I’m not so certain it’s correct to call the American federal system a strong presidential system. The Constitution itself creates a rather limited executive. It has evolved a strong executive, but only because the legislature and judiciary have allowed it. Before the FDR presidency, it was not a particular powerful office, compared to prime ministers with a strong majority.
Current power of the US presidency is more an effect of Congress usurping power from the states, abetted by the Supreme Court’s encompassing interpretation of the commerce clause. (I’m not making any judgements here.) Congress has also given the Presidency discretionary powers in execution and enforcement of the law.
My point is that although we currently have a strong executive, it is not a necessary component of our federal system.
The point is not that you’re not allowed to (well, maybe you aren’t to an extent, but still that’s not that point.) The point is that no one cares. I repeat, the thread is not about the Magna Carta.
To be quite honest with you, if you hadn’t slung around the comment,
I wouldn’t even have brought it up.
If you’re going to make statements like that, even with the word “arguably” in front of them…expect to be picked up on it. If the discussion is about the US form of government then the forms of government that influenced it can be an interesting point too, especially historically speaking. I agree I should have phrased it better, I just dislike anything being labelled as “the best” there’s always another side to the story and other influencing factors. There are plenty of comments in this thread that could be considered as not exactly on topic (that one of yours for a start), but I don’t see you picking over them to decide whether they are on or off topic.
Maybe one or both of us is just in a crappy mood, I dunno.
Again, I said arguably. I thought about the bible and the Magna Carta specifically when I said that, but arguably means it can be argued, but this isn’t the time or place. I would personally put it at or very near the top, but I’m reluctant to go into too much detail in astro’s thread.
How is it any different than expecting the 3,600 people of Big City, the 250 people of Rich Suburb, and the 370 people of Wheat Country from coming together and forming a cohesive state government?
There’s no damn such thing as “exploitation of [a] state,” any state. There is exploitation of people and such exploitation should be addressed as it is in any constitutional democratic system.
You may wish to join twoscents in the airy-fairy utopia where the only two political actors should be individuals on the one hand and their good and wise central government on the other. But the fact of the matter is that the United States is not constituted as a democracy but as a federal republic wherein the States are sovereign entities. You may rail that it shouldn’t be so, but that’s a different discussion altogether.
I might remind you that I’m specifically talking about our system for electing the president. The idea that basing the choice of a president on a straight popular vote inevitably leads to any of these results is utterly laughable. In fact, it’s baseless propaganda.
In no case does the president replace all the other governmental entities in existence. In fact, so far as I am concerned, the president’s powers as exercised by the current administration are far too expansive, and, in fact, unconstitutional as well.
The basic issue is this: The current presidential electoral system gives more weight to the votes of some U.S. citizens as opposed to others, and, in fact, it does so with absolutely no rational explanation. It’s undemocratic, and, essentially, it’s undemocratic for no good reason.
Oh, yes, and electing a president on the basis of popular vote is somehow going to magically make this all go away?
I’ll thank you not to put words in my mouth.
Please don’t lecture me about our form of government. I’m sure I know it better than you do. There is no reason why a federal union cannot have an executive who is chosen by the nation as a whole by popular vote.
OK, I can see here something most of us have missed – you are not just questioning the separate-powers, presidentialist-executive, indirect-representation organization of the national government, but you also seem to be questioning federalism in and of itself, and most of us have taken the later for granted. It would seem that you are finding fault not just with how come it’s not a parliamentary republic, but why isn’t it also a unitary republic (or if you will, a nominal federation in which the “states” be mere subdivisions devoid of sovereignty)? Because otherwise how could it be that “the small states don’t exist”…
There are federative national governments run democratically under the parliamentary system in Canada, Australia, Germany, India. So parliamentary/presidential and federal/unitary are independent of one another and should be separate debates.
You didn’t say anything about the Electoral College in your post, nor was it the topic of this thread: you butted into the exchange between twoscents and myself on enacting laws between states, not electing a president.
