If you read the rest of my comments, I used the example of the death of a mediocre politician like JFK, and the ensuing outpouring of grief, which was excessive, undignified and inappropriate, to provide an example of the tendency of over a third of the population to develop a childish worship for heads of state, particularly those who possess significant power.
Incidentally, unlike most European countries, the French President is more than just a figurehead.
As far as the commonwealth countries, including the UK, is concerned the monarchy is irrelevant from a political point of view, ie. there is no political power there worthy of the name. Their system of government could best be described as an elective dictatorship, “Council of Village Elders” model, whereas the US model is an elective dictatorship, “Village Headman” model.
In neither system do the people have any representation worth a damn. In other words, the people have no effective say in the laws that govern them and that are often passed contrary to the will of the majority of the people.
Professional politicians are under no obligation to seek approval of proposed laws from representatives of the people in any of the world’s elective dictatorships and the politicians, together with their civil servants, cannot be held accountable to representatives of the people for abuses of power or even their performance.
I don’t count the ritual of periodic elections as having the effect of holding individual politicians accountable to anything.
Hey, just because it pushes your “ick” buttons doesn’t mean the people mourning JFK were acting in a manner that was excessive, undignified or inappropriate. The country was not paralyzed by the loss of JFK; they mourned and moved on. If anything, you sound peevish and unpleasant about it and thus you are definitely not going to be invited to my funeral.
As someone who happens to live in a Commonwealth nation, what the hell are you talking about, except toexpress you distrust of government generally. “Elective dictatorship” ? Oh, please. That might be true in countries without an effective and independent judiciary, but such nations are usually just yournormaleveryday dictatorships, with a few sham elections now and then. Even though the American President is powerful, as head of states go, simply doesn’t have that much control over the day-to-day lives of the citizens, nor does he have the power to create laws by fiat (the Emancipation Proclamation, for example, was meaningless until the 13th Amendment was ratified).
Bullshit, I say. The laws are created by Congress, which is up for re-election every two years. Congressional districts are decided by strict majority vote (as I recall, congressmen are the only Federal office-holders who are elected by simple majority, though I’m not sure about senators). Are the laws really contrary to “the will of the majority of people” or do they just piss you off personally?
You must have been sleeping during that whole Clinton impeachment thing, then. Mechanisms of control do exist in the U.S. and in other nations. Actually, it’s when the courts become compliant or irrelevant that real dictatorships arise.
Well, good for you. Do you bother voting at all, or have you just decided to go sulk in the corner during each election? I mean, why bother doing anything to fix the system when you can just whine about it?
Nitpîck : the french president isn’t a figurehead, and can’t be compared with say, the Israeli or German president. When the parliament is on the same political side, he does control the executive, and even when the opposite political side has the majority in the parliament, he keeps powers which, though much more limited, extend far beyond the usual role of head of states in usual parliamentary systems.
Beside, the Israeli system isn’t a good example of a parliamentary system, either, since the prime minister is elected by the people (though it’s a recent evolution), something which is highly unusual in parliamentary democracies.
Finally, the US system is hardly unique. It’s called a presidential system, and it’s relatively common.
All right, if you insist. I’ll stay away from your funeral.
If you want to believe that your representatives obey the “will” of the people when concocting legislation, then remain happy in your belief.
Assuming you place any credence at all on opinion polls, to give you one major example, there are majorities ranging from 60%-80% of the population who wish to put a stop to immigration from anywhere (this applies to European and Commonwealth countries also) but the wishes of the people are ignored with impunity by the elective dictatorships which govern them.
Whether laws are passed by Presidential fiat, Peru being the most extreme example of this style of elective dictatorship, or by a majority of an assembly of politicians is immaterial. The views of the majority of the population are never taken into account.
By the way, with reference to executive orders, who was the Clintonian democrat, who said:
“stroke of a pen, law of the land. Kinda cool.”
The Clinton impeachment was a highly politicised farce by both parties and the media. The proceedings bore no resemblance to anything remotely approaching a properly conducted judicial hearing. If you observed that and thought it to be a good example of a “mechanism of control” then remain happy in your belief.
Yes, I always vote, knowing full well that it is fairly pointless. I never feel elated or depressed at the outcome, as so many of those who believe they are participating in a meaningful political process appear to do.
