Tragedy of the Commons

[ReeferMadness]

Considering all of those pathetic epithets are lies all they really say is the media is filled with partisan hacks that don't like it when their party is not in power. I don't see how the childish immaturity of people in the "mainstream" media is an argument for changing the system. If anything, it illustrates why it is so difficult to get consensus on anything in the country when it is filled with children that throw a tantrum when they don't get their way.

Hahahahaha. Oh, geez.

I should have known you might be a Trump defender. Sure, he says bigoted, hateful things. Sure he's a narcissist. And a liar. And a phony. But he's not a bad guy, is he?

Hahahaha. Thanks for the relief humor.

Edited August 21, 2016 by ReeferMadness

[ReeferMadness]

If a political party in Canada campaigns and wins an election promising electoral reform, it is readily apparent where the most dysfunction can be found. X

Because you prefer parties who campaign on one thing and then do something completely different? Hahaha. No wonder you liked Harper so much.

Dysfunction indeed.

[TimG]

I should have known you might be a Trump defender.

Trump defender? Hell would freeze over before I defended that blowhard.

I thought you were attacking Harper because this thread is about changing the Canadian system.

I didn't bother to click on any of your links.

Edited August 21, 2016 by TimG

[bush_cheney2004]

Maybe Trump should just call his ideas..."reform", just like Justin Trudeau and his "natural ruling party".

[ReeferMadness]

Maybe Trump should just call his ideas..."reform",

Oh. You think that violent tendencies, sexism, religious persecution and ethnic bigotry constitute reform? Many people would just call that business as usual.

Of course, you could argue that the overt nature in which Trump calls out specific groups is novel, at least in post WWII times. With ordinary dog-whistle politics, all the rednecks (and let's face it, some of them aren't exactly geniuses) are never sure if they are hating the right groups. Trump makes it easy for them.

[ReeferMadness]

Clearly not a requirement for all the other "experts" presented here and in US Politics threads.

I've never claimed to be an expert. I'm just a guy who can read - and understand the key points. But Mr PoliSci has brought his studies into the discussion as credentials and I'm pointing out that despite is edjumacation, his posts illustrate a lack of understanding of some of the key points of PR.

[JamesHackerMP]

I'm not surprised.

If I lived in a country where it was distinctly possible that the most powerful person in government could be a man described in the mainstream media as proto-fascist, a racist sexist demagogue, a mendacious racist, a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist, birther and bully and other choice epithets, I would probably look favorably at other systems too.

Now, I'm flattered that someone as learned as you would choose to spend your time on whether a rather insignificant country such as ours chooses PR but...

For the love of God, don't you think you should be spending every ounce of your energy ensuring that the world's biggest nuclear arsenal isn't placed in the hands of a reality-show wingnut?

And then, if you have any time left over, maybe you could look at fixing your own, deeply dysfunctional system.

In other words "Yanks should be seen and not heard." I love it. Has anyone on this website--yourself not an exception, obviously--held back from telling us what to do about our own "deeply dysfunctional system"?

Forgive me if I've failed to make my point about Proportional Representation. My point was that changing a system from FPTP to PR, or any variation, is a case of "out of the frying pan and into the fire." What essentially changes is not just who wins the election, but what is known as the "winning coalition" (Alastair Smith, Bruce Bueno's book on political survival--how's that for "Mr PoliSci"? ) Basically, to whom a leader owes his power, and without whose support the leader collapses. But that gets into a lot of other merde I would rather avoid, lest I attract more disdain from some of you.

What I mean by that is, that party discipline (whipping) in countries that use PR, MMP (mixed member plurality) and STV (single transferable vote) is just as strong as in Canada. However, Parliamentary democracy requires that, at least to a degree, no? The backbenchers in these countries end up just as nearly-powerless and the cabinet (and particularly the head of government) just as powerful. The fix to responsible government lies more in making the cabinet more responsible to the House, rather than the other way around. Right now--and some of you have confirmed this in other threads by the way--the PM is probably more powerful than he ought to be, more than one Canadian has said that to me before, by the way. It's also the funny way power is quite often reciprocal in nature.

