Obama blames Founding Fathers

[UpaLoompa]

So I'm not really sure where the thread is now but the structural issues with our government are a real thing and in other countries using our system of democracy have been found to contribute to instability and, ultimately, governmental failure.
Gridlock is not a good thing.

http://www.slate.com/articles/busin...entist_explains_why_government_by_crisis.html

 

[OldGoat]

So I'm not really sure where the thread is now but the structural issues with our government are a real thing and in other countries using our system of democracy have been found to contribute to instability and, ultimately, governmental failure.
Gridlock is not a good thing.

http://www.slate.com/articles/busin...entist_explains_why_government_by_crisis.html

Gridlock is perfectly fine and necessary to prevent abuse of power. Why do you favor tyranny?

 

[UpaLoompa]

Gridlock is perfectly fine and necessary to prevent abuse of power. Why do you favor tyranny?

How on earth did you get that out of my post? There's literally no connection between my post and what I posted. Perhaps you meant to quote someone else?

If anything my cursory knowledge of Levin's work makes me think a parlimentarian style of democracy might be better than our own because ours seems more likely to end in tyranny.

 

[strangejosh]

Gridlock is perfectly fine and necessary to prevent abuse of power. Why do you favor tyranny?

Can you show the empirical evidence of where lack of gridlock leads to abuse of power? No? Oh, ok.

 

[OldGoat]

How on earth did you get that out of my post? There's literally no connection between my post and what I posted. Perhaps you meant to quote someone else?

If anything my cursory knowledge of Levin's work makes me think a parlimentarian style of democracy might be better than our own because ours seems more likely to end in tyranny.

English is not hard to parse. You said you don't like gridlock. Gridlock is a form of constraining a government via checks and balances. And no parliamentarian government would not be superior.

 

[OldGoat]

Can you show the empirical evidence of where lack of gridlock leads to abuse of power? No? Oh, ok.

Yeah, any history book that teaches actual history. Perhaps you'd prefer to live in a corrupt one party, efficient state. I prefer a tiny bit of residual freedom and gridlock.

 

[o'dubhlaoich]

Bicameral legislature. That was the whole point of it, to prevent someone like Obama from coming in and dissolving the rights of those in small states.

Obama's a noob.

You would think a constitutional lawyer from Harvard would know this.

 

[Jaden Korr**]

President Obama is taking a swipe at the Founding Fathers, blaming his inability to move his agenda on the

 

[Jack V Savage]

You would think a constitutional lawyer from Harvard would know this.

I'm pretty sure there's nothing "AgeofEmpires2" knows of relevance that Obama doesn't. The purpose of a bicameral legislature obviously is not to prevent any laws from being passed.

 

[OldGoat]

You would think a constitutional lawyer from Harvard would know this.

He knows it. He doesn't believe in it. He wants free reign to enact his enlightened agenda for the good of all. It's just racist, ignorant southerners stopping him.

 

[UpaLoompa]

English is not hard to parse. You said you don't like gridlock. Gridlock is a form of constraining a government via checks and balances. And no parliamentarian government would not be superior.

Well according to people that actually have studied these things, i.e. not you, they are at least superficially superior.

 

[OldGoat]

I'm pretty sure there's nothing "AgeofEmpires2" knows of relevance that Obama doesn't. The purpose of a bicameral legislature obviously is not to prevent any laws from being passed.

Plenty of laws are passed. You also forget the regulatory agencies and their enactment of regulations that constantly are added that have the weight of law?

 

[OldGoat]

Well according to people that actually have studied these things, i.e. not you, they are at least superficially superior.

And "they" are wrong. Surely you have more than an appeal to authority argument?

 

[DangDaGawd]

I take it you would want the EU to have more legislative power as well so that it can impose whatever it wants on it's member countries? Or do you think this type of governance should only apply to the US?

I think you're quite aware that's a pretty shitty analogy.

 

[OldGoat]

I think you're quite aware that's a pretty shitty analogy.

The analogy is fine. Why shouldn't the EU have supreme power over it's member states?

 

[UpaLoompa]

And "they" are wrong. Surely you have more than an appeal to authority argument?

Yeah, the argument being made by those authorities is stronger than your "nuh-uh" rebuttal.
The argument, at least based on my casual reading, is that a parlimentarian system allows a prime minister to have majority support. This allows legislation to move forward without the sort of gridlock possible in our system but not in a tyrannical manner rolleyes. Gridlock is possible but there are democratic outs to keep things functional that don't exist in our system. Ultimately presidential systems can run to absolute gridlock at which time coups either in support of the president or the legislation occur. Alternatively legislative procedural processes can be put in place that neuter the executive branch (and, often, the second smaller legislative body). Either way the system breaks.

