Thread: Newt Gingrich

They wanted checks and balances between the branches of government. But I'm not sure they envisioned a 2 parties that did nothing but try to sabotage each other.

Originally Posted by Jimbo7

This makes sense, thanks for the info!

I was with you until here:



We have a presidency, a house and senate, and a judiciary. It is extremely difficult to control all three. I guess that was my point earlier with the gridlock comment. Though the presidency is important, he or she is only a piece of a puzzle. Thus the balance of power and--i daresay--intentional gridlock.

Originally Posted by Slartibartfast

They wanted checks and balances between the branches of government. But I'm not sure they envisioned a 2 parties that did nothing but try to sabotage each other.

Hamilton and Jefferson personified two opposed parties and they were quite nasty to each other. Partisanship, whether they wanted it or not, had already reared its ugly head.

I think part of the difficulty, at least for me, when it comes to the two parties constantly butting heads is that there are some things I'd like them to grow up and compromise on, and there are some things where I want them unwavering.

The things I want them to compromise on and the things I want them to fight tooth and nail for are different than those of the guy that lives next door. No one can agree on anything!

At one time people came to congress to do the business of the country and the agenda of their party was second in line to be worked into the business part. These days the primary purpose of coming to Congress is to screw the other party. The business of the country is a distant second thought. That's the problem and the electorate put these people there but were they influenced by some unseen force with ulterior motives? That's the problem too.

So they had a dream? A dream of 2 parties.. 2 parties that would do whatever it takes to destroy their counterparts. No matter what the cost. prostitutes, shady lobbyists, insider trading... yes this was the dream of our founding fathers.

They hoped one party would be willing to destroy the lives of thousands in order to destroy political ambitions of one. Yes... Our founding fathers would cry tears of joy.

Originally Posted by Jimbo7

Hamilton and Jefferson personified two opposed parties and they were quite nasty to each other. Partisanship, whether they wanted it or not, had already reared its ugly head.

You guys all make great points. I do feel like those who are comfortable will go with the status quo, no matter what it is.
One thing is certain, we must continue to discuss and respect one another and thank God for our forefathers, many of who, are commemorated today, Dec 7th, for fighting to keep our country free as well as many others. In many countries, they cannot talk as we do.
God Bless America! .......get it on.............Tom

Meh.

Everyone who doesn't see it my way is an idiot.

I once heard Presbyterian minister Donald Gray Barnhouse (famous at one time) say that the first example of 'brotherly love' was Cain & Abel. I hear guys say we should get the broom and do a clean sweep, get them all out of there, and put a new bunch in. the problem is that human nature being what it is, it wouldn't be long before we were right back to square one.

Sometimes going back to square one is just the cycle of life.

Originally Posted by Jimbo7

I've seen this type of statement a lot lately from Europeans. I mean this with not one shred of sarcasm: Do you parties and/or politicians work with each other? My thinking is that if they did, why delineate themselves at all?

It works roughly like this:
- every party has their primary ideology. These are usually different per party.
- every party has a number of secondary ideologies. These have various overlaps to other parties.
- there are enough parties that not a single one gets a majority, ever.
- people here generally vote for the party which they think addresses their concerns at that time.
- there is also no ill feeling between people of different ideology. It is normal for members of a family to vote differently, and if I talk about politics with friends or colleagues, we can be of different preference without this having an effect on the conversation or the friendship.
- parties do not change their primary ideology over time. At least, not dramatically so.

With each election, someone is appointed 'informer' which means he has to talk with the various party leaders to figure out which coalitions are possible to form a majority. After that, there is a 'formation leader' whose job it is to coordinate the talks between the coalition members in order to get a declaration of governance. This person is usually the future prime minister.

The key thing is that the major chalklines of the next governing period are decided at that time, insuring that whatever gets decided on then, gets implemented in detail later on. The hard part is he negotiations. Once that is done, all ships sail in the same direction. This also means that the governance of the country is never solely decided by e.g. the liberals, or the socialists, or the conservatives. And it also means that no single party gets to dominate the direction. So on the whole, what gets done is a fairly good representation of what the population wants done, without extremes in any direction.

The key are the coalition talks, and the fact that no party can dominate.
The weakness is that there has to be a concensus before there can be a government.
My own country has just come out of a consitutional crisis that has been coming to a boil for many years now.
We had 541 days between the election and the elected representatives taking the oath. We had to resolve constitutional problems for which every party had drawn lines in the sand. Usually this process takes a number of weeks. Future elections will likely be normal again, taking a number of weeks to get things going.

I readily admit that our process has its problems as well, given the importance of up front concensus.
But otoh the direction of our country does not seem to osciallate between 2 extremes like what happens in the US.
Perhaps because of this, elections here are fought over issues, because the issues are what gets the votes. Noone here cares about the sexual preference of the people (our new PM is gay) or their religious persuasion or skin color. It doesn't even get brought up. Noone cares because the issues will get the votes to the parties, not the people per se.