It would be nice if career politicians were compelled to convince a majority of a jury comprising, say 10 persons chosen at random from the electoral rolls before voting on laws in accordance with the wishes of the majority, but such a drastic change cannot be developed under the existing political process, it would have to be imposed from above by the ruling elite, as has been the case with virtually all other political systems.
Fair enough. In any case, it makes clear that there are all varieties of checks & balances systems, and just because individual nations choose their flavour, it doesn’t prove other nations are screwed up, nor does it invite Alan’s defeatist beliefs that democracies are shams. I like the western democracies and unfounded criticism or the implication that they are not better than dictatorships just makes me want to invite the critic to spend a year in Rwanda or Indonesia or Iran and then talk about which is better.
In the particular case of the Swiss, though, they can get by without a (significant) president because they don’t feel the need for one. Had they international military commitments (beyond bodyguarding the Pope) they might feel differently.
Amusingly, a lot of the criticisms of the U.S. President I’ve read mistakenly attribute legislative powers to him, and otherwise display ignorance about the scope of the prez’s duties. The U.S. President cannot pass laws on his own, for example, yet he’s still frequently blamed for them. Similarly, the prez cannot raise or lower taxes, he can only negotiate with congress to pass such bills, and then sign them, or he can block congress from passing a tax bill by use of the veto. When Bush41 said “Read my lips- no new taxes!” all he could really do to fulfill that promise was veto any attempt by congress to raise taxes. Congress managed to raise them anyway, and Bush41 was gone.
My “fair enough” was in reply to clairobscur, lest anyone think I’m starting to agree with Alan.
That’s a useless answer and is typically used when:
[ul][li]The opponent has raised a point that soundly disproves your position, so you want to weasel out of the argument, or[/li][li]The opponent is posting dogma and has shown immunity to logic.[/ul][/li]
Naturally enough, I choose the first interpretation, simply because it is true that U.S. Presidents get impeached and congressman do get voted out. One of the weaselly ways Alan can justify his negative viewpoint is that most of the time, large chunks of the American electorate are completely indifferent to what the federal government is doing, so bad laws get passed and stay on the books for years. I’d just like to point out that when the voters get sufficiently annoyed, congress can be swept clean and unpopular incumbent Presidents do get voted out.
Nope. It’s too easy to phrase a question to invoke an emotional and biased response. I’ve participated in telephone polls myself and heard many a biassed and/or badly-written question. Besides, the news agencies that publish results are only likely to publish the ones that sound interesting. A poll that reveals that 65% of Americans think everything is okey-dokey (and the other 35% are a bit unsure) inspires yawns and low ratings.
The only poll that should matter is an election poll.
Well, why don’t those lazy 60-80% (assuming they exist) get off their asses and vote in some anti-immigration officials? Is it the government’s fault these people are too inept to make thier wishes known on election day?
It’s easy to tell a pollster something, but actually following through is hard.
I thought we were discussing the U.S. system, actually.
Oh, yeah, every system of government can be neatly summarized by off-the-cuff remarks by unnamed staffers.
I heard once that some guy in the Politburo said: “Hmmm, we conquered Poland. Now we can get more sausages for state dinners!”
Of course, he probably said it in Russian, so the translation might not be exact.
There’s that useless answer again. Oh, well… The whole Clinton thing was ludicrous, I agree (don’t get used to it) but a President was impeached, just as Andrew Johnson was and Nixon would have been, had he not resigned. Congress can yank a President’s chain when they want to, only in this particular case the cause wasn’t serious enough for enough people to really care. Nevertheless, they yanked anyway, as is their right under the American system. What’s your point?
So do something about it! Start small and find a local politician you like and work for his campaign. If he’s elected, make sure he follows up on promises. Show some backbone, will you?
Do you really believe 10 random people are qualified to judge complex legal issues like stem-cell research, defense or even immigration? Can the politician use rhethoric and bombast to “convince” your theoretical jury? Heck, anybody with good public-speaking skills could talk 10 people (or even 6 people, the majority) into just about anything.
I love it when people say "the system is rotten and useless, so let’s replace it with something completely crappy and unworkable!
I am most impressed. You are invincible in an argument when you make assertions and then respond to them on my behalf. I thank you for your efforts.
On the “will of the people” issue, the second choice would have been closer to the truth, that the opponent is “posting dogma” and has shown “immunity (sic) to logic”.
However, it would be most impolite of me to accuse anyone of posting dogma or of being impervious to logic. You will have already observed that I am polite, kind hearted and generous to a fault.