Forgive me if I came off that I was somehow looking down on your system. Judging by the reactions, that is kind of what I did. Mea culpa (means my fault in Latin, btw). Like I said on my post in another forum, I'm here to learn as much as throw in my two cents (or $0.03 CAD). I didn't mean to come off as all preachy, sorry. Be that as it may, I don't look down on the Canadian form of government (like at least one of you seems to look down on ours) or parliamentary democracy in general. Actually, I'm here because I have a great degree of admiration for it; and I'm plenty aware of the flaws in my own country's government. I'm terribly sorry, Reefer, that you consider your own country "insignificant". I don't, and that's why I am here. And as for your statement about spending my energy ensuring the world's biggest nuclear arsenal doesn't end up in the hands of Mr Trump (who you're obviously describing) my answer to that is: "all in good time. The election is on November 8, 2016, and I plan to do precisely that." Fair enough? You need to relax, dude. Smoke if you got 'em.

All systems have their flaws. All flaws can be improved, which, due to changing circumstances, create more flaws which will themselves require improvement. (Etc., etc.)

As for how I write term papers, as one of you asked: typically not on a discussion board; always Microsoft Word, double-spaced.

I can explain more if I have still failed to make my point concisely and successfully, so I suppose I'm not ready--as unedjumicated as I am being an American and all--to say "QED." That, btw, is Latin for quad erat demonstratum (which roughly translates into English as "so there.")

Edited August 21, 2016 by JamesHackerMP

[ReeferMadness]

In other words "Yanks should be seen and not heard." I love it.

Wow. That's what you took away? Read again.

Has anyone on this website--yourself not an exception, obviously--held back from telling us what to do about our own "deeply dysfunctional system"?

Nope. And being as your country (unlike ours) could wipe out civilization, perhaps even annihilate most higher life forms, I would take it as a favour if you would make your politics a little more towards the sanity end of the sanity-whack job spectrum.

Forgive me if I've failed to make my point about Proportional Representation. My point was that changing a system from FPTP to PR, or any variation, is a case of "out of the frying pan and into the fire." What essentially changes is not just who wins the election, but what is known as the "winning coalition" (Alastair Smith, Bruce Bueno's book on political survival--how's that for "Mr PoliSci"? [] ) Basically, to whom a leader owes his power, and without whose support the leader collapses. But that gets into a lot of other merde I would rather avoid, lest I attract more disdain from some of you.

So, PR won't fix everything. Obviously. But it does provide a government that better reflects the views of the majority of the electorate. And it forces people to cooperate. Neither should be considered a bad thing in a democracy.

What I mean by that is, that party discipline (whipping) in countries that use PR, MMP (mixed member plurality) and STV (single transferable vote) is just as strong as in Canada. However, Parliamentary democracy requires that, at least to a degree, no? The backbenchers in these countries end up just as nearly-powerless and the cabinet (and particularly the head of government) just as powerful. The fix to responsible government lies more in making the cabinet more responsible to the House, rather than the other way around. Right now--and some of you have confirmed this in other threads by the way--the PM is probably more powerful than he ought to be, more than one Canadian has said that to me before, by the way. It's also the funny way power is quite often reciprocal in nature.

The sacred link between the MP and the constituent is often touted as the reason that FPTP boosters want to hold on to their systems with a fervor only matched by gun nuts holding onto their guns. However, that link varies between vastly overstated and virtually non-existent. So, if the backbenchers are just as powerless, nothing is lost. However, proportionality is still gained.

And as for your statement about spending my energy ensuring the world's biggest nuclear arsenal doesn't end up in the hands of Mr Trump (who you're obviously describing) my answer to that is: "all in good time. The election is on November 8, 2016, and I plan to do precisely that." Fair enough?

Good luck with that. Although HRC is only a good choice in relative terms. Almost anyone would be.

[JamesHackerMP]

Good luck with that. Although HRC is only a good choice in relative terms. Almost anyone would be.

Q.E.D.

Anywho, I even agree that it is more "democratic" in that sense. But does something work better in a representative political system because it's more directly democratic? I don't remember you making mention above (maybe you did, I'll flip through it later) of the disparity in electoral quotients that overrepresents the smaller provinces. Would you change that, too?

[ReeferMadness]

In a perfect world, I'd fix the electoral quotients. In real life, though, it's not worth it. The provinces squabble like spoiled children fighting over an inheritance. It would hurt unit.

In time, maybe.

[JamesHackerMP]

Question (Reefer) if you were making a law mandating proportional representation to replace FPTP, would you make the Commons go 1/2 and 1/2? (Like the Bundestag?) Or all 338 members by PR?