Our own system is further burdened by Duvegnier's Principle which pretty much guarentees that we'll keep a two party system regardless of what those parties are.

You can read some of Linz's discussion at:
http://www1.american.edu/ia/cdem/pdfs/linz_perils_presidencialism.pdf

 

[Uchi Mata]

What he said wasn't wrong, just his opinion on it is something you'd expect from a dictator. What you said was completely wrong because there's this thing called the House of Representatives which is based on population. Hence why 23432 people show up to those retarded SOTU addresses rather than 100. Even with this system we are still heavily influenced by Tyranny of the Majority. I still hope to see certain states band together and disobey the federal mandate to purchase overpriced healthcare insurance.

I wouldn't have a problem with every state that wants to disobey the mandate leaving the union. Most of them are net takers of federal tax dollars anyway, it would probably lower my taxes to not have to support backwards cesspools like Mississippi or Alabama.

Maintain open immigration between the Liberal States of America and the Conservative States of America so that people could move to the country that aligns with their views, and you'd have yourself a deal. The only problem would be geographic, since Colorado and the west coast would be isolated from the rest of the LSoA.

 

[OldGoat]

Yeah, the argument being made by those authorities is stronger than your "nuh-uh" rebuttal.
The argument, at least based on my casual reading, is that a parlimentarian system allows a prime minister to have majority support. This allows legislation to move forward without the sort of gridlock possible in our system but not in a tyrannical manner rolleyes. Gridlock is possible but there are democratic outs to keep things functional that don't exist in our system. Ultimately presidential systems can run to absolute gridlock at which time coups either in support of the president or the legislation occur. Alternatively legislative procedural processes can be put in place that neuter the executive branch (and, often, the second smaller legislative body). Either way the system breaks.

Our own system is further burdened by Duvegnier's Principle which pretty much guarentees that we'll keep a two party system regardless of what those parties are.

You can read some of Linz's discussion at:
http://www1.american.edu/ia/cdem/pdfs/linz_perils_presidencialism.pdf

That's great, but parliamentary systems have led to people like Hitler coming to power. Parliamentary systems 1 checks and balances 0 for Hitler's coming to power.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger's_law is a good read.

That said, two party is not hard coded into our system of government. It's just a stable outcome. There are solutions to that. I like a different voting scheme but that's off topic. Briefly, I think you should have to rank each candidate 1-x and the candidate with the highest point total wins. It provides more of a hedge against the candidate you hate the most while giving you the option of not voting for the lesser of two viable evils.

Basically an OldGoat version of Ranked Choice Voting.

Now on the subject of definitive proof of position in the War Room. You gotta to be delusional if you think anyone of the "regulars" in the War Room are going to budge much based upon an essay with a few cites. Not going to happen. So why go through the effort? You aren't going to convince me and I am not going to convince you. Therefore who is the audience we are really writing for?

 

[o'dubhlaoich]

Obama has failed because he's a low-energy guy and an incompetent executive who was elected because he was charismatic and a post-racial symbol. He also lucked out by coming along just as the GOP was imploding.

Managing bureaucracies and legislative initiatives takes a lot to concentrated executive energy.

LBJ could do it by working eighteen- and twenty-hour days and knowing more about the legislative process than anyone alive. Eisenhower could do it because he had been a general who had managed huge armies. FDR could do it because huge bureaucracies essentially didn't even exist before he came along and so bureaucratic inertia didn't affect his legislation.

Obama can't do it because he's never had to work hard for a living in politics, and he's not an experienced executive. He thinks he can give a speech and a good program will come into existence.

Good post.

 

[OldGoat]

I wouldn't have a problem with every state that wants to disobey the mandate leaving the union. Most of them are net takers of federal tax dollars anyway, it would probably lower my taxes to not have to support backwards cesspools like Mississippi or Alabama.

Maintain open immigration between the Liberal States of America and the Conservative States of America so that people could move to the country that aligns with their views, and you'd have yourself a deal. The only problem would be geographic, since Colorado and the west coast would be isolated from the rest of the LSoA.

That's a ridiculous mindset. Following it to its logical extreme we'd have 100000 little countries each with its own laws as states left the union counties left the states cities left the counties and HOA leaving the cities. Leaving them all ripe for a warlord, such as General OldGoat, to reunite them with force.