It is obvious that you have a firmly entrenched belief that the will of the people is quite adequately reflected via the electoral process that exists under the multifarious systems of elective dictatorships that exist on this planet.
I do not subscribe to this faith. You do. Let’s give up trying to convince one another.
Under the existing system, this usually involves various political parties putting forward their platforms, mostly full of broad generalities, signifying nothing much. The outcomes of these elections result in a “winner takes all, let’s do what we like for the next few years” spoils system.
That is the essence of an elective dictatorship, is it not?
Thank you for the suggestion that I should try to “do something” about it, but I think I’ll pass. The prospect of devoting a lot of my time and energy trying to advance the career of a professional politician ranks very low on my “must do” list.
I was not aware that this thread was exclusively about US Presidents. I thought it was broader based and involved any system about a head of state, so I can’t see the relevance of your objection.
You ask me if I really believe that 10 people chosen at random are better able to make decisions than a (professional) politician.
The answer is probably not better, but not worse either.
There would be at least one beneficial outcome. The decision of a randomly selected group of genuine representatives of the people would have legitimacy.
The decisions on laws being passed down from on high by the lords and masters in charge of elective dictatorships do not have the same legitimacy.
Unlike you, I do not believe that a professional politician is any better equipped to make such decisions.
Incidentally, I have worked in government for most of my career and the top politician in charge of my area of government (health) would not have a clue about cell stem cell research either, unless he was fully briefed on the subject. The briefing process could apply in any situation, including a small roomful of jurors, could it not?
If you assert that these 10 persons chosen at random - let’s make them 5 men and 5 women - can be convinced to do anything by a skilled career politician then let the career politician prove it. By the way, I do not envisage the career politician having any power over the jurors, not even to the extent of being allowed a casting vote in a split decision.
PS: FWIW, the “kinda cool” quote was by polical hack Paul Begala. The Executive Order power of a US President is at least as monarchial (in the old sense) and binding as his power to issue pardons.
I really can’t see how 10 randomly selected people could have more legitimacy than an official chosen by all the people. Plus, if all laws or executive decisions have to be approved by such a panel, it would necessarily happen that from time to time, the panel wouldn’t be representative at all, since it would include, due to pure chance, a set of people who have a particular bia. For instance, 9 out of ten could happen to dislike the president, or half the panel could happen to be made of people who feel very concerned about a particular issue, etc… Your randomly selected panel would probably quite often approve or dissaprove decisions on an equally random basis.
I’m not even a great fan of popular juries for trials, thinking they aren’t qualified in any way to handle judiciary cases, nor to handle any seriously technical issue, aren’t representative of the people’s will in any way (being an extremely little and randomly selected sample of the population) and have zero legitimacy (not having any mandate), so you can imagine how I feel about using the same system as a check on the government’s decisions.
Anyway, if you feel these randomly selected people have more legitimacy, then you could supress the president’s job altogether, and directly give his powers to your randomly selected sample of ten people. Shouldn’t it be the logical consequence of your assumption? After all, in ancient Athens, some official positions were filled exactly this way : by lots.
Telling your opponent to “calm down” is another weak debating technique, I need hardly point out. I’m refuting your premises without heaping profanity and insults on you. I don’t see how that makes me un-calm. Oh, well…
Using a vague term like “will of the people” is much closer to undefined dogma than my pointing out that the people can express their will every two years. During moments of extreme disastisfaction, an incumbent Congress or President can be booted out of office. How is this not “the will of the people”? Between elections, anyone can write letters to elected officials or publish articles expressing disatisfaction, and the First Amendment protects them. Citizens can also file lawsuits against government officials for perceived civil rights violations. How exactly is “the will of the people” being thwarted, here?
Is the system perfect? Of course not, but your proposed alternatives (what few there are) make no improvement that I can see.
By the way, that little “(sic)” had me going for a second, making me look up “immunity” in a dictionary to make sure I’d spelled it right. One point for you, I guess.
Actually, I said your response to my earlier points was typical of someone who:
[ul][li]Has been out-argued but won’t admit it, or[/li][li]Realizes it’s pointless to debate with someone bound by dogma.[/ul][/li]
The fact that you didn’t express such sentiment openly hardly wins you any merit badges. Had my argument consisted solely of “Don’t criticize democracy! Are you a communist?” or similar pointless rhetoric, then my position would be dogmatic. I’m actually just pointing out the legal structures in place that make democracy workable and not a sham or a dictatorship.