Bravo! You should start a thread about that! Despite your passion on the issue, sadly this thread isn’t about the Electoral College, and the Electoral College itself is a relatively minor issue in the overall system of government (only producing results anomalous with the nationwide popular vote what, three times in 225 years?) But nice try, nonetheless!
If you don’t care to argue that the U.S. has a system worthy of emulation or defend your (seemingly paradoxical) conception of democracy, that’s your business. But I would appreciate it if you refrained from speculating about my beliefs.
That statement of mine was in reference to the hypothetical combination of states into larger plebiscites and not an argument for the dissolution of the American states. The thread is not about how to improve our government but why it hasn’t been copied by other nations. In that vein, I agree with Lakai. A federal system is worthwhile for countries more divided than the United States. The situation in Iraq, for instance, pretty much cried out for federalism, IMO.
No, it’s not. The Magna Carta does not lay out a system of government. It’s a laundry list of things the king will and will not do. As such it’s more like a bill of rights. The original Constitution didn’t even contain the Bill of Rights (though Habeas Corpus- the major right guaranteed in the Magna Carta from our point of view was included right from the start).
One reason might be the physical size of the United States. A seperate state/federal governmental system is reasonable when across the country groups may have highly significantly different requirements from their government. There aren’t a huge amount of democracies that much the U.S. in terms of landmass and diversity of same.
Mainly I suspect it’s just some kind of patriotic habit, though.
Um, because *“works for me…” * is a more frequent and dominant criterion for choosing political systems than we’d like to think? Last I checked, the US doesn’t particularly seek to export the specific mechanical construct of our system; most of the time it looks like we do not care if our allies or clients have presidentialist, parliamentary or federal systems, as long as they support, or at least get out of the way, of US interests.
That, and a large proportion of Americans have a sort of chicken-and-egg thing going, a tautology of national pride and political pride, wherein this is the greatest government because it’s the government of the greatest country and this is a great country because it has a great government… and they don’t particularly care if Canada does it differently and it works good for them.
It worked for the time, just as the US constitution worked for the time. If you took the paper document that is the US constitution (as it was written on the day) could you run your government straight off of that?
Everything is changed and adapted over time. The Magna Carta (1215) was revolutionary for it’s time, the US constitution (1787) was revolutionary for it’s time. Perhaps around the year 2580 (when it’s as far from the US constitution’s signing date as it is now from the Magna Carta) then people will be looking at the US constitution and saying “well, it’s just a laundry list of what the government will and will not do”. Expectations change, I think both documents were revolutionary for when they were written.
You’re correct that Magna Carta did not lay out a system of government, but its significance lies in the fact that AFAIK, for the first time in history, there was a check on the king’s power. In other words, the king’s duties started to be defined by what he couldn’t do: “No freemen shall be taken or imprisoned … except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land” reads clause 39 (at this translation), and with that, the king couldn’t act against the barons as he felt like it. Habeas corpus yes, and it would appear later as we all know; but more significantly, here was a check on the king’s power.
In this sense, Magna Carta influenced the US Constitution. The US Constitution lays out a system of federal government, yes; but like Magna Carta, it also puts checks on that federal government. “Here is how we’ll make our federal government, and here is what it will do, and what isn’t mentioned is left to the states or the people to decide” is pretty much what the US Constitution is all about. The US Constitution’s significance lies in the fact that it’s pretty much the first document that lays out a system of government and the rights that are granted under that government, in one place. Other governments had developed over time, and their “constitutions” (including the rights of the people) were combinations of unwritten convention and bits and pieces of legislation nobody dared tamper with (the UK for example). But such things were not collected and documented in one place.
Both Magna Carta and the US Constitution are significant documents in world history, but to call one more important than the other is IMHO, pushing it. This may be where the “arguably” comes into it. Each represented a “first” of some kind, and thus each is likely equally significant.