[JamesHackerMP]

BTW Reefer, if I understand you correctly, you seem to be saying that, since the "sacred link" between the MP and his/her constituents has been broken anyway by the oligarchy that is the cabinet, PR would not really be severing anything at all that hasn't already been destroyed for quite a while. Is that kind of what you're saying?

If you are, from what I've gathered so far, I now don't blame you. After studying PR, as I said, I've noticed that it tends to benefit the one or two largest parties, ironically enough. After all, why would the large parties allow the small parties to exist, if they didn't get some sort of benefit from them? But I have to admit now, your argument is valid. I didn't mean to get cocky like I did, my apologies.

[SpankyMcFarland]

Both of our systems I would surmise could use a "tweak" here and there, then, you think?

The French system is better in one way than the American, in my opinion. After the first vote the two poll-toppers have a run-off, forcing voters to make painful choices.

The US needs to make it easier for other parties to run national campaigns. The current line-up is stale.

[SpankyMcFarland]

BTW Reefer, if I understand you correctly, you seem to be saying that, since the "sacred link" between the MP and his/her constituents has been broken anyway by the oligarchy that is the cabinet, PR would not really be severing anything at all that hasn't already been destroyed for quite a while. Is that kind of what you're saying?

If you are, from what I've gathered so far, I now don't blame you. After studying PR, as I said, I've noticed that it tends to benefit the one or two largest parties, ironically enough. After all, why would the large parties allow the small parties to exist, if they didn't get some sort of benefit from them? But I have to admit now, your argument is valid. I didn't mean to get cocky like I did, my apologies.

Multi-seat STV offers more choice between parties and within parties. In many FPTP constituencies the result is a foregone inclusion for the dominant party candidate chosen by the party. This tendency is even worse in the US. Such a set-up may add to voter apathy.

I can't see how STV benefits the big parties. They rarely have outright majorities in parliament.

All in all, though, I think many young people have little interest in voting systems or even the political process. Faith in its power to deliver useful results seems to be on the wane.

[JamesHackerMP]

the US aside, here are a two prominent democratic political systems that use some flavor of proportional representation.

Japan is a perfect example of what I mean. Ten parties have seats in the 480-member House of Representatives and 5 seats are independents (December 2014 election). The House of Councillors is an integral part of the system, more powerful in Japan than your Senate is in Canada; but for now, I'll concentrate on the lower house, since it's what is needed to form government. Despite this plethora of parties, the Liberal Democratic Party has maintained a stranglehold over the system since 1954 with only a couple brief interludes.

Germany, I will admit, is likely more pluralistic, along your lines of thinking, and kind of proves your point---but not entirely. It's certainly an interesting case worth mentioning. However, Germany restricts motions of no-confidence (constructive no confidence rule) and requires a party to poll at least 5% of the vote to have block seats in the Bundestag (Federal Diet). These two components prevent the chaotic situation of the Weimar Republic, where they held elections more frequently than people change their underwear and governments were hard to form because of the plethora of small parties (which proves one of my points: the fluidity of the system was simultaneously a handicap that led to instability and the eventual collapse of Democracy in the Weimar Republic). German's MMP (mixed member majoritarian) allows the voter to vote for a party, to be allocated among the [roughly] half of the seats in the Bundestag, and to vote for a single-member district candidate.

Germany has been described as a "chancellor democracy" soon after its founding in 1949, meaning a crap-ton of the executive power is vested in Mrs. Merkel. That would be just fine, if the chancellorship was able to rotate between the parties that win seats--currently Die Linke ("the Left"), Christian Democrats (technically two parties, but they act as if they were one), the SDP (Social Democrats), and Alliance 90/the Greens (an amalgamation of the Green Party and a left wing party). But the CDU/CSU (Christian dems.) failed to gain an absolute majority in the Bundestag, so what did Mrs Merkel do? She didn't negotiate an alliance with the small parties to tip the numbers so they'd have just enough for a majority, she actually formed a coalition government with the OTHER largest party, the Social Democrats! That would be like Liberal and Conservative forming an alliance in the House of Commons. It would be virtually unstoppable, when you think about it. 504 seats out of the 631 in the Bundestag (a whopping 80%!!!) are the present coalition. Of course, that coalition could "fall out", but it hasn't done so since it was sworn in following the 2013 election. Despite their four (sometimes five) party system, Mrs Merkel has maintained her hold on power since 2005. Provided she serves to the end of the present four-year mandate, that will be a term of almost 13 years.