Your sticking to the term “elective dictatorship” strikes me as dogmatic, actually. If you keep using it with no justification (that I can see) then eventually I’ll be in the position described above. I won’t be yielding to an irrefutable argument, though, but unassailable dogma.
The western democracies, with their various electoral formulae, are places of peace, prosperity and freedom compared with everywhere else on Earth. These nations offer a working balance between individual rights and government power. Sure, there have been abuses, but abuse is not an inherent part of the system, as it is virtually everywhere else. My evidence that democracy is a preferable form of government would consist of statistics on life expectancy, infant mortality, productivity and journalistic freedom, all of which are measurably better in the westernized democracies than elsewhere.
If you want to reduce this to an issue of faith, your faith seems to be that democracy is terrible most of the time, while mine is that democracy is pretty good most of the time.
Nope. There was a time and place when this was true. In the ancient Roman Republic, a dictator (in the original use of the word) could be elected for a fixed term with sweeping powers. This was typically done during moments of crisis. Modern democracies, though, are balanced by a court system. The winner of an American election cannot do what he likes; he is limited by the courts. In the American system in particular, only a third of the Senate is up for grabs every two years, which dampens any wild governmental swings.
As for taking the spoils, I’ll admit that the ruling party does tend to reward campaign contributers with favourable government contracts and laws. Sometimes the corruption is really blatant and a scandal ensues. These kinds of shenanigans call for campaign-finance reform and improved disclosure laws, not trashing the entire system.
I understand completely. Just complaining is much easier, isn’t it?
Well, the “we” in the thread title meant the Americans, as the OP stated, though the thread became more generalized. I was trying to describe a specific democratic sytstem (the one in the U.S., and presumably the one most familiar to most of this message board) and citing a scandal in Peru struck me as irrelevant. I’ll gladly stipulate that every democratic nation (however you choose to define “democractic”) has had failings. My contention is that these failings do not invalidate the overall attempt to create democratic governments, or prove that the entire process is a sham.
I don’t see how the word “legitimacy” applies here. Arguably, you could get legitimacy by putting every issue to a majority vote of the entire electorate and achieve true democracy. I can see how this could be much worse, since it invites the emotion of the day to control the law. A slower-moving, more thoughtful process, with the courts overseeing the results, helps ensure that government is kept under control. If anything, I can imagine a politician claiming that since 51% of the population likes him, he should be given absolute control, and there’s your “elective dictatorship”, brought about by the legitimate will of the people.
Your argument might be better served if you toned down the hostile rhetoric, i.e. “lords and masters” (?!). A lord/master implies a leader selected through no choice of the people and this is simply not true in the western democracies. In western nations that have appointed/inherited Heads of State, these positions are almost always entirely ceremonial and the actual power rests in the elected legislative body.
As for making decisions; if you disagree with how a politician is making decisions, you can make your views known and vote the bum out (or at least try to, since it’s possible most of the voters actually agree with the decisions being made).
The decisions being made aren’t as capricious as you seem to think, though. In the U.S., important federal legislation is debated and refined in congressional committees, and often examined during televised congressional hearings with testimony from experts. Then it has to pass a majority congresional vote in both houses, then the President has to sign it. It’s anything but a casual case of a politician waking up in the morning, thinking up a new law, and having it implemented by noon.
The difference is that it’s the top politician’s *job to be briefed about these and similar issues, and he’s being advised by people (scientists and doctors in this case) who have dedicated years of their lives studying the technical issues. Are you planning to grab random citizens and tell them “Okay, you’re going to vote on this extremely complex legal/technical issue, so I hope you didn’t have anything planned for the next six months because we need to give you a complete course on the material.” Why would you even consider trusting a decision that ten random citizens were forced to make on a subject that possibly didn’t interest them in the first place?
Well, are the opponents on the issue allowed to address the jury? How long should this process take? Can a randomly-selected juror be disqualified because of personal bias? Is there any mechanism to prevent jury-tampering? Are jurors’ identies confidential?
What you propose creates more problems than it solves.
The President’s ability to pardon (as well as the ability of individual state Governors to pardon) is a surprising thing for you to object to, since it represents the individual’s last chance of escaping the emotions of the mob.
