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UK Parliament to be Made Redundant?
caluml writes "The Guardian is reporting that the current UK government is trying to sneak a new law though in an innocuously named bill called 'The Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill,' which would get rid of that pesky, interfering need to put laws to the Houses of Commons and Lords to approve. There is already the Parliament Act that can be used to force laws through, which was used recently for the hunting bill. " The original coverage is a bit old but the bill is still being tossed around in parliament. The text of the bill is also available via the UK Parliament website.
This wasn't snuck in, it's been around for quite some time now. It actually serves a valid purpose as well. Basically, the part that this article refers to allows a government to bypass the House of Lords (an unelected body) after a certain number of tries in a certain time period when trying to pass a bill.
Anything that goes through the parliament act will generate enough publicity for the public to kick up a fuss about it if they don't like it anyway.
Yes, let's get rid of that pesky bureaucracy.
And while you're at it, why waste time voting?
Let's get rid of that time-consuming thing...
If I lived in the UK, I'd definitely be writing my (UK equivalent) senator and representatives about now... I really can't quite imagine something like that actually getting passed, but governments are, unfortunately, not limited by my imagination.
One question is: who would actually be writing these laws that would go through without parliamentary approval, if not parliament?
SIGSEGV caught, terminating
wait... not that kind of sig.
In SOVIET BRITAIN, Britannia waives the rules!
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
I hate to be the grammar nazi, but the submitter misspelled "US" and "Congress"...
I live in the UK! How come nobody told me about this?
...don't give the U.S. government any ideas. Not that they seem to feel like they need congressional approval now, for that matter.
I want everyone to remember that we stand on the edge of oblivion! I want everyone to remember why they need us!
There's also a website that explains in slightly less dry terms than the official parliament website some of the things it would allow MPs to do. It appears to be unavailable at the moment, but check it out when it's back up.
From memory, it's basically: add or change any laws they feel like, as long as they don't raise taxes, or have jail sentances over 2 years.
And as for why the opposition parties and UK media aren't mentioning it, I have no idea.
Get your own free personal location tracker
Drat! The fates decree that this isn't one of the times I have mod points.
http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Redundancy
From an American view I'm jealous that you have more than two real political parties, but I don't get why England doesn't have her own Parliament.
we can make make laws that are more stupid than you. hahahaha hahaha .. ha.. :/
oh shit, I'm in the uk
ok, now I'm confused, do I make a USA immigration application or start learning chinese?
Didn't you guys see "V for Vendetta" over the weekend ?
Yes, but the parliament act isn't what is in question.
What is in question is this new proposed act, that allows any cabinet member to alter any piece of legislation by conducting a single vote with the minimum of debate or discussion. The parliament act is usually only used after ages of battling, so at least we are certain that MPs have looked at and understood what is being passed. With this new act, it would be very easy to sandwich scary ideas into an innoculous looking package, and sneak that through the vote. The worst case scenario is that one such scary bill would be a motion to alter this bill itself - and remove parliament from the process altogether.
Even if we trust the government not to abuse it, this is still a terrifyingly huge loophole. And in fact, the bill is currently *very* close to being passed. It only has a 1-hour final hearing in the commons, and then it's onto the Lords. And if the Lords don't cooperate, a truly malicious government can use the Parliament act to force it through....
It's that damn Magna Carta, you know.
Once you take the power from the one true Sovereign, who has been selected by God to know what is right for this country, all of this havoc follows in due course.
I say: absolve the House of Lords and the House of Commons, and revert all power to HRH Elizabeth Regina.
We'll then all get along splendidly. (Or at least untill Charles takes the thrown.)
They're going to have multiple parliaments so that if one fails they have a backup? Oh wait... that doesn't seem to be what they are suggesting.
We need something like this in Canada do. Right now we have a representative of the queen here in Canada. It is one of the most retarded and useless positions in Canada.
Why is somone who is not democratically elected, in a political office.
Can they do that? This seems a bit too outlandish to be true. Am I daft or would this be like the Senate trying to pass a bill that would make it unnessisary fo rlaws to go through the House?
I don't think I need to write to my MP on this one: he's already strongly and publicly criticised the bill for the insult to democracy it is, and indeed a group of professors of law from our local university (which, for the benefit of US readers, means a lot of very highly placed academics in the UK) wrote to a national newspaper to express their support for his opposition. I do believe in contacting my representatives, but in this case his view seems pretty solidly on the right side of sane.
As for who would write the laws, it would basically be ministers, i.e., senior politicians appointed by the current administration and generally drawn from the ranks of both houses of parliament. This is basically carte blanche for the administration, once elected, to pass its laws without scrutiny or opposition from the other political parties. Technically, IIRC, the bill does allow for a couple of hours of debate, which is just about long enough for everyone to sit down... :-(
When you consider that this bill could be used to pass several pieces of legislation that have recently proved highly controversial within the house (ID cards and draconian "anti-terrorism" measures among them) you can see how dangerous it could be.
Then consider that under our first-past-the-post electoral system, the current administration was empowered based on only 22% of the population's support. They didn't actually win the popular vote in England at all, and they have relied repeatedly on Scottish MPs to force through controversial legislation that won't affect those MPs' own constituents because it only applies in England.
In other words, this bill would essentially hand executive authority to a group of people who are not directly elected to such responsibility, but rather appointed by another group who can have as little as 1/5 of the population supporting them, and with that they can impose their will over the other 4/5 and their duly elected representatives challenge. Why would this disturb anyone?
(Then again, we live in the land of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers (RIP) Act, the Serious Organised Crime Act, The Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act and most recently the Civil Contingencies Act, which collectively have stripped away pretty much almost every freedom and right that UK citizens enjoyed prior to the current administration being elected. What more damage can they do?)
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Well, this is (theoretically) why the monarchy still exists, unfortunatly, too many people have no respect for what power the sovereign has. She can refuse to sign this bill into law, even if Parliament passes it. Too bad she probably won't as that will trigger a constitutional crisis and put the Queen into a political position which they tend to try to avoid.
God save our Queen, and Heaven bless The Maple Leaf Forever!
"The regional governors now have direct control over their territories. Fear will keep the local systems in line. Fear of this battlestation."
Oh, god. Not the "guns will make us free" argument again.
Okay - lets assume that we arm every citizen of the British Isles, and that the government tries to push this bill through. Now what? Do we get a rag tag army together, march up to the gates in front of Downing street and start shooting at people, until they send the tanks in? What will that achieve?
But seeing as the Civil Contingencies Act provides for the current Prime Minister to (a) declare a state of emergency and (b) once declared, amend any law he likes e.g. any requirement for democratic elections, this would seem redundant, unless it's the Chancellor that wants to be President for Life.
Happily, living in the UK means that I can make such claims without fear of
I missed the Hunting Law, ... was that where they made it illegal for Dick Chaney to hunt in the UK?
On the surface this sounds like an attempt to bring back the monarchy. Not all at once, mind you, but just with a different set of people being in power.
Hexy - a strategy game for iPhone/iPod Touch
A question for our British friends: the Guardian article, at least three times, refers to the "constitutional implications" of this proposed legislation. But the UK has no written constitution (I realize there are charters and precedent and common law heritage and all that, but there is no constitution in the sense that most nations have "A Constitution" that sets out the structure of the government). As I understand it, the "constitution" (little c) of British government is (more or less) whatever Parliament decides it is; there are essentially no fundamental "restrictions" on what Parliament can decide to do. Is the article trying to imply anything more than "constitutional implications" in the sense of modifying centuries of precedent, or is it something deeper that I am not seeing? Thanks!
Why would you need a parliament after the building was destroyed at the end of "V For Vendetta"?
It's called Checks and Balances and it's why our government is still in operation (though many will argue its effectiveness). We separate the powers of law making between the senate and the house and give the president a veto. Wow, Redundant! We even have these crazy people that can even interpret these laws in crazy ways so as to fit the current times.
Recap: Bill goes through house and senate, gets signed by president then gets interpreted by judges. And who's complaining about only a second body of redundancy in England?
Nobody Even Likes Them!
Slash-for-Thought
Watching, I reflected that this was truly how democracy is extinguished. Not with guns and bombs, but from the inside by officials and politicians who deceive with guile and who no longer pretend to countenance the higher interests of the constitution
Hello, George W. Bush.
If GCSE History serves me correctly, didn't Hitler [1] do something like this? Some bill that granted him "emergency powers" over the Reichstag that meant he could pass laws on his own? One step closer to dictatorship we step..
[1]Note that I'm not equating Tony Blair to Hitler or Labour to the Nazis or anything, just an interesting co-incidence..
In Soviet Britain, the rules waive Britannia!
Arguing about vi versus Emacs is like arguing whether it's better to make fire by rubbing sticks or banging rocks.
Particularly pesky in this pugilannimous period, practically prone practices such as parliament should be permanently purged.
The US has now installed both Roberts and Alito onto our Supreme Court with their "judicial philosophy" of a "unitary executive" [google.com]. That is, the president runs the entire government from his Executive Branch, the Judicial Branch just finds ways to interpret the president's decisions, and Congress is a medium to the public, to be informed of policy details when it suits the president
yeah, i'm sure they'll keep that attitude when a democrat is elected president.
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Is this the MPAA? Is this the RIAA? Is this the DMCA? I thought it was the USA!
And I didn't understand your first paragraph at all, though it kind of sounded like a gratuitous swipe at elected conservative governments.
I swear, Slashdot will send me to an early grave if I continue to parse its headlines at such a high privilege level. Though I'm guilty of feeding this myself, I'm starting to tire of so many SKY-IS-FALLING stories (I've been around here slightly longer than my UID suggests).
I get the impression that this is kind of a rite of passage here. Would that be correct?
(I don't consider this offtopic because this is an absolute non-story. Your Moderation May Vary)
The only reason it's not a big story is that the current UK government have been slowly removing safeguards from the political system for quite a while now; this is just the latest example. As to how worried you should be - well, if some government does abuse this, we could be in trouble. As for protesting against it - not sure what they can officially get away with, don't think I'd want to find out first-hand either...