Take note, also, that out of the eight chancellors since 1949, they've always been from the Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) or the Social Democrats (SPD). Sure, they've had plenty of governing coalitions (though never of the two largest parties as far as I know) but what's the point, when the most powerful seat in the cabinet is the chancellor, and it's been denied to smaller parties?

There are more examples I could give but we'd be here all day. Some of these examples show the exact opposite problem, the fluidity and plurality of the governments of some countries have actually compromised their stability. (Third & Fourth Republics in France, Italy, Weimar Rep I mentioned). If you really research it, it'll likely prove one of two possibilities: that the PR decreases political plurality, not increases it, or that it goes too far and there's gross instability. That's the best I can explain it here.

The problem with the US you mentioned, the result being a foregone conclusion, could be fixed (if the people in power wanted it to be). It's due to gerrymandering of the congressional and state legislative districts. And that certain does add to voter apathy I'll admit readily.

Also, the French Republic (5th) is not a presidential or parliamentary democracy, it's a semipresidential.

[?Impact]

Despite their four (sometimes five) party system, Mrs Merkel has maintained her hold on power since 2005. Provided she serves to the end of the present four-year mandate, that will be a term of almost 13 years.

There is something to be said about putting term limits on the Executive office.

[JamesHackerMP]

Agreed.

[cybercoma]

There is something to be said about putting term limits on the Executive office.

That's not the way the Westminster system works. Germany has a president. Angela Merkel is Chancellor. She only serves with the support of both her party and parliament. The president also has reserve powers, which means she serves at his discretion de jure as well. Term limits are only useful in instances where someone has near absolute power in government. That's just not the case with the German Chancellor.

[JamesHackerMP]

No it certainly isn't. In Germany, though, the constitution is a little more "clear cut" about the president's reserve powers than, say, Canada or Australia (the latter of which did get into a constitutional crisis when the GG used--some say abused--his reserve powers). I might point out that a lot of parliamentary heads of government have more power than the US president in some instances. So they could still limit a person's term to a certain number of parliaments or general elections he/she may serve through. And actually, Japan, which is a parliamentary democracy, *does* have such a limit on their prime minister.

[JamesHackerMP]

Also the power of the German president in the 1949 Basic Law (constitution) is very limited, compared with the Weimar Republic. Field Marshall von Hindenburg, the last reichspraesident (if of course you don't count Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz since he didn't hold that office "democratically") was practically ruling the government by executive fiat through non-partisan (or non-majority-supported) chancellors. When the FRG was founded they didn't want that situation again, so the powers of the German bundespraesident are very severely curtailed compared to the Weimar reichspraesident. So I wouldn't say that the bundeskanzler (Federal Chancellor) serves at the discretion of the bundespraesident as you put it. The "discretion" comes from the Federal Diet (bundestag). The president's role is very nominal in this case, except in a very limited set of circumstances where his/her own discretion would be required.

[cybercoma]

Right. I'm just saying the suggestion that Germany needs term limits is silly, considering there's controls already in place to prevent despotism and prime ministers (or in this case the chancellor) is not like the US president at all. There's no straight-line comparison to be made there. All the reasons for term limits are already controlled for in the Westminster system.

[JamesHackerMP]

OK. I understand you. I wasn't trying to say "Germany needs term limits". I was only agreeing with the previous commentator that executive term limits are a good idea. I didn't mean to imply they would be valid in a Westminster model, necessarily (although who knows, there's probably some cases of that having happened for all we know...I'm not going to research every single parliamentary model-government in the world because there are a lot).

I think part of the reason though, that Canadian PM's have not lasted in office way too long (like, I dunno, 15 years at a pop, or something) is likely because you have dodged the bullet of gerrymandering. That allows greater fluidity, and allows for the PM and his/her party to be dumped in an election (a fact which proves your point about the Westminster system). Don't forget that if the same party remains in power too long, it would be destructive on its own, even if it was with a different head of government. Italy had that problem for some years following the second world war. It was practically a one-party state, give or take, for a while. (A fact which proves my point about how a multiplicity of parties ends up benefiting the people in power, keeping them in power longer, not shorter.)