h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

If a political party is responsible for investing the judges, and the judges are responsible for investing the president, and the president comes from a political party, how is that compatible with democratic principles?

It isn't.
Any alternative to proportional representation is disproportionate representation...in this case the judges votes (in the form of judgements) counted more than the peoples.
However, a nation isn't undemocratic if it makes mistakes in implementing democracy...unless it doesn't learn from and fix those mistakes.

Aha! Now I understand. I come from a less developed democracy, so I was curious... Thank you for clearing that up.

Well, as you are a citizen and I am a subject, I would have to say that you come from a far more fair and well developed democracy than I do...and you have a constitution too.

Constitution? (Don't you have one?) Ah yes... I remember now. It was apparently amended back in the fifties. The 101th paragraph was removed. It read something like "Jew and Gypsies shall not be allowed in the Kingdom". Amazing how long it takes to get around to amend such obvious blunders...
Still subjects over in England? Is there any difference between a subject and a citizen? Apart from the name, of course...

You may mock, but a written constitution is a powerful tool against despotic power hungry despots.

For instance, people in the UK no longer have the right to remain silent (as per "US pleading the 5th"). This legislation was passed by our elected representatives without a true mandate and is probably a contravention of our human rights...except, as subjects, we don't have any.

Soon the UK government will start work on an enourmous data warehouse to hold every email, fax and telephone call originating or ending in the UK. Then we will have no right to privacy....because as subjects we don't anyway.

Therefore I will say it again, revolution. There are some political systems that just can´t be solved politically.

Revolution, brave new order, stagnation, corruption, collapse, repeat.

There is nothing new under the sun (still less, in The Sun)

I assume you refer to the recent USA election. In which case, it should be clarified that political parties are not responsible for investing judges (in the case of the US Supreme Court they are appointed by a President and approved by the House of Representatives - or is it the Senate? some part of Congress). Judges of any court are not responsible for investing the President; they are responsible for interpreting laws. Another common misconception is that our (USA) form of government is a democracy when it is in fact a Republic. (Remember that pledge of allegiance we used to say every morning? It goes, "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands ...") I think this has been done to death in some other thread around here, but I thought I'd just point it out.

As someone else said, that isn't to say that this form of government can't be changed. It is, after all, up to us how we wish to govern ourselves. THAT's what democracy is all about!

- JD (not a scientist)

Well, what I want is not a bloody revolution. What I want is something like when people discover on their vote-thingy that there are only two options and they want the third, they go to the stairs of the government and tells them. And perhaps forces them to eat a few pounds of banana. And you don´t need to end up with corruption, I come from a country that was chosen as the second-least corrupted country in the world. Makes you wonder how much they paid the commitee to make them say that What´s mainly wrong with my country is not corruption but too much bureacracy, and people who vote for politicians for what they say, not for what they do. And intolerance.

Educate me please, what's the difference between a democracy and a republic? ..and how come brits are oppressed like that?

Incidently, federal judges are confirmed by the Senate.

The difference between a dmocracy and a republic is that in a democracy, the majority can do whatever they want. If you can muster 50%+1 of the vote you can take away whatever 50%-1 has. Democracy was very much a feared from of government by our founding fathers. They thought that it was one step away from a mob. As a matter of fact, a mob is a democracy.

In a republic we are represented by officials. Ideally, in a consitutional republic like the one we live in, we are protected from the majority and from tyrants by limitations placed upon the power of government.

A democracy is four wolves and a sheep voting on dinner.

Are you sure? I though that parliamentarism (and the idea of the three institutes of power) took care of that...

There are numerous safeguards built into the American government. Multiple branches of government with different functions, a federal system where the different levels of government have different functions and powers over one another, a Constitution that is supposed to limit what the government can do, etc.

Of course, it's all eroding away.

Yeah but.. If I have understood this thread correctly, what you have in USA is a republic, while what we have here in Norway is a (slightly monarchic) democracy... but parliamentarism is involved heavily in the going ons here (Norway) as well as there (USA). I am (truly and honestly) confused.

The word "republic" literally means "of the people", so any elected government without a monarch or religious head of state is a republic.

That's true, but like any other discription of politics, you measure stuff on a sliding scale. We are sort of a democratic society in that we elect some of our representatives. Some states allow for direct democracy by allowing ballot issues. However, we don't elect some of the people who represent us, for isntance we do not elect our president, we vote on electors. We don't vote on very many issues, we leave that to our legislatures. I'm sure there are many countries that are far more democratic than we are.

Your statement is also why I tend to refer to us as a consititutional republic, although I suppose it would be better to refer to us as a constitutional federal republic. Each word describes an important facit of how we protect ourselves from governmnet, tyranny and democracy.

I think it is about time we get ourselves (Britain) a written constitution and become a republic. But I think we should edit out the bit that goes on about firearms .

Another quibble with the US constitution is that it puts individual freedom too strongly above freedom within society. I believe that is why the US political scene is so much more to the right than the UK. Capital punishment still baffles me!

Then why bother. The whole idea is to allow individuals as much freedom as possible so that they can pursue their own lives without interference by government while still having a government to protect us against those who would use fraud or force to harm us or take our property.

If you're not concenred about liberty, what does it matter whether your rights are taken away by royal command or by a written constitution.

I think our 'right wing' politics comes more from our history of individualism, than our constitution. Of course, our constitution is written the way it is because of our history of individualism as well. Unforctunatly, many people seem to have abandoned that legacy.

Here's how we resolve the judge thing... they aren't responsible to the people who put them in office, because they are appointed for life. So, once they get into office, they are free to vote their consciences, without regard to political forces. There are tons of examples of this throughout US history. In the modern court, Sandra Day O'Connor has been a continual disappointment to Mr. Reagan, who appointed her. And although she was appointed by an extremely conservative president, it was a liberal Senate that confirmed her.

Personal freedom has to be put on a premium if the people are to have any liberty at all. "You must preserve the rights of the few who will abuse those rights, else you deny them to the many who will not." If you didn't grant gangsta rappers the right to clutter society with cursing and anti-societal crap, you'd end up stifling the free speech that makes our democracy work... because once you start exercising censorship, where do you stop? The same can be said of every other right. I love the fact that we have a written constitution which guarantees our rights, especially when you consider how many times the Supreme Court has struck down laws that violated those constitutional rights. If we hadn't gotten them guaranteed in the beginning, we would have lost them long since. We are, however, losing them by increments, and the people are accepting it. Rugged individualism is a dying trait in the States, and the society as a whole is going to pay for it.