Because, by allowing the charade of Congress/Parliment to continue, we still have the illusion of Republican systems of government, when in fact, we have dictatorships.
When my kid is in school learning about how great the US is, and how we're great because we're free, will they teach him that we're not actually free any longer because of a tacit approval of abdication of our rights? No. Because we have a "congress".
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
IOKIYAR. Of course their plan is A Permanent Republican Majority. Why should Mexico have all the Permanent Revolutionary Party fun?
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I heard about this over the weekend and wrote to my MP this morning. Use FaxYourMP to get your message through. Text below:
Dear David Drew,
I am hoping you can reassure me concerning the proposed Legislative and
Regulatory Reform (LRR) Bill which I saw reference to on TV over the
weekend and was featured on Radio 4 this week.
My understanding is that the Bill will enable Ministers to reform
legislation without referring directly to Parliament and that MPs and
Peers will not have the ability to modify problematic proposals in the
way they do at present.
Parliamentary scrutiny is at the heart of the democratic process and
any action that weakens the powers of influence of MPs is of great
concern to me.
Please can you help clarify what the Bill will allow and whether you
will be supporting or opposing it.
Yours sincerely...
The ability to fight against abusues when no other choice has been given to you.
It also make a very big global statement about the government whose people must fight with violence to be heard.
Whose to say the people sriving those tank dn't feel the same way as the people who ahve to lash out towards there leader?
You get 100,000 armed people storming key places where the government is ran, and kills all the leaders, you now have a new form of government that can arise.
If you get a million people armed and angry at the government, the effectiveness of thos 'tank' will be negligable.
If your not armed, what options do you have that you don't have when you are armed?
I have no real idea of the impact of this law becasue I only have a limited amount of knowledge about British rule, but I have my doubts this is the time for violence. Nor am I advocating it at this time. Just pointing out an armed populace has one more option.
Before some brings out the 'Murder by Gun fire will increase' I would just like to point out 2 things:
1) D'uh. You add something that, for all practical purposes, is new to an enviroment, then incidents with that item will increase.
2) There is less homocide per capita in the US, then in Brittian. So while homocide by firearm is higher, out overal numbers are lower, a lot lower.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The Judiciary is supposed to (as part of the job) interpret the will of Congress when they (the court) review laws.
Bush's signing statements are his attempt to influence that interpretation.
The U.S. and England are both going down the tubes thanks to the 'global' war on terror.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
They did this 30 years ago. Just ask Gough Whitlam.
If my call is important, why am I talking to a recording?
"Do we get a rag tag army together, march up to the gates in front of Downing street and start shooting at people, until they send the tanks in?"
If it gets to the point where street violence is necessary what you do is seize every police station, post office or other place of government so that whoever is trying to dictate to the country can't rule outside the walls of their office.
And if it gets to the point where a dictator in the UK wants the nation's army to crush you there's a good chance part of the army will be standing right next to you with the keys to their tanks.
Mao may have been an asshole but he did get it right when he said "power flows from the barrel of a gun". Relying on the government to let you have power (ie, vote) is not a viable long-term strategy because all governments have a track record of not wanting to let anyone do anything they can't control.
If you personally don't like firearms, that's fine. You don't have to own one. But history shows that the first thing dictatorial governments do is make sure that *no one* can own a modern firearm, and the reason they do that is so that the population cannot exercise martial power to oppose them.
P.S. I hate them for ending the season with such a mass change in direction.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
I see you flunked civics in high school. Congress makes the laws, the president signs them or not, and the supreme court rules on it if there's a disagreement regarding the prior two. In your example case, the president has not made a new law, he has merely stated how he intends to enforce it. If this is out of line with the intent of the law, a case can be brought before the supreme court. In the meantime, congress retains the power to impeach the president.
You act like no president has ever nominated supreme court judges before.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Believe it or not, there are those of us who, regardless of party affiliation, think the principle of checks and balances is more important than the politics and personalities of the moment.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Will I get modded down if I blame all this on Bush?
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
I see you flunked civics in high school.
I see you pay way too little attention to how things actually work.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Well, if you protest outside the Houses of Parliament, you're now breaking the law and subject to arrest, for a start.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
I'm pretty sure he meant what he said. You're trying to hijack an allusion.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
I see you are insisting on quaint pre-9/11 civics notions. As I detailed, Alito and Roberts believe that the old "checks and balances" system should be replaced with the "unitary executive", unchecked (and unbalanced). Using the signing statement to declare the law gives their cabal the legal tools to enforce signing statements.
I see you're not even paying attention to impeachement. A Republican Congress can impeach a president for lying about a blowjob. But even inconsequential censure is an unacceptable Congressional action when a Republican president violates FISA and the 4th Amendment.
You act like this president, Supreme Court and Congress are like the ones that came before them: that they respect government. They don't.
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make install -not war
And all this time I've been harboring a secret fantasy that Britain would re-assert hegemony over her ex-colonies and re-educate them about how to run a democracy, turn a really good phrase, and finally, once and for all, instruct the English-speaking online world how to spell the word "lose" correctly.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Believe it or not, there are those of us who, regardless of party affiliation, think the principle of checks and balances is more important than the politics and personalities of the moment.
Yes, there certainly are. But we don't all agree on what specific checks and balances are the right ones. Some of us think the steady erosion of Executive Branch power hasn't been a good thing, and welcome the tiny amount of restoration of that power that the current US President has undertaken.
We Yanks have a similar thing going over here, the "line-item" veto. Executive branch would be able to veto specific parts of bills. It's eather a godsend or the End of Democracy, depending on who's President at the time.
I thought the Lords were out of the picture anyway, except as a Court of Appeals.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
1) There is no way a republican congress is going to impeach a republican president. If this was possible they would have done it by now. The president has committed a felony by ordering domestic wiretapping without judicial oversight.
2) The court has been stacked so as to rubber stamp the president's will.
evil is as evil does
Complete crap.
Unless things have changed dramatically since 2000, and I seriously doubt it, the homicide rate then per 100,000 in the US was 5.64. In England and Wales per 100,000 it was 1.61. Even in the more belligerent Northern Ireland it was only 2.84
The Powers That Be in Canada, both Federal and Provincial, can already pass a law without running it by Parliament. It's called an Order in Council. Theoretically an OIC is used for little things like political appointments, but it can be used for big things too.
If anybody objects, there is always the Notwithstanding Clause (it's Section 33). It was used for Bills 101 and 178 in Quebec, and Alberta keeps threatening to use it against same-sex marriage. It's been used a number of other times too.
...laura
Well, if you protest outside the Houses of Parliament, you're now breaking the law and subject to arrest, for a start.
Yeah, that was an interesting business. They put that into law to get rid of a single persistent protester who was becoming embarassing for them, and it failed to do so (the courts decided it couldn't be applied to him for some reason)...
Not according to nationmaster. Which, 'compiles statistics from such sources as the CIA World Factbook, United Nations, World Health Organization, World Bank, World Resources Institute, UNESCO, UNICEF and OECD.'
Murders (per capita).
US #24 with 0.042802 per 1,000 people
UK #46 with 0.0140633 per 1,000 people.
Murders with firearms (per capita).
US #8 with 0.0279271 per 1,000 people
UK #32 with 0.00102579 per 1,000 people
I'm not drawing any conclusions. Those are the statistics though.
You act like this president, Supreme Court and Congress are like the ones that came before them: that they respect government. They don't.
Ah yes, the good old days of respect for government. Like when FDR decided that if the Supreme Court rejected his policies, he'd just make it bigger (using his own appointments) until the required number of justices could reach an agreement. Or when pretty much every administration since the creation of the FBI has used that agency to spy on political enemies. Or endless porkbarrel projects created amidst bribery and backroom dealings.
That respect for government? Or did you mean some other time when politicians haven't been hopelessly corrupt?
Hey, don't get me wrong, I'm no fan of Bush. But putting the "other guy" in office has never solved these problems. Something much more drastic is required at this point.
FDR created a larger Supreme Court to accommodate a larger, more complicated government he created to cope with both 20th Century Depression and World War. Whether that was to get his way politically or not, he made the Judiciary Branch more powerful. That was within, and therefore with respect to, our democratic republic.
These actions by Bush are designed to completely subvert the government. To get it out of the way of corporations. That's a lot different from tweaks like more Justices, or direct election of senators, or black/youth/female sufferage. It's subversion. And, by subverting the Constitution itself, treason. That cannot be said of the politicians who have come before.
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make install -not war
I think we need a line item veto to get back to original intent personally.
Right now they combine 13,000 laws into one 7' thick book and tell the president "sign or veto it".
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
The president has committed a felony by ordering domestic wiretapping without judicial oversight.
Ah, no. The President is largely exempt from civil or criminal liability while he carries out his Constitutional duties. In order to rise above this standard, the President's high crime must be so agregious that it in no way could be construed as an attempt at fulfilling his Oath of Office.
POTUS has shown a clear disregard for the rule of law, in taking action to prevent a law from being passed that would make their actions totally permissable or even informing Congress of their actions. This is not, and can not, be a felony -- although it should be enough for, if not impeachment, then at least a censure.
OMG!! Eddie Izzard was right...we are the "NEW" Roman Empire. I wonder if all of Bush's flunkies have to great him with a "hail Caesar". So we have gladiator duels and expansion wars to look forward to.
...that lack of a consitution can sometimes come back to bite you I guess.
Mind you, it's not helping the US out much, when you can stack the courts and all...
Nixon brought most of that erosion on, and you can hardly claim that it wasn't justified.
deus does not exist but if he does
Doesn't this seem eerily similar to Article 48 and the Enabling Act, which is (in not so many words) what Hitler used to create the Holocaust?
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
The UK parliament has been redundant for a long time.
Back in the days of Margaret Thatcher, huge parliamentary majorities were won on minority votes thanks to the first past the post, 3 party system. If I remember rightly, Mrs. T held a majority in excess of 300 MPs with only 40% of the electorate voting for her. Tony Blair commanded about 35% of the vote when less than 50% of the electorate turned out.