Executive Orders, I’ll admit, can get pretty creepy (Kennedy had a whole bunch of dictatorial ones squirreled away in case WW3 broke out) but for the most part they consists of tweaks to the Federal beaurocracy. They deserve to be watched, not feared. The President, for example, cannot declare an Executive Order that all non-Christians will be rounded up and shot. He has discretionary authority but the only potentially scary EOs are the ones that involve the military or Federal law enforcement (i.e. the FBI) and the funding of these agencies is controlled by congress, not the President. If they see abuses, they can cut the pursestrings.
On the matter of the original subject of this thread, whether Presidents are actually needed, I’d have to say… probably, *if your nation is in a position where occasional swift action is required on matters of defense or national emergency. The U.S. feels they are in that position and the Swiss don’t. Neither country is on the verge of collapse and/or civil war, so I’d guess it can work both ways. I wouldn’t want the Swiss to suddenly become the sole superpower while the Americans suddenly declare themselves neutral on all matters, though.
Lest it comes up in a nitpick, I’ve noticed that I’ve inconsistently used the phrases “western democracies” and “westernized democracies.” The latter term is more inclusive, since it encompasses Japan with its elected parliamentary system and standard of living comparable to (if not exceeding) west-European and new-world democracies.
If I might momentarily separate our two simmering opponents…
AUTZ, no, in a straightforward sense the US doesn’t really “need” a President. We could indeed operate under some sort of plural executive.
In fact, I hold the curious view that we have such a plural executive right now.
You see, whereas the OFFICE of President of the United States is undoubtedly the most powerful position in human history, the person occupying that office very rarely chooses to weild that power as an individual. Instead he occupies his time in rounds of meetings with “advisers”, “handlers”, “personal assistants” (Henry Kissinger was one, until he became Sec’y of State), cabinet secretaries, pollsters, party officials, reps of special-interest constituencies, photo-op seekers, reporters, speechwriters, make-up maker-uppers, emissaries from Dad, wealthy contributors, old buddies who still can’t believe that such a loser got anywhere…and so on. In a monarchy they call most of it “the court.”
So decisions don’t get “made” so much as “floated.” A question drifts into the sacred circle and gets passed around. Everybody chimes in. Then the most authoritative chimers–which lately tends to be the Prez’s re-election team leader–produces a concise summary, narrowing the options to 2: the one the adviser favors, and a second one, which is portrayed (politely) as ridiculous and undoable. “So, Mr. President, which one do you like, the smart realistic one, or the idiotic one that will cost you the next election and your place in history? Hmmm?”
Of course no mechanism is perfect, and at rare intervals Presidents do break loose and think for themselves, with results that will get portrayed as horrendous whether they really are or not. Apparently it was George I (not quite President yet) who forced Dan Quayle down his own throat. In Reykavik, President Reagan did the nuclear-freeze left one better by proposing to his Soviet counterpart the complete elimination of nuclear weapons, a bold romantic notion that had legions of courtiers shedding their skins until he was induced to withdraw it. I think I’ve read that Pres. McKinley “took” the Philippines as the result of a dream, and of course Jefferson undertook the extralegal Louisiana Purchase (it’s too late to give it back).
But even FDR was pretty much a pass-through for the consensus of his advisers, and it’s only gotten worse.
So the question becomes: why not just make those advisers–the 5 top ones, let’s say–the actual, formal Presidium of the United States?
Why not? Because:
(1) It is human nature to want to idolize some one person as the embodiment of the nation, the corporeal receptacle of our patriotic feelings; and we Americans are nothing if not human.
and–
(2) When a committee knows that they must advise some one person, they feel a certain pressure to be reasonable and seek consensus–even though their advisee has no more backbone than a snot-string. Take away the advisee, and you have a permanent floating mess of intransigence (see California, Legislature of).
Oh…US Senators are indeed elected by majority vote in their states. Presidents, by contrast, are NOT elected by majority vote of the general electorate, but by delegates once removed in a body called the Electoral College, which long ago was intended to be a deliberative body.
From this statement I assume you did not experience the event. I don’t recall bawling my eyes out, but I did mourn JFK’s death. To this day you can ask people that did not like JFK and they will be able to tell you where they were when they found out he had been killed.
This council idea sounds a lot like the way the Soviet Union was run. One man will take charge and lead until the others decide that his health is failing. If one member does not take charge it will be government by committee, which means there will be a do-nothing government.