SubArcticTundra
@SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml
- Comment on UwU 10 hours ago:
She reminds me of the German ex-foreign minister Bärbock
- Comment on How would you rate your country's constitution? 19 hours ago:
Yes, I have a feeling your democracy will ultimately prevail, purely by virtue of how used the general population is to freedom
- Comment on Palantir’s UK boss criticises ‘ideological’ groups as ministers move to scrap NHS contract 1 day ago:
‘ideological’ groups
How arrogant of Palantir to dismiss justified opposition to it as ‘ideological’
- Comment on How would you rate your country's constitution? 1 day ago:
Yes, I think the knowledge that they will never get to be Top Dog – however many boots they lick – must act as quite a good psychological deterrent against wannabe aithoritarians like BoJo or Liz Truss
- Comment on How would you rate your country's constitution? 1 day ago:
Hungary:
- Non-proportional parliament (easy to get a single party majority)
- Single chamber
- President elected by said chamber, not by popular vote as other countries
As you can see, the Hungarian system has a single point of failure. It is then no surprise that when Viktor Orban’s party won the 2010 election, where was practically no stopping them going on from there
- Comment on Utroba Cave in Bulgaria 1 day ago:
Interesting, in Czech útroba means innard(s)
- Comment on How would you rate your country's constitution? 1 day ago:
I goess that does leave the congressional route far more viable. Idk when the convention route would ever be easoer
- Comment on How would you rate your country's constitution? 1 day ago:
Oh I see, 2/3 isn’t that bad. I was under the impression it required 3/4 of all states – but that’s the alternate method, right?
- Comment on How would you rate your country's constitution? 1 day ago:
Yes, Canada’s Notwithstanding clauses have also seemed like stupidity to me. That said, democracy with even a toothless constitution seems to be possible, if you look at the UK. I guess the question is whether Canada has the same political environment that has made it work in the UK for so long
- Comment on How would you rate your country's constitution? 1 day ago:
Czechia: IMO pretty durable
- Two chambers – House and Senate
- Each has a diferent election system => different composition
- Upper house has staggered terms, takes 6 years to replace
- Need 60% in both for constitutional changes
Here comes the clever part:
Abolishing democracy would requite breaking a Catch-22. All you need to govern is a majority in the lower house. Hence populist leaders only fight to gain majorities in the House. The Senate is powerless when it comes to everyday policy (it can be overruled) and only has teeth when it comes to blocking changes to the constitution. Most populist voters find the Senate pointless and hence do not go to vote in its elections. The only people who go to vote in Senate elections are those who understand its importance as a constitutional break. So the chamber self-filters an electorate that finds democracy important.
- Comment on How would you rate your country's constitution? 1 day ago:
UK:
- No constitution, no hard checks and balances
- A law introducing slavery could be passed with a simple majority vote
- No guarantee of stability, a new govt can repeal any of the previous govt’s laws
You’d think this would be playing with fire but the fact that it has managed to last this long makes you question a lot of the assumptions that people usually use to justify hard constitutions.
It would seem that checks in the UK system do exist, but just weren’t explicitly designed and aren’t written into law anywhere:
- The population has a sense for what is democratic and anyone trying to abolish democracy would face immense pushback
- A prime minister may have a majority on paper, but British political parties are fractious rebels often appear even in the PM’s own party
- The legislative process seems to contain a lot of friction as is, even theoretically OK laws have problems passing for a myriad of reasons
- Whereas in other countries long-term policies would be entrenched in constitutions, in the UK MPs have to think of more creative ways to make them difficult to repeal (usually connecting repealing them with some big political cost).
- Comment on How would you rate your country's constitution? 2 days ago:
Italy:
Government needs confidence of both chambers at once
Wtf how do you guys manage to have any kind of stable government?
- Comment on How would you rate your country's constitution? 2 days ago:
US:
- Very very high threshold for amendment
- 2-party system
Honestly I think that if you removed these two hurdles, the rest of the problems would sort themselves out. IMO a very strong point of the US constitution is the strong federalism that it has, making it hard for someone to centralize all power in the country, however hard they might be trying right now.
The one other main weak point I can think of is:
- Politicised judicial nominations
- Submitted 2 days ago to [deleted] | 27 comments
- Comment on Basic geography 3 days ago:
You haven’t been on 9gag, some of the comments on there are also something else
- Comment on Star Trilogy 3 days ago:
Or perhaps you’re fleeing— trekking— to the gate from the war
- Comment on my bad twin 5 days ago:
Poor bro must have tried biting into that
- Comment on Looks like meat's back on the menu! 5 days ago:
Who does the Wormphone™ call?
- Comment on Looks like meat's back on the menu! 5 days ago:
How does it compare to eg. a Smirnoff? I’ve never had one before
- Comment on Someone out there in front of his screen after watching his mom's VHS tape titled "My little adventures" 5 days ago:
I can send you it and I ask for a verbal summary
- Comment on The Danish Pride Flag 6 days ago:
How unpatriotic!
- Comment on The Danish Pride Flag 6 days ago:
I definitely think there are things to be learnt from how eg. China does government. But not copied verbatim
- Comment on The Danish Pride Flag 6 days ago:
If only the SPD got more votes it’d be your national flag
- Comment on Someone out there in front of his screen after watching his mom's VHS tape titled "My little adventures" 6 days ago:
Haha, I guess not everyone can say they’ve witnessed their life all the way from conception
- Comment on Someone out there in front of his screen after watching his mom's VHS tape titled "My little adventures" 6 days ago:
Luckily for my mom, I don’t have the tech to play VHS tapes any more. So her adventures are staying on the tape
- Comment on Stiff upper lip, perhaps? 6 days ago:
Idk, British people seem pretty kind to me
- Comment on Im pan so anyone can apply 1 week ago:
Jealous
- Comment on Im pan so anyone can apply 1 week ago:
What happened??
- Comment on Im pan so anyone can apply 1 week ago:
I knew there would be loopholes in the bible!
- Comment on Im pan so anyone can apply 1 week ago:
You kean anti-sex if your goal is to become more horny