With a three figure majority and the back-benches filled with career minded sheep, the government can get pretty much anything they want through so the new law is just icing on the cake. What worries me more is the sort of people they hang with. According to the treasury web site, the following are being flown in by Gordon Brown, the next Prime Minister, to give advice on business in New Britain:
Bernard Arnault, Chairman and CEO, LVMH
Lord Browne, Group Chief Executive, BP
Dr Jean-Pierre Garnier, CEO, GlaxoSmithKline
Bill Gates, Chairman and Chief Software Architect, Microsoft Corporation
Sir Ka-shing Li, Chairman of the Board, Hutchison Whampoa Ltd
Sir Terry Leahy, CEO, Tesco
Sir John Rose, CEO, Rolls Royce
Robert Rubin, Director and Chairman of the Executive Committee, Citigroup Inc
Lee Scott, President and CEO, Wal-Mart
Ratan Tata, Chairman, Tata Group
Meg Whitman, President and CEO, eBay
James Wolfensohn, Special Envoy for Disengagement and Former President of the World Bank
Yep, that's right. In order to improve the business environment for entrepreneurs and encourage opportunity among the lower classes, Brown is freighting in a convicted monopolist and a horde of bankers and fat-cats some of which are heads of corporations that have been criticised for predatory and/or unfair practises. Hmmmm.. Can't wait 'til the advice starts flowing. "Well everyone, what's the best thing to encourage competition in business"? Patents for everything and tax cuts for the exceptionally rich? Sure thing, no problem now that I can push it through Parliament without a proper debate. Seat in the House of Lords? Two million to you guv but make it untraceable, know what I mean?
Sick country man, a really sick country.
Hmmmmmm..... Deep fried and look like Squirrel.
The text of the bills says that "A Minister of the Crown may by order make provision for ... reforming legislation..." The commentary seems to suggest that this means forcing an immediate vote of the full House of Commons. Is that correct? I guess I don't know what an "order" is in this context.
Any Brits wish to enlighten an ignorant American on your legal terminology?
Not that there is a bat's chance read these, but I invite you to research the enrolled bill rule, with reference to the scotus case Field v. Clark.
I'll even give you a start: http://www.answers.com/topic/enrolled-bill
"Just this week, Bush signed into law a bill that was not Constitutional, because it had not been agreed in the same terms by both Senate and House of Representatives."
Got a link or bill number or something explicitly stating the president signed a bill before it was finalized by the House and Senate? I followed your links and I didn't see it. If this were true, it would represent a seismic shift in how bills become laws in the US. If it isn't, well, signing statements have been used by presidents since James Monroe. However Bush has issued 505 signing statements, which is more than all previous presidents combined by a large margin. Besides the sheer number of signing statements is that some have brashly said that the president disagrees with the law and reserves the "right" to ignore it, although since at least Reagan this has been done, IIRC, albeit very rarely. Most disturbing and new with Bush is the view that a signing statement not only signals how the signing president intends to execute the law, but that it has legal weight to be considered by the courts. This view of course is a legal fiction (in the horror genre!), but through the current makeup of the Supreme Court the Bush administration may have the necessary tools in place to change that.
Now Blair can't sell peerages to it; he's going to close it. Well I guess that will sort out the corruption but I don't think that's what we had in mind.
*Warning* Some and/or all of this might be crap
Britain never had a social revolution like some other nations had and so never really had a defining moment where a well thought out governing body was created. What we have is merely the *current state* of a body that has been developing for almost 800 years.
In the beginning, sort of, we had kings. Think of kings as CEOs that hold 95% of the nations stock. Now kings can be great, they take speedy decisions and keep everything running nicely, but trouble occurs when you have ones that aren't really up to the job. When King John was forced to accept Magna Carta in 1215 (almost 800 years ago folks) limits were set that underpin most of out current concepts of the limitation of executive power, regulation of inheritance and taxation and separation of Church and executive. Of particular note are articles 1, 14 and 21 namely:
Article 1 - The freedom of the Church from royal interference
In the first place we have granted to God, and by this our present charter confirmed for us and our heirs forever that the English Church shall be free, and shall have her rights entire, and her liberties inviolate...
Article 14 - The creation of a common "counsel", the origin of Parliament
And for obtaining the common counsel of the kingdom anent the assessing of an aid (except in the three cases aforesaid) or of a scutage, we will cause to be summoned the archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls, and greater barons, severally by our letters; and we will moveover cause to be summoned generally, through our sheriffs and bailiffs, and others who hold of us in chief, for a fixed date, namely, after the expiry of at least forty days, and at a fixed place; and in all letters of such summons we will specify the reason of the summons. And when the summons has thus been made, the business shall proceed on the day appointed, according to the counsel of such as are present, although not all who were summoned have come.
Article 21 - The right to a trial by jury of one's peers
Earls and barons shall not be amerced except through their peers, and only in accordance with the degree of the offense.
There's plenty of other stuff in there too. The fact that John repealled Magna Carta a few weeks later gets glossed over by most commentaters. The document is not a current statute and does not "underpin" UK law. The idea of a common counsel persisted and over the next few centuries the two Houses developed slowly. The Lords represented the interests of the land-owning nobility and the Commons represented the merchant classes and villeins. Nobody represented the lowest sections of society. The Commons became the most powerful of the two in the 1700s
Before WWI, Britain had a parliamentary crisis. The elected (Liberal) Commons was unable to pass any laws as they were routinely blocked by a belligerent (Conservative) Lords. The Liberal Party drew up The Parliament Act with the intent of emasculating the House of Lords. The Lords, of course, had no intention of assenting to this and so we had the last major interference in the parliamentary process by the monarch*. King George V told the Lords that if they did not consent to the Bill then he would create as many new Liberal peers as it would take to pass it anyway. The Lords were left with no alternative but to agree and the ability of the Lords to wield any real force in UK politics vanished.
Nowadays, the Lords has no control over financial Bills. The Lords may make amendments to non-finance Bills, or reject them outright, after which the Bill is returned to the Commons for further scrutiny. If the Commons agree to the revisions then the Bill goes for Royal Assent, if the changes are rejected then it goes back to the Lords in its original form. After the Lords has rejected a Bill three times the Commons can invoke a clause in the Parliament Act that allows the Commons to bypass the Lords' assent. The Bill is then passed for Royal Assent. No monarch has refu
Travelling forward in time at a rate of 1 second per second.
IIRC, the court found that the wording didn't imply that the law applied to already-existing protests, and he had been there continuously since before the law was passed.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Rubbish.
History has shown that whenever a rag tag army gets together during a militaristic dictatorship, it would be *behind* the dictator, and in fact often culpable of the worst of his crimes. When the at least disciplined professional troops or policemen would decline to be involved in an atrocity, a crazed volunteer bunch would be willing to lend their imaginative efforts.
The first thing such governments do is to turn people against each other. Letting people have guns is meaningless, because the gun owners are the ones who form the militias, and who gets rewarded by the government with the powers to keep the rest of the population in check. Armed mobs of civilians swept the Nazis into power, and then they organised clubs to train the youth in military tactics. Armed and anarchic mobs of students conducted the cultural revolution. Ordinary people, equipped with weapons the state handed out, conducted the Rawandan massacre. When was the last time there was a totalitarian state where the people would rebel - if only they had the guns to do so?
Until people stop being idiots who will buy into any and all propaganda they find, guns in the hands of the majority are just as likely to be tools of oppression as they are liberation.
FDR /tried/ to create a larger SC. He failed.
How would a larger SC help out the government?
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Ahem. The original quote is from "Star Wars: A New Hope". Grand Moff Tarkin made this statement to General Tagge (leader of the Imperial Fleet) in one of the conference rooms aboard the Death Star.
Yes, I am that big of a geek. No, I didn't like Ep1 or Ep2. Let's just stay quiet about Ep3.
Regards,
Ross
I'm guessing the law you speak of is the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005. Here's Bush's signing statement. For the reason you predicted, Public Citizen has already sued to have this law declared unconstitutional.
I envision the lawsuit failing because the courts will essentially say, "Close enough. It's too cumbersome to send this back to Congress and the President to fix a 'harmless' error." Besides, how can a court strike down a law that gives so many agencies funding for a whole year, especially after they've started spending that money? It would be a budgetary and administrative nightmare. No court is going to penalize all those agencies for Congress' and Bush's error.
Guns are a tool, few would claim they offer liberation in and of themselves. A gun can be used to liberate, or oppress. Also, few people actually advocate a direct violent assault on the agents of the state. Simply begin refusing its orders, stop paying taxes, seek private services to replace public "entitlements", and wait for the government to come for you. Then you use your guns.
This may have been covered in a comment already, but I didn't see it.
People are discussing the mechanisms in the UK and Canada to pass a law w/o running it thru parliment, and my understanding of these mechanisms is that they work much like "Executive Orders" do in the US.
The president can sign an executive order and it becomes the law of the land. It can be circumvented by Congress and the Supreme Court, but not easily.
The bat wins.
Your reference's definition of an "enrolled bill":
"The final copy of a bill or joint resolution that has passed both houses of a legislature and is ready for signature."
In fact, the bill I mentioned had passed each house in a different form, had not passed both houses, and was not, therefore, ready for signature.
I invite you to research the problem with an evidentiary rule like Field v Clark. Here's a start:
" Dennis Hastert has violated his constitutional oath by attesting to the accuracy of the bill, knowing that the House version was different (and having intentionally avoided fixing the discrepancy when it came to his attention before the House vote)."
There's lots more in just that one discussion, including 'Field v. Clark itself, in which the Court agreed that "it cannot be doubted" that a bill signed by the President "does not become a law of the United States if it ha[s] not in fact been passed by Congress. . . . There is no authority in the presiding officers of the House of Representatives and the Senate to attest by their signatures, nor in the President to approve, nor in the Secretary of State to receive and cause to be published, as a legislative act, any bill not passed by Congress."'
