anger comes from alarm on the part of these older conservatives that they're losing their country — that's what they say. That they're the true Americans, and they're losing control of American politics. So that's the grass-roots component.

Now there is a somewhat new development at the top. There's no sense in which the grass-roots protests are a fake, or a creation of big money forces. But we have seen the unleashing of billionaire-backed, highly ideological groups that are outside the Republican apparatus, itself symbolized by people like Dick Armey. And much more recently, by Jim DeMint giving up a Senate position to move to Heritage, and turn Heritage into a much more hard-edged political machine. These guys are calling the shots about what happens in Congress. And that's why we saw the amazing thing of Heritage Action, under DeMint, indicating that it would score a vote for the leaders' proposals negatively — within 20 minutes, [Republican leaders] switched. And that's because they fear now the aroused grass-roots activists, the people who paid attention and vote in Republican primaries. And equally, they fear money coming to challenge them as ideologically impure if they vote the wrong way on key legislation.

What drives the anger:

But I don't really think it's helpful to announce that the entire Tea Party base is racist.  I don't think it's that simple. For one thing, they're just as riled up about immigration as they are about blacks. There's certainly a worry about a change in the social composition of America. But we found in our research that they also resent young people — including in their own families.

They think young people are not measuring up. That the grandsons and daughters and nieces and nephews expect to get free college loans, and don't get a job, and hold ideas that are not very American in their view — like Obama. Obama symbolizes all of this.

The rest here: http://www.salon.com/2013/10/17/tea_partiers_grave_fear_why_they_disdain_young_people_even_their_own/

[Caliga]

The article seems to be saying that old people are useless and need to die ASAP.  I agree and have been saying that for years.

[crazy canuck]

I think the bigger issue is that there's no way to fire any of them mid-session.

That is covered by the Parliamentary system.  If Parliament does not pass the budget put forward by the government, which is the equivalent of what happened here, then that is considered a vote of non confidence in the government and it falls triggering an election.

Therefore we dont have to live with the perpetual game of sillybugger you must endure.  If the govenment is not supported it falls and the electorate gets to decide who should be put back in.  In this case I suspect the Republicans would be a lot less likely to be led around by the Tea Party minority if they knew they would have to face the electorate on the issue.  Sure there are safe seats held by those that would not care.  But given the current sentiment in the US it seems likely that under a Parliamentary system the Dems would be returned with a clear majority of seats.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Yes, I've advocated for a Parliamentary government for some time. If you ever look up the "Hamilton Plan" named because it was the proposed form of government port forth by Alexander Hamilton in the Constitutional Convention, it was essentially the British Parliamentary system. Probably the biggest mistake he made in it was he pushed his strong Federalist ideals along with the plan, which made it a non-started in the 13 States era when just a few years before none of these States had any sort of national association with one another but were instead independent entities subject individually to the British. Under his plan the national legislature appointed State Governors, and had veto authority over all legislation passed by State legislatures. If not for that it might have had more traction and maybe we'd have a parliamentary (but federal) system today.

I understand the reasons for the system we ended up adopting. Until the reforms of the mid-19th century the British system wasn't really a great example in any case, and the concerns of the early Americans was tyranny from some overbearing government. That's what they had perceived as their situation under the British, that their concerns were ignored in Westminster because of their distance and lack of representation. So there was a desire to make sure government was built first and foremost with mechanical guards in place to preserve liberty. The British system on the other hand sort of evolved various protections and became more free based on custom and gradual legislation--but to the eyes of the Founders who only knew of the British system up until the late 18th century none of that was necessarily expected and thus I do think the checks-and-balances system we have was a good answer to the problems we were looking at at the time.

It's unfortunate our system is so difficult to change, we probably should have had a second or even third constitutional convention post-1787 to make more dramatic changes to our system over time.

[dps]

In a two party state someone is going to get a majority.  The problem in the US is that different parties control different parts of the government.

It's not a bug, it's a feature.

[Viking]

In a two party state someone is going to get a majority.  The problem in the US is that different parties control different parts of the government.

It's not a bug, it's a feature.

WAD, yes, but the assumption is that there will be no political parties.

[DGuller]

In a two party state someone is going to get a majority.  The problem in the US is that different parties control different parts of the government.

It's not a bug, it's a feature.

So was Liberum veto.