Then there's the reality that these Republicans have now conspired to create an entirely new legal instrument that circumvents Congress to make laws, founded on an unconstitutional passage of a law by a signing statement.
Anyone who thinks that's OK is a traitor to our country.
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S. 1932, the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005
The fix is in, the party is over.
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Got a link or bill number or something explicitly stating the president signed a bill before it was finalized by the House and Senate?
That isn't quite what the OP said, which was: "Just this week, Bush signed into law a bill that was not Constitutional, because it had not been agreed in the same terms by both Senate and House of Representatives."
And that is exactly what happened. It was an accident, there was a minor change in the bill due to a clerical error, so the House and Senate ended up voting on slightly different bills. But given that the nature of this particular bill, and the fact that it just barely squeaked by, the Republicans do not want it to go back to the House for another vote and risk it not passing.
This Supreme Court installed Bush because doing over the failed 2000 election was "too hard".
Now, with Roberts and Alito the Court will continue to take "the easy way" out... straight to the dictatorship Bush prefers.
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what we need to start doing is hanging the fuckers who stick 'em all together like that
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
...that Parliament was going to be blown-up on Nov. 5!
(Great movie BTW, go see it!)
Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?
Since you apparently only read the first paragraph
"Under the enrolled bill rule, once an election for the adoption of a statute is held, the procedural method by which the measure was placed on the ballot cannot be challenged with a lawsuit since judicial inquiry into legislative procedure is barred as an intrusion into the internal affairs of the lawmaking body."
In addition, citing Field v Clark (credit goes to a VC poster for citation)
"From Field v. Clark: "The signing by the speaker of the house of representatives, and by the president of the senate, in open session, of an enrolled bill, is an official attestation.... And when a bill, thus attested, has received receives [the President's] approval, and is deposited in the public archives, its authentication as a bill that has passed congress should be deemed complete and unimpeachable." (143 U.S. 649, 672 (1892)) "
The long and short of it is, it's clear the judiciary will not (and SHOULD not) do anything--the clear precedent shows this. If there's no legal recourse, then whining about twisted rules or what not is irrelevant--there's a punishable crime, or there's not. In this case, there is clearly not.
and thanks for responding, I always like when people actually do respond on slashdot (too often people don't..)
Wow, for you the world is just conspiracy after conspriacy isn't it? It must be an interesting place, I however prefer reality.
The supreme court installed Bush? That's a very novel way of looking at it, and an incorrect one. Interesting how those seven hardcore radical rightwing justices declared the Florida recount standards unconstitutional. Interesting how the Supreme Court can't "install" anyone at all--they can only rule on matters of law.
But let's go with your conspiracy theorist "the scary Republicans are out to get me!" theory--perhaps you could explain then why numerous recounts after the elections all confirmed Bush the winner? Is that a conspiracy too?
It's becoming quite alarming to me today how the left is becoming increasingly undemocratic in their attempts to undermine our democracy of the people. I'm actually quite worried about this tendency and the growing elitism of leftists to rely not on votes, but on arbitrary standards.
This reminds me a lot of the passing of the bill that brought the Canadian Goods and Services Tax (GST) into existence. It was tremendously unpopular, and Prime Minister Brian Mulroney's government, despite having an overwhelming majority in the House of Commons, could not get the bill through the Senate*.
The rules state that if a bill fails third reading in the Senate (being passed down to the Commons for modifications after each reading), the bill is sunk, finished. After failing second reading, Mulroney found an archaic provision somewhere that allowed a sitting prime minister to increase the size of the Senate in a time of emergency, or some such wording.
Apparently, being unable to pass a terminally unpopular bill was a sufficient emergency. Mulroney stacked the Senate with just enough of his friends to pass the bill, defeating one of the checks and balances that limited the power of the Prime Minister.
Incidentally, Brian Mulroney lost the next federal election, taking his party from a record 212 seats in 1984 to just 2 seats in 1992. He was the most unpopular prime minister in Canadian history, and the only one who so completely killed his party.... a party that has recently made a comeback with Stephen Harper at the helm.
__________________*The Canadian Senate is kind of a compromise between the British House of Lords and a more modern senate. Its members are appointed by the sitting prime minister, and used to sit around the Red Chamber until they died, until a retirement age of 70 was finally set.
Find environmentally and socially responsible products on http://buy-right.net
Except for the English Civil War, though of course a lot of that was rolled back in the Reformation.
Odd no one seems to have referenced the new movie V for Vendetta yet; seems quite apposite.
If this is not quashed in court, then it will become routine. Anytime a political party has the presidency and a stronger grip in the House or Senate, it will make the "mistake" of having two versions put up for a vote and have the president "fix" it all with a signing statement. The tools are in place for the power grab too. I originally looked at Alito as a right wing but respectable jurist, but then I read about his "unitary executive" views. Just imagine if Bush gets the line-item veto as well.
a larger Supreme Court to accommodate a larger, more complicated government
Having more members on the Supreme Court in no way helps it accommodate anything. You still have the same single court with the exact same capabilities. The only difference is that you tally up more votes.
made the Judiciary Branch more powerful
Again, having more members on the Supreme Court in no way makes it more powerful. You still have the same court with the exact same powers. The only difference is that you tally up more votes.
FDR found a loophole in the Constitution, and he abused the hell out of it. He just needed the complicitly of the Senate to pull it off.
If Bush had the balls for it he could simply announce that he wanted to appoint four more cronies to the Supreme Court. And if the Senate confirmed them, it would be all over. Bush and his pals could "interpret" the Constitution to say absolutely anything they wanted it to say.
FDR did a lot of great things, but his tactics on this particular point were a flagrant subversion of the Constitution. This is a loophole that desperately needs to be patched with a Constitutional amendment. The obviously implicit intent of the Constitution is that the president only has the power to nominate justices to fill vacant Supreme Court seats. That implicit point must be made an explicit point.
You can certainly argue that FDR did good things out of pulling that stunt, but it does not change the fact that FDR did it for the SOLE reason that he simply did not like the Supreme Court striking down his legislative agenda. He deliberately subverted the Constitution to nullify the Supreme Court's power over him and the legislature. It is NOT a stunt that I want Bush or any future president to pull.
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Those paying attention would have noticed most western nations are trying to remove many checks and balances on government activities.
No president *has* ever nominated supreme court judges before who advocated the position that the president actually get the power to define what the law actually means and define how the court should interpret that law. The position that the president can actually change the meaning of the law, that he can effectively amend the law, by adding a note to it during signing.
I'm not sure which is worse... that or the flagrant unconstitutionality involved in the Deficit Reduction Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 2005. Bush "signed into law" a bill that had NOT in fact been passed by Congress. The Senate passed one bill, the House of representatives passed a different bill, and Bush simply decided he liked the Senate version better and signed that one.
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Jeez, some people can't read English. It worked for us, until it stopped working.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Okay, I don't know much English history, but even I know that's happened several times before. You've done it for certain monarchs, you've done it against certain monarchs, you've done it because you wanted a war, you've done it because you didn't want that war anymore, you've done it because you wanted higher pay, you've done it because you apparently hadn't invented TV yet and were bored.
English history can probably be best explained by people getting so annoyed at the current government they've started shoving in the queue and ended up with someone else in charge. Often getting immediately pissed at that guy and installing the former guy back in place within the decade.
Hell, it would have happened in the American revolution if anyone here could have figured out how to get a few hundred thousand people from here over there to march on the government. Sadly, the logicistics of that failed, so we just had to start our own country.
At least in America, we have the excuse of not revolting because we only tried that once and it failed. You guys seem to do it every hundred years, and you manage to do it and keep the 'same' government.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
And, more to the point, it's only an erosion back to before FDR.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Yes, that is the answer.
Or more practically, maybe a large group (>= 10,000?) of people could decide to make a certain year a "we don't pay taxes" year. I'd probably join em. The nerve of our government! They want our money, but won't send out a nice bill indicating how much we owe. Sure, perhaps it's prohibitively expensive to figure out the complexities of each individual's taxes owed. But then again, it's largely their own damn fault for making the tax code such a mess.
They don't even make the envelope to the IRS postage paid!
Bottom line:
I never agreed to all the services they provide.
If I'm actually paying it's just because I'm too much of a coward to stand up to their threats of imprisonment.
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Incite and flee.
I read it. And the part I quoted invalidates the rest you're trying to throw. Did you read the page I cited, which examines the current problem bill in the context of Field v Clark in detail? Because that analysis shows that the bill is not a valid law.
Even more important, the basic facts show that this law is unconstitutional.
But that's not even the worst. As I originally posted, this little crisis is just the pretext to create legal weight in presidential signing statements. The most important problem, which you have not addressed at all.
Maybe you're a lawyer. Then you should understand that a "crime" does not always require a law to be broken, especially when the laws governing it are being gamed to commit the crime against our republic. And you should then care more about the real crime than whether it's "punishable" or not, unless maybe you're Hastert or Bush.
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The President has committed a felony, barring some miraculous 11th hour magical interpetation of authorization to use military force that neither I, nor, I believe, you, believe is plausible.(1)
Because he is president, he cannot be charged with this felony without an impeachment by Congress. That does not mean he has not committed it. He could, for example, be charged after January, 2009, as he cannot possibly be president at that time.
However, nothing stops anyone else who participated from being arrested. There is an interesting question whether the Vice President can be outright arrested, or must also be impeached, but certainly anyone else can be arrested.(2) Like the agents actually doing the wiretaps.
1) He also has some absurd concept about 'Commander in Chief', but that's because he's an idiot who can't read. He's the Commander in Chief of the military. This does not give him any authority, or ability to infringe the rights of, any people not in the military. He's not my commander in chief, anymore than J. Random General is my general. He's not even the 'United State's Commander in Chief', as some people will mistakenly say. He's the United State's military's Commander in Chief. Or, most specifically, the Army and Navy's, which is why the Air Force and Marines are still officially part of one of those, I forget which. (This isn't entirely moot. We could end up with control of random troups under US control and the President would not be their Commander in Chief. So far, though, we've always had control of them them via our military, so it's the same thing, but if, absurdly, NASA, a civilian agency, ever started sending NATO troups somewhere, the president would not be their Commander in Chief. OTOH, he controls NASA anyway, so maybe it is moot.)
2) OTOH, there is an interesting fact that anyone in the executive branch can be impeached and removed from their position, or even barred from ever holding public office again. That just doesn't have to happen for them to be arrested, unlike the president.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
The Senate version of the bill restricted something to 13 months.
The House version, apparently mistakenly, restricted it to 36 months.
The version the president signed said 13.
They've just decided that the House 'really meant' 13.
This is how you turn a tiny procedural error into a fucking constitional crisis.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
You've got me, it's me, Denny Hastert. And I spend my time replying to posts on Slashdot. But that's because I like the site. And I don't think you're right on this issue. But that's ok, because I do what I have to do.
(probably unsuccesful attempt to pardoy Hastert's "blog")
I don't see the world groaning, I think it's doing pretty well actually.
Let me say I'm SHOCKED that when you google "gore won recount" you get sites that say that. Why, according to google you get 667,000 of them! But when you type "bush won recount" you get 2,230,000 hits.
What's that tell us? Absolutely nothing. That's the stupidest metric in the world. Read the articles, read the standards, and read the recounts. The data is out there, and analyzed by multiple organization. Hell, check Wikipedia even, if you don't believe it.
I'm not a huge fan of Bush for what it's worth--but imho he's better than the alternatives.
I guess I'll go back to the fascist media that's controlling what we read and write even now..EVEN NOW!!! Good thing I'm happy, or all these lies you think I'm swallowing (but the data doesn't support) would give me indigestion.
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Oh, just as a sidebar--buzzword parrot? let's check your post
Fascist? check
conspiracy? check
elite? check
lies? check
propaganda? check
Yep, that's about the litany of left-wing attacks, I wonder who truly IS a buzzword parrot here? Any thoughts?
"It is with great reluctance that I have agreed to this calling. I love democracy. I love the Republic. Once this crisis has abated, I will lay down the powers you have given me!"
Oh, and mod parent up.
"Just this week, Bush signed into law a bill that was not Constitutional, because it had not been agreed in the same terms by both Senate and House of Representatives."
Oh, yes. I'm in law school right now. We were talking about how *common* it is for the bill that finally makes it to the Executive is not "agreed to in the same terms." This happens all the time without it being "unconstitutional."
Hell, even when they use the same word, they may not think they mean the same thing. Sort of like the word "ring." Now, when you read that do you think of the thing around your finger, your ear or nose, or where boxers fight? I was talking about what one would to with a bell by striking it.
Stop complaining about "unconstitutional" this and "unconstitutional" that. Half the friggin' Executive Branch should be unconstitutional as it opperates as both the friggin' Legislative and Judicial branches. But, this is what the "government is good" Socialist crowd wants. Don't complain when you get it.
What those who want activist courts fear is rule by the people.
You may well be right, the early modern period isn't my strong point. I generally regard all of the Protectorate's efforts as wasted with the exception of an end to Divine Right. Apart from banning Christmas, theatres and fun in general I don't know what practical differences the Protectorate made in Government. People were, for the most part, happy to get their king (and entertainment) back. Odd isn't it how it's called the English Civil War when it was a British civil war encompassing England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. The English Civil War was between King Stephen and the Empress Maud in the 12th Century.
Travelling forward in time at a rate of 1 second per second.
There is a lot of noise in the UK online community about this. There is a campaign to stop the Bill at http://www.saveparliament.org.uk/ which also has lots and lots of information and links.
If you're in the UK, join up and help us fight!
If you're not, wish us luck...
-- "There's no explaining the things that might happen; there's now a new home for technology in fashion."
I think you mean "Restoration". But what about the revolution of 1688? Constitutional historians usually make a bigger fuss over that than over "The English Revolution" or whatever-you-callit.
Except that it is recursively applicable.
So the provisions about new offences having sentences of less than two years could be torn up without Parliamentary oversight - under the provisions of the Bill that introduced it!
And H.M. Govt. has specifically refused to make any legislation 'safe' from this - including laws like Magna Carta (1215) and the Habeas Corpus Act (1679) - meaning that pretty much every bit of law in the UK would be up for 'revision' at the whim of ministers.
British civil war encompassing England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland.
Erm, speaking as an Irishman, don't call me British. Cheers. According to Irish legend the original "brit tribe" originally came from Ireland anyway, so perhaps we had better call it an Irish civil war. Still maximum kudos on the grandparent post, it clarifies a lot of stuff. MOD GP UP!
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
I am: I've just written to my local MP (who happens to be a conservative):
Fellow Brits - write to your MPs www.writetothem.com
The fact that John repealled Magna Carta a few weeks later gets glossed over by most commentaters.
I wish I had known that when I was in school and the history teacher took an assembly telling us all about how wonderful Magna Carta was and how it was the foundation of modern democracy. "Excuse me, Sir, but what about when King John repealed it a few weeks later?"
Interesting how those seven hardcore radical rightwing justices
Seven??
You need to read the concurring and dissenting oppinions more carefully. The three "hardcore radical rightwing justices" plus two center-right justices were for terminating the count (defacto establishing Bush as the president) while the other four wanted the count to proceed under a unified statewide standard and let the count fall where it may, and which would have in fact elected Gore.
perhaps you could explain then why numerous recounts after the elections all confirmed Bush the winner?
Huh? You have an oddly selective memory. The unoffical recounts afterwards found that under virtually ANY varient of the conflicting standard partial recount, yes, Bush would have won. Any such scheme was indeed rejected as unconstitutional 7-2 by the Supreme Court.
However on the the 5-4 Supreme Court issue, under virtually ANY varient of a statewide unified standard recount, Gore would have won.
If we are going to look for bias along party lines, the two Demodratic appointed Justices did indeed side against Bush. Five Republican appointed Justices did indeed side for Bush. The only ones catagorically immune to charges of party line voting are the two Republican appointed Justices who sided with the two Democrat appointees wanting to wait for the election to be decided by the full tally from a unified standard count.
And if you really want to discuss the 2000 election, there's also the odd collection of election flaws and errors, each of which indicate THOUSANDS of voters for Gore that were lost/eliminated. The lovely little "felon list" which in fact improperly scrubbed thousands of entirely INNOCENT hispanics and african americans off of the voter roles (those pesky minorities who keep voting Democrat). There was the faulty butterfly ballot that missrepresented the voters by 5000. There were the faulty Duval County ballots instructing people to cast invalid ballots, again missrepresenting the voters by another few thousand. And a few more but those are the biggies, any one of which indicates Gore had a clear majority of the voters.
So the national popular vote was for Gore. The 4-5 Supreme Court position for a unified standard full tally would have been for Gore. And any review of improper voter exclusions and misscount flaws and uncount flaws shows that the genuine Florida State popular vote was for Gore by an additional ten or twenty thousand or more.
But really I'm not one for dragging up the old 2000 election. At the time I considered it a damn near tie, with both side's laywers raising arguments of convience that the court fights were over rather obscure details, and that the Supreme Court may as well have just tossed a damn coin.
No, for some reason your post just really irked me for trying to misrepresent a 5-4 razor thin strictly idiological line Supreme Court split as a clear 7-2 nonpartisan decision.
I don't have sour grapes over 2000. I consider it an unfortuante result, but I recognize that it was basically a tie with thge people electing another random Republicrat who few people really knew or cared about. No, what I'm pissed about is 2004. I'm pissed that (1) so many people had still believed that we actually found WMDs(!?!) in Iraq and Bush's other bullshit, and (2) that the Democracts could actually be so incompetent as to LOSE to the four-years-proven class-A fuckup like Bush.
It's a day late and a dollar short now, but item (1) has finally resolved itself. Bush's approval rating is in the gutter, various polls putting it at 33% to 37%. ALL of the independants finally see Bush is a fuckup, and substantial and increasing percentage of Republicans are finally losing the faith and seeing through the bullshit as well. A president does not dip into the low-mid 30's without losing even members of his own party. Hell, Nixon still a 23% approval rating when he went out. A mere 10% to 14% below the various current polls for Bush. When you're w
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There's other choices, they just take more courage.
It also make a very big global statement about the government whose people must fight with violence to be heard.
What we will hear is "there's a bunch of barbaric terrorists who are addicted to violence and are being legitimately suppressed by the government". Your ideology is inseperable from the ideology of ETA, or the IRA, or the Mujaheddin. If you want world support, protest using peaceful means, a commitment to peace demonstrates you are the good guys. Nobdoy cares if yet another violent insurgent group goes under.
Whose to say the people sriving those tank dn't feel the same way as the people who ahve to lash out towards there leader?
They (the army) are far more likely to be sympathetic to your cause if you aren't shooting at them. Or shooting at others, for that matter.
You get 100,000 armed people storming key places where the government is ran, and kills all the leaders, you now have a ew form of government that can arise.
Yes - it's called a dictatorship. often with the adjective 'brutal'. Happens all the time.
If you get a million people armed and angry at the government, the effectiveness of thos 'tank' will be negligable.
Tanks shmanks. Cluster bombs. The US accidently killed 14000 people in Afghanistan recently, mainly through cluster bombing. Imagine then, a deliberate attack. A deliberate cluster bomb attack by a moderately sized airforce on a crowd of one million would kill enough that the rest would slink away in fear.
If your not armed, what options do you have that you don't have when you are armed?
Your integrity. The ability to win sympathy. The ability to win the day and at the same time, uphold the principles of democracy. If you must win your way through violence, you've most likely lost already.
Yes. High school was a long, long time ago....
I suppose to be fair to the Magna Carta it goes like this:
public class Parliament{
int year;
For (year=1215, year < 1721, year++){
If King = strong Repeal(MagnaCarta)
Else Invoke(MagnaCarta)
}
} When the rulers were strong enough to throw off their shackels they did. Not that this would ever happen today....
Travelling forward in time at a rate of 1 second per second.
Very effective, I'm sure - but a: the services lost would probably hit the poor and needy most, and b: how do you stop paying taxes when it's automatically deducted from your wages, and sent straight to the Inland Revenue?
Get your own free personal location tracker
Get your own free personal location tracker
Look the point of the matter is, the supreme court WAS close in the end, however , my seven conservatives comment was sarcasm. The 5-4 part of the decision was indeed thin (though quite typical for the court), and not split along partisan-appointee lines (in agreement with what you say).
If you want to talk about potentially election destroying events, how about Florida being called in the news before Floridian polls even closed? That could easily have had an effect on turnout to the west. I posted what I did in reply and in kind to "Doc 'Conspiracy' Ruby." There's no conspiracy, that's my point. All this talk of "if this, and if that, then it SHOULD have been like this" makes me really nervous. In 2004 IF the youth vote had been as reliably democratic as the news had said and IF blah blah, then Kerry would have won. It's hypotheticals, and I find it rather worrisome that it's become a theme of elections in the US.
On the question of irregularities, it does interest me that razor thin margin Florida from 2000 went much more red in 2004. Makes me wonder..
With regards to who REALLY won--it is my understand that if Gore had won the scotus case, and had gotten the recount he favor, that would have resulted in a Bush win. The partial recounts of the counties in question would have resulted in a Bush win. THe only case that would have resulted in a Gore win were a statewide recount, with a very particular set of standards that I'm not sure were reasonable (overvotes I believe?)
FWIW I voted for kooky old Badnarik in '04. Interestingly enough, a friend of mine used to work at a breakfast restaurant in a college town. Apaprently Badnarik came to speak to some campus organization and later went to this restaurant while my friend was working. My friend described Badnarik as "annoying loud" and said he was basically preaching to this two infatuated students. Got his signature too I think, funny.
Also, FWIW, I would mandate optical scan ballots nationwide. Fill in the arrow. Nice and big. Easy to count. Easy paper trail. None of this hanging chad bullshit, mechanical nonsense, or untrackable evoting bullshit.
Well, y'know you're more British than the English are.
"Britons" was the name given by the Romans to all the inhabitants of Britannia, Caledonia and Hibernia (Island of Winter) What is now England and Wales became Romano-British. After the legions left in 410AD increasing intrusion by Germanic tribes (Jutes, Angles and Saxons) pushed the Romano-British out to the fringes. The Cornish, Welsh and those in Lowland "Scotland" remained Britons and the rest became the land of the Angles (Angleland=England).
Therefore, by the original definition of who is "British" and who isn't, the Irish and Highland Scots are more British than the Cornish, Welsh and Lowland Scots and the English aren't British at all.
Germans go home!!
Travelling forward in time at a rate of 1 second per second.
"enacted by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty" I'm English and I've never heard this turn of phrase before. Party on Liz!
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it was my understanding that he lied about his relationship with a subordinate, in a hearing concerning allegations of sexual harrassment. In this context, lying about a blowjob is a very significant perjury. Not that I'm defending Bush, mind you.
Abolish Copyright. Restore Freedom.
In a nutshell, democracy is the modern justification for power (meaning government, i.e. organized coercion, or the existence of a special "right" to initiate force). Democracy is the new religion, if you will (power was typically justified by religion in the past), and the "god" is the voting process (this is where the faith part comes in). To be a follower, you not only need to believe that coercion is a productive solution; you need to believe that coercion is morally justified when voted upon. You also need to accept the theory that, while human nature says it is immoral and unjust for a group of people to initiate force against another group, it is somehow moral and just for the first group to delegate that initiation of force to government.
Democracy is simply a means to justify what human nature says is immoral: employing coercion, rather than voluntary association, as the solution. It's not rocket science, and there is little moral difference between pure democracy (mob rule) and the democratic republic. Under the hood, both systems accomplish the same thing: to justify power with a voting process.
I don't know about you, but given the choice between a monarchy which more or less respects most of my god-given human rights, and a democracy which more or less does not, I'd take the monarchy every time. It's the bottom line that matters, not the process, and the bottom line is that democracy (or the democratic republic) has proven to result in continuous expansion of power throughout its lifetime. Do you trust it? I don't.
The bane of poiticians' lives is people who ignore stuff as it's going through the process, ignore all attempts to consult them personally (ok so there haven't been any on this bill, but I'm making a general point), then whine after the decision has been made that they "haven't been consulted".
This Abolition of Parliament Bill has been discussed in all reasonable places you'd expect to find politics discussed (newspapers, BBC, etc) for months now. If you can't be arsed to keep up then you're one of the "silent majority" who will have been "deemed" to "agree" with the policy because they didn't complain.
(Personally I don't have to do anything more about this, having helped ensure last year that our local yes-woman Labour MP was replaced by someone who actually cares about democracy and civil liberties and that stuff, so that changes the voting figures in the right direction by two.)
Are you saying that Big Ben is actually a huge death ray?
(And yes, for the pedants, I mean the clock tower and not the bell.)
I rather think the question should be: what options does the person who is NOT you have when he IS armed, as opposed to when he's not?
Just pointing out an armed populace has one more option.
Everything which follows is anecdotal at best, but its come from lots of visits to family in the USA, and from living in the UK.
Mr geekoid: You don't have first hand experience of the UK. I really don't want to be associated with anything other than the centre-left crowd to which I generally belong politically, and I have no problem with people (foreign or British) criticising my government -in fact i welcome it, after all "dissent is the highed form of patriotism" said an intelligent American, and I agree- but on some issues if you are not British you have no right to shout about what we should or shouldn't be doing. Gun crime is one of them.
We live in a (geographically) small country. There are 60 million people in it. It is -compared to America- crowded. London, for example, is more like New York than New York is. And the difference in attitude and lifestyle between London and the suburban British towns? Minimal. If you permit people to have arms and encourage a gun culture MORE PEOPLE WILL DIE. It will be like New York or LA in America (not as extreme, but more like them than, say, Montana) American Gun Crime statistics are watered down by the affluent, suburban areas, and remote areas with less social problems. We just don't have that many of these in Britain. It is not all mansions and tea (well, it is all tea. but there's no mansions.)
Everywhere you go in Britain people wear hoods. People go to the pub, get drunk and brawl. Every weekend, shit: every night. There's drugs everywhere, not just in the cities or the remote country, but in towns of all sizes. there's gangs, not just in the inner cities but also in the "affluent" towns and villages. We don't believe in God. Anywhere. We have different races in towns of all sizes and very few purely caucasian towns with stuck-up "family values, think of the children" introversion.
Now, don't get me wrong, there's bad stuff too. We have rich, posh people. We have BMW's and Mercs and fake tans fashionistas. But our middle class is not isolated. We cannot take a "guns for protection" view because it needs isolation. It's what allows the American middle-class to spout useless, biased statistics about crime cause "its not happening to me. Fuck the poor fifteen year old black kid from Compton" right? He must've done something wrong. Well fuck that attitude. The kids in Compton are the ones that need protecting more the middle-aged man from Piss Pot, Iowa.
For what i know will not be the last time but i wish it was: You cannot compare America with Britain. They have completely different social problems that effect them. British society is much more volatile than America over a steady, consistent area, America is much more polarised.
So, in summary, we know you mean well when you criticize our society, our culture, our parliament. But when it comes to advising us on what weapons we can and can't have: fuck off and leave us alone.
Stupid people think it's cool. Smart people thinks it's a joke; also cool.
...because there were very few television sets before the World War 2. For example 200 worldwide in 1936.
You may be thinking about newsreel.
As for the "more people voted in Big brother than in the general election" line, which is often said, does anyone know whether this represents individual voters, or is it mainly due to loonies voting repeatedly?
Reduce, reuse, cycle
Okay, I don't know much English history
No shit?
Much as everyone in Britain would like to live through another civil war, we're thinking we might pace ourselves this time?
But its not like the very nature of our society has changed, what with mass-media, globalisation, TV, the Internet, less religion, more science, better education for everyone..etc. etc. etc. But i guess you're right, I mean, where the fuck is Cromwell when you need him hey?
Stupid people think it's cool. Smart people thinks it's a joke; also cool.
If you want a proper house of review (and you should) then you bloody well elect one.
Actually, the whole house of review concept was always meant to be a non-elected body.
One of the major checks and balances built into the US constitution was that the Senate was unelected. They founders thought it would be a huge error to have both houses elected--the point of the Senate was an unelected body that was separated from politics. (Which is why certain types of decisions pass through the Senate--such as the approval of judge appointments.)
All that became horribly messed up by the direct election of Senators. Since they are now directly elected, but still have powers that were granted to them based on the idea that they weren't directly elected, they've completely disbalanced the system. (The only thing that makes the Senate work as a house of review is the fact that the constituency borders, since they're states, cannot be artificially gerrymandered. It'd be cool if they were elected in a different system, a change I'm open to.)
Interesting. One of our cycle of legends tell of the original tribes (or as original as they could be for that era, they basically beat the stuffing out of whoever was there before them, that goes back for a bit) and the leaders who claimed certain lands. I'm a bit hazy on the details, but a fellow by the name of Britta claimed the island to the east apparently. There are all sorts of interesting cross roots in Irish language and legend. For example, in places the Gaelic bears striking similarities to of all things, Chinese. Ni Hao, in China, is hello, or literally, Not good? Where hao is good. I know thats stretching it a wee bit, but stick with me. The Irish for "no" or not good is Ní Ha. Theres lots more like that as well.
:P
And as far as I am concerned, the UK has been ruled by the French ever since the Normans.
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
Besides, some people see an advantage of separating the Head of State from the Head of Government.
As I recall, the Texas Constitution cleverly made the Lieutenant Governor more powerful than the Governor (on the day to the day basis.) I suspect they wanted a head of state to be different from the head of government, but also to distract people from where power really lies.
Up until relatively recent times, the only parts of Ireland (unwillingly) under direct crown control were Dublin and a few of the cities. The rest of it was largely Irish controlled. Calling that very much part of a "united kingdom" is really pushing the definition of united to its breaking point.
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
But the UK has no written constitution
The peculiar thing is, while the UK government has a history of playing around with the Constitution (in particularly right now) you can make the argument that it and Canada (which also doesn't have a written Constitution, and only got a charter of rights in the early 80s) have stuck to their "unwritten" rules and precedents much more than the US has to its written Constitution.
I hypothesize the following to explain this: in the UK and Canada, parliament is the steward of the constitution, and have a duty and obligation to make sure that the customs set by that (physically fragile) constitution are retained, because it is through the maintainance of those customs that the constitution (and thereby, the state and government) endures.
On the other hand, there is no steward, per se, of the US Constitution. The document stands by itself, with its nifty and complex system of checks and balances which places three very powerful entities across from each other. No one branch is responsible for the Constitution, so the duty to uphold it is taken less seriously. In effect, people in any one branch will try whatever, with the knowledge that if they do something really bad, it will be caught by someone else in another branch.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enabling_Act
(Parliament has been slowly losing legislative control for years due to the increasing volume of European legislation which it may not override)
Just like your city council, your state legislature, your Congress can pass any law it likes.
The EC is just another representative system. Read the Federalist Papers sometime. There are good reasons for the ways the House, Senate (originally), and President are selected - to balance competing interests within We the People.
Pure popular whim doesn't make good law - this is why the House (directly elected by district) serves such short terms, because the "will of the people" is fickle and changes all the time.
The Senate (chosen indirectly, through the sitting state Legislatures) are the "best of the best", probably selected from within that body as someone who has shown responsibility and talent and is capable of taking the long view for the best interest of their respective states. The ability to take a "long view" is what supposedly justifies a 6-year term. One significant interest of the state being to keep power to itself rather than giving it to the US Gov - keeping power close to home serves the interests of the people as well. That's the idea behind federalism.
The President likewise is chosen indirectly, through the Electoral College. The EC is not a permanently sitting body - they don't come into this duty with an agenda, and there is no benefit to them (politically) to choose one way or the other, because their "office" ceases to exist as soon as they've done their single job. The EC is chosen at the particular time a President is needed, expressly for that one purpose, so they can reflect the will of the nation at that specific time in order to choose the best leader.
The Constitution doesn't state that the popular vote be used to choose electors - in the early 19th c., state legislatures picked the electors in some states.
The enumeration of electors (equal to sum of the number of Representatives and Senators) reflects the need to balance the will of the people (House) and states (Senate) in a singular office (Presidency).
At least, that's how it's supposed to work. The 17th Amendment broke the model significantly. Abolishing the EC altogether would likewise be a colossal mistake. This doesn't mean it can't be tweaked in certain ways. States still get to decide how their electors are chosen. I imagine they will leave it to the popular vote, but they could allocate them by district, as is done in Nebraska and Maine (with the "Senate" votes going to the largest plurality winner), rather than "winner-takes-all" by state. (That strategy took hold in the mid-19th when partisan politics grew stronger at the state level - party leaders [short-sightedly] wanted to deliver their entire state for the presidential candidate of their party, but of course that works against them when a rival party gains power in their state.) Personally, I think those extra two votes could be used even better. One idea: simulate PR (proportional representation) a bit. For example, if your candidate gets 10% of the vote in your 10 EV state, but not enough in any one district to win it, give him one of those votes to reflect this. Second idea: since those two votes represent the states influence in the Executive branch, have the state legislatures pick those electors (as they were supposed to select Senators). Another possibility for a "tweak" is for the number of Representatives in the House to be increased, both to bring better representation to Congress, and to mitigate the effect of the smallest states having undue influence on the Presidency. (But with states losing influence in Congress due to the 17th Amendment and in the Presidency due to this, the concept of federalism really takes a beating. We need to repeal the 17th.)
FYI, I was chosen as a potential elector by my party in 2004. I didn't get to serve because my party's candidate didn't win here. But I did put quite a bit of time and effort into learning the history of the system to understand why it works the way it does.
Constitutionally Correct
They do have a queen, but from what I hear but Elton John isn't really that much into politics.
What if the Hokey Pokey really is what it's all about?
Correct, and agreed! But the parent has a point - history does show that state-level partisanship began having undue influence in choosing Senators. If fact, it would hold up the process so much that seats would sit vacant in Congress - this was the driving force behind the 17th Amendment. (Though its leading proponent later regretted it once he saw what the actual results were.) This problem has two solutions. One, to allow the state executive (governor) to appoint Senators to fill vacancies until such time as the legislature elects a permanent replacement. Currently, governors can only appoint Senators when the legislature is in recess. Two, enact a Condorcet voting system so that state legislatures are opened up to more than two parties, as a way to avoid gridlock in electing Senators.
Constitutionally Correct
linky
This is nothing new - Congress has been passing unconstitutional bills and the President has been signing them for a very long time. (Yet we keep voting for these schmucks...) I don't think we've had a government that has cared much about the limitations the Constitution puts on it since, oh, maybe Teddy Roosevelt's time. Not that he was perfect, but it's gotten steadily worse at a(n increasingly) fast pace since.
You sure of that? How can a bill get to the president's desk unless both chambers of Congress passed the same thing? Differences have to be worked out in committee.
This is also nothing new. In fact, in the past there have been presidents that took it upon themselves to decide the constitutionality of the law, and refused to execute what they felt were bad laws. Presidents are sworn to uphold the Constitution, and how can they do that unless they have opinions as to what it says? A signing statement just makes it clear what the president's philosophy will be when it comes to enforcement.
Constitutionally Correct
His Government just blocked an amendment that would prevent LRRB being used to abolish elections, imprison everyone etc.
We have already had the Civil Contingencies aka Nazi Enabling Act which gives near unlimited powers to Ministers in the event of an emergency (eg burning down the Reichstag).
We have already had the dreadful Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act forced upon us. RIPA can force ISPs to secretly install mass surveillance equipment or imprison you if you do not release your PGP keys.
And the insidious Identity Cards Bill is hanging like a Sword of Damocles over British privacy and freedom. ID cards are just a front for an unbelievably intrusive database that would make the Stasi blush. The excellent No2ID campaign cannot persuade the House of Lords to hold this up for much longer...
Other attacks on British freedom here.
As Woodrow Wilson pointed out:
Liberty has never come from Government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of it... The history of liberty is a history of limitations of governmental power, not the increase of it.
Whether you consider it your duty to protect Britain's freedom or whether it is merely expedient because you'd like to live here, please write to your MP and join the many campaigners who are dedicating their lives to this fight.
Thanks for proving the stereotype of the snarky, know-it-all, yet oblivious to reality law school student. You've got a lot to learn, especially when arguing about "semantic attacks" and calling Bush a "Socialist". Yeah, Bush the "Socialist". National Socialist, maybe. You know that you're going to be working on the principle that "government is good", earning your entire living because of the government, right? Lawyers. Law school students. Ugh.
It's the signing statement, snappy. When president (Jenna) Bush is making laws with signing statements without Congress, you'll get the point. You won't be complaining, because lawyers won't have to argue with judges any more, just submit the forms, pay the "fees", and hope the Brownie-ocracy sees it your way.
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Parrot?
I quoted your use of the words "conspiracy" and "elite" from your post, to mock your usage of them. "Fascist", "lies" and "propaganda" I used in exactly their correct sense.
You're "not a huge fan of Bush" - worth nothing. That's just a cop out. You're defending Bush, you're cherry picking, straw-manning and otherwise tossing fallacious arguments to back him up. Anyone paying attention to Bush has indigestion.
Polly-anna want a cracker?
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"You sure of that? How can a bill get to the president's desk unless both chambers of Congress passed the same thing?"
RTFA before you act like you know what you're talking about.
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We already have our very own Enabling Bill under the Civil Contingencies 2004 Act.
It is exactly the same, except that any future Govt couldn't use it to abolish elections.
This is, of course, where LRRB comes in...
Main comment
To be honest, the Lords will probably stop this law straight off, since it certainly isn't in their best interests. If the Parliament Act is brought in, there truly will be outcry since this is the passing of a law that will devastate civil liberties unless this law is restricted only to minute things that have little effect on the world outside of the Commons. Hopefully, Tony Blair will step down as PM some time soon, let Gordon Brown take over then a Tory government can reclaim power once the next elections come along.
If we can hit that bull's-eye, the rest of the dominoes will fall like a house of cards... Checkmate.
It looks like the executive branch of the UK is seizing power, and we're seeing the same thing here in the US. We live in a time where democracy is spreading (I'm pretty sure over half of the countries in the world are "democratic"). At the same time, though, we're seeing more and more power concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer people in those countries. George W. Bush has unprecedented power as President of the United States, and Tony Blair will, if this bill passes, will also have unprecedented powers. Even in places where the executive branch isn't seizing power, the top levels of government are increasingly intruding into people's lives. Not to mention the blatant corruption seen in many "democracies" and now beginning to manifest itself in the older, industrialized democracies. I'm not trying to sound like a nut, but it's enough to give any decent libertarian fits. Are they still taking people at Sealand?
N.b. that traditionally at least, the number of seats has been determined by Congress. And FDR's court packing plan was to have Congress pass a law that would automatically add seats under certain conditions; he didn't just nominate people. And the plan failed anyhow.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Errmmm... The Fine Article you mention is about the UK, but this thread has drifted to the US. Your link doesn't say anything about the process of the Congress going to bicameral committees to resolve differences in bills that I could see.
So what the heck are you snarking off about, dude?
Constitutionally Correct
The TPMCafe article to which I linked offers more detailed analysis focused on exactly the US version of the UK issue that we're talking about in this subthread. The first sentence of that article links to even more detailed analysis of the bicameral screwup Bush is leveraging into legal authority for his worthless signing statements.
You don't know what you're talking about. You don't know what I'm talking about. You don't know what they're talking about. Why do you keep posting?
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So as a responsible \. reader trying to make an informed post I read
And now you say I ought to read the linked pages from those linked pages? Sorry...I don't think so. I read the TPMCafe article...it had a lot to say about the signing statement thing but absolutely nothing relevant to the bicameral resolution process, which is what you took me to task about in the first place. Nothing in what you wrote or linked in response addresses that. So I ask again, what are you blathering on about?
It seems to me you like to berate people without justification. That fits my definition of "troll". So perhaps you are correct in one thing: questioning why I continue to post responses to you. One really shouldn't feed the trolls.
Now.................... Back to the original point of this subthread.
Maybe my understanding is wrong, maybe bills can make it to the president even when the House and Senate have different versions. (Though I'm really unsure what the final law would actually say, if so - perhaps "government is schizophrenic"?) If you don't address this in your response, don't bother replying at all.
Constitutionally Correct
The fact is that Bush signed a bill that didn't pass both houses of Congress, adding a signing statement to make the law according to his definition.
That's not Constitutional, that's a ploy to create legal force to signing statements. As I detailed in my original posts, in the articles to which I linked, in the articles to which they linked. Which, incidentally, also specify the exact text, nature and status of the "law" Bush has created.
Why don't you lift a finger to actually examine the issue itself, among the caried and detailed material I keep producing to educate you? Instead you insist on arguing, without facts or the will (or perhaps skill) to obtain them.
FWIW:
"\." is pronounced "backslashdot" - this site was originally called "/."
And Troll means many things, but "like to breate people without justification" is your own definition. In fact, since you're arguing obnoxiously without reference to the facts or any useful logic, you fit the definition of "a newsgroup post that is deliberately incorrect, intended to provoke readers; or a person who makes such a post". So I will now take your final request, not to bother replying, now that I've done all that I can to school you without compensation.
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Ahhhh, finally back on topic!
You assert this, but I have yet to see any proof from you. The article you linked doesn't say anything about it. Bills have to pass both houses in order to get to the presidents desk, further, both houses had to have passed the same verson of the bill. (If not, all my civics and government classes have been wrong.) If indeed this bill somehow go to the president's desk without passing both houses, then I'd agree that it is blatantly unconstitutional. As if the Constitution ever stops them when they really want to do something - most of the things Congress does now cannot be found authorized in A1S8.
Presidents have been adding "signing statements" well before this one. I don't think they've ever been treated with anything resembling force of law - if they had, I believe we'd have heard of it before now. They reflect how the signing president may intend to interpret (and thus enforce) them, sure. I'd be surprised if SCOTUS sees them any differently, your conspiracy theories aside. The president cannot write (through signing statements) or edit (through line-item veto) legislation, but despite that there is some latitude for interpretation.
Because I find your "issue" unimportant. I don't think the "signing statement" is that big a deal, as I just stated. I think you're blowing it waaaay out of proportion. You think differently. Fine - we disagree.
It ought to have been called \. - and I do sometimes write it that way - because it tends to lean so far left. It's humor. Get it? Ha ha.
Actually, I think "berating people without justification" falls under the very definition you give, regarding provocation. You were the one making the statements without facts. I was just asking for clarification of a point that your sources didn't address. You're the one building the argument - defend it when you are questioned.
Are you afraid or unable to answer a simple question? Do you feel the need to impugn the intelligence and/or motives of those who disagree with you? Does that make you feel better somehow?
Cute how you claim to have not replied at the tail end of your reply. Sounds like something John Kerry would do. :)
That arrogant condescension must make you a real hit at parties.
Constitutionally Correct
Yes, I'm saying that the Senate should revert to the old way of being elected - by the people indirectly via their elected representatives in their legislatures. The Senate is the house that represents the states at the federal level - how does electing Senators purely by the popular will fulfill that role? Senators should not be beholden directly to the people. (That's a laugh - do you think your senators see themselves personally accountable to you? If anything, they are less accountable.) They should be directly accountable to their state's interests - meaning that the legislature and governor have something to say about it. Accountability to a small group can be advantageous.
(Incidentally, this same problem is creeping into the House as well. Since membership was capped at 435, districts have grown tremendously in size. By the ratio that the Founders thought appropriate, we'd need about 8000 in the House today. This results in Representatives who are not particularly accountable, either. Today we have technology that can make meetings of that large a group feasible. We could easily increase this limit to 1000, at least.)
It doesn't particularly matter to me if the various states have different ways of electing their Senators. It's their Senator, let them decide how to do it. Why do you want to take control away from them, when it's none of your business?
Maybe people with deep pockets were elected Senators pre-17th. But heck, those are the only people being elected now, because they are the only people that can afford to run! I think every single Senator in office today is a millionaire.
The problem is not campaign contributions. Americans spend more on potato chips than we contribute to political campaigns. "Tightening up" the system with more restrictions will not help, but will only further entrench incumbents. The best way to fix the system is to open it up - make voters free to vote for alternatives to the Duopoly (who are mostly interested in maintaining the status quo). Condorcet voting makes alternative parties into realistic options, because there is no such thing as a "wasted vote". Why do we, as Americans, believe there are only two valid points of view? We don't need to reform campaign finance, but the voting system.
Government funding for campaigns is the absolutely worst possible idea. First of all, you'd be letting the people in charge give themselves money so that they can try to stay in charge. What sense does that make? Second, I may disagree with you on every single issue, but if I were a candidate you'd be forced to contribute your money (through taxes) to me - that's unconscionable! It isn't moral nor ethical for me to take your money in this situation. This is why government should be limited to the bare minimum required to perform its essential duties - anything more and you'll encounter unnecessary conflicts of conscience as some people are forced to support things they don't agree with. It's not right to force someone to violate his/her conscience. I believe in this so strongly that I'd refuse government money if I ran for office, even if I qualified for it. This (freedom of conscience) is a big reason I joined the CP.
BTW: Notice that you do have to "qualify" for gov't money - and who sets those qualifications? The people in charge. Do you trust them to make it easy for anyone to challenge them? If you believe that, I've got a trustworthy fox that would love to guard your henhouse...
If we remove power from government (by limiting it to its Constitutional functions - what a concept!), there becomes less reason for "big money" to bribe officeholders with campaign contributions. The problem isn't the money, it's the power! People should be free to spend their money however they want. Instead, remove the incentive to bribe!
Constitutionally Correct
Nixon brought most of that erosion on, and you can hardly claim that it wasn't justified.
Neither of those statements is true.
Nixon abused his power, certainly; but in ways that many in Congress have done, and that many in the Supreme Court have done. Removing power from the President isn't the answer to abuse; removing the President from power is. That happened.
A lot of the erosion happened because Carter deliberately pissed away executive power. He didn't do that because of Nixon; he did that because he's a moron.
My MP is Jim Fitzpatrick, an individual I have very little respect for.
When I wrote to him prior to the vote on the Iraq war, he responded that he had to vote his conscience. And here was me thinking that actually, he was there to vote MY conscience, or at least, the general consensus of his constituents.
Anyway, here is his reply to a letter I sent him on this issue:
Dear Mr.XXXXX,
Thank you for your e mail. I will write to you on this. I hope to be
able persuade you that this is not a fascist administration,
Yours etc,
Jim
Yours etc, ? What is that about ?
Probably redundant - but no. As it was, that guy got sympathy around the world, and when his fellow protesters got shot and arrested it became a huge international incident - because they were unarmed protesters against and overwhelming strong military. Had he been carrying a gun he would never have even made it into the square, let alone highlight his issue for the world to consider.
You're saying that Bush's appointment of Roberts and Alito is treason? That's one of the most preposterous things I've ever read on Slashdot.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Actually, when referring to "Socialist," I was referring to FDR and other big government presidents. I did not refer to Bush.
And, as far as assumptions go, I do not intend to practice law. I plan on returning to IT. However, lawyers do not exist as a part of government, although they do interact with it. So, you can have lawyers without big government. Just look at the American Colonial period.
What those who want activist courts fear is rule by the people.
Actually, in your post you didn't "quote" (note the quotation marks) anything that I said, which makes me wonder if you understand what that means. I also wonder if you know what fascist means.
Where did I defend Bush, straw-man or toss out a fallacious argument?
I'm sorry about your indigestion, but honestly, I'm happy, and I don't spend a hundred percent of my time worrying about things external to my self, outside of my control, and that aren't really problems. You might give it a shot.
Now Blair can't sell peerages to it; he's going to close it.
And then, once it's empty, we'll be able to conduct that long-awaited experiment and finally find out how many holes it takes to fill the House of Lords.
Downmodding is the refuge of the weak. Don't downmod, make a better argument!
No, you said that.
I said "subverting the Constitution itself, treason". In reference to a scheme to force an unconstitutional bill signing to produce force of law behind meaningless signing statements.
Congratulations, you've written one of the most preposterous things you've ever read on Slashdot. In one of its most familiar idioms: the strawman.
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No revolution? Parliament beheaded a fucking king, for crap's sake. Not too long before that, someone tried to blow up Westminster. Then there was that matter with a few rebellious colonies....
yeah, yeah, yeah
so there was the whole Guy Fawkes thing and the beheading thing and the Boston tea thing and some oath-breakers pushing their luck in the colonies but nothing really changed. The government was still the government and the downtrodden masses were still the downtrodden masses but at least they got Christmas back.
What we had was internal strife in the ruling class rather than a major social upheaval. The Peasant's Revolt in the 14th Century might have been more successful if it hadn't been led by peasants.
Britain has no National day. No "Independence Day", no "Revolution Day", and no "Bastille Day" unless you buy the "Caress of Steel" album by Rush. There's plenty of nations with "Hurray, we got independence from Britain" days but for us, sadly, there's nothing similar.
Travelling forward in time at a rate of 1 second per second.
Moderation -1
30% Troll
30% Informative
10% Flamebait
My post has facts, logic, and citations supporting a serious argument that the story's premise is happening in the US as well as the UK. TrollMods have nothing but anonymous suppression to stop people from talking about it, though many did - perfectly reasonably, with the usual Slashdot exceptions - in the subsequent thread.
TrollMods hate America.
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