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Britain is ejecting hereditary nobles from Parliament after 700 years

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Re: Britain is ejecting hereditary nobles from Parliament after 700 years

#141

Post by [deleted] »

kiba wrote: post #83
alexpotato wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To play devil's advocate: Some people argue that the difficulty of passing laws in the United States is "a feature not a bug" b/c it prevents the US from creating laws too quickly. You could argue the House of Lords did the same: by vetoing bills, it acted as a "speed bump" to laws that might cause too much change too quickly.

It doesn't really help the United States create good law. You could argue that it worsen the quality of laws by forcing kludges to be built on top of kludges. A sortition panel collecting random people from all walks of life to give feedback on law would probably improve the quality of law more than any amount of procedure and paperwork ever will. We mistaken paperwork with deliberation and quality control.

[deleted]

Re: Britain is ejecting hereditary nobles from Parliament after 700 years

#142

Post by nxm »

vkou wrote: post #110
alexpotato wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To play devil's advocate: Some people argue that the difficulty of passing laws in the United States is "a feature not a bug" b/c it prevents the US from creating laws too quickly. You could argue the House of Lords did the same: by vetoing bills, it acted as a "speed bump" to laws that might cause too much change too quickly.

You get something far worse in the US. Which is a government that no longer feels any need to either pass or be bound by laws.

Hyperbole beyond belief there

Re: Britain is ejecting hereditary nobles from Parliament after 700 years

#143

Post by AnthonyMouse »

kennywinker wrote: post #107
kiba wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't really help the United States create good law. You could argue that it worsen the quality of laws by forcing kludges to be built on top of kludges. A sortition panel collecting random people from all walks of life to give feedback on law would probably improve the quality of law more than any amount of procedure and paperwork ever will. We mistaken paperwork with deliberation and quality control.

I’d go further. To bypass the deadlocked congress, obama used executive orders in new and expansive ways. That ratcheted things up. Now trump is using executive orders even MORE expansively, to do things that are patently undemocratic and unconstitutional (federalizing who can vote, ilegal tariffs). The kludges and hacks are causing a crumbling of democracy, not just mediocre law.

The problem here isn't the temptation to bypass a system intended to require consensus before action can be taken. That temptation is present with any system that provides any checks on autocratic tyranny.

The problem is that something like executive orders are being used to bypass that system instead of being prevented from doing so.

Re: Britain is ejecting hereditary nobles from Parliament after 700 years

#145

Post by bigger_cheese »

skissane wrote: post #70
protocolture wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why does the House of Lords need to be replaced at all? Most countries are gridlocked enough with one chamber of parliament. Depends how it is designed. The australian senate, before 2015 or so, used to contain enough fun cooks that legislation had to get broad support to make it through. It was a pretty decent check against the beige dictatorship. But since they updated the voting rules to prevent the cool minor pa…

> The australian senate, before 2015 or so, used to contain enough fun cooks that legislation had to get broad support to make it through. It was a pretty decent check against the beige dictatorship. But since they updated the voting rules to prevent the cool minor parties from holding the balance, its just been a massive rubber stamp Current numbers in Australian Senate: Government 29, Opposition 27, Crossbench 20,…

The Australian parliament is weird but it kind of works.

Members of the House of Representatives ("lower house") are elected via preferential voting and each member represents a single electorate (there are 150 electorates), all of the electorates are roughly proportional population wise (there is an independent body that draws up the boundaries), however the geographical area covered by each electorate can vary greatly. For example in the State of New South Wales there are dozen of electorates covering the various suburbs of Sydney and one massively sized electorate covering a huge rural portion of the same state where population density is very low.

The Senate (Upper House) is fixed there are 12 members for every state and 1 member per territory. This means that Tasmania which is a fraction of the population of New South Wales has exactly the same number of Senators. There are about half a million people in Tasmania compares to 8 Million+ in NSW. So relatively speaking your upper house vote has way more power if you live in a smaller state.

The senate also uses transferable vote with a quota system. The quota system and "vote transfer" makes it a little weird and it is why minor candidates can percolate up and end up a senator despite relatively small primary vote.

Re: Britain is ejecting hereditary nobles from Parliament after 700 years

#146

Post by kennywinker »

canarypilot wrote: post #139
kennywinker wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d go further. To bypass the deadlocked congress, obama used executive orders in new and expansive ways. That ratcheted things up. Now trump is using executive orders even MORE expansively, to do things that are patently undemocratic and unconstitutional (federalizing who can vote, ilegal tariffs). The kludges and hacks are causing a crumbling of democracy, not just mediocre law.

Yes, and, Bush-Cheney were the modern forefathers of pushing the unitary executive theory, building on the work of Reagan after a 90’s shaped lull. Reagan took ideas from The Heritage Foundation, who returned in the ‘24 elections pushing Project 2025. A natural endgame and roadmap for the movement of power to the president, that is being followed as approximately as any political roadmap ever is. Remember that each t…

So I should remember that… never? Got it. ;)

Re: Britain is ejecting hereditary nobles from Parliament after 700 years

#147

Post by koakuma-chan »

pseudalopex wrote: post #73
jongjong wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need to have a very cynical worldview already to find my comment boring; as in; no information content. I really don't think most people are there yet.

> You need to have a very cynical worldview already to find my comment boring; as in; no information content. Boring does not mean no information content. But the part of your comment about comment voting was boring and noise.

I think that guideline means that if your own comment gets downvoted, don't reply complaining about it. A "why was this downvoted? it's true" from another user is fine, I think.

Re: Britain is ejecting hereditary nobles from Parliament after 700 years

#148

Post by deaux »

cbeach wrote: post #116

Removal of hereditary privilege is a good thing in principle. However, given the Labour party just gave children the vote, cancelled local elections in conservative-leaning areas, and now they're removing the (traditionally conservative-leaning) hereditary peers, it's starting to feel a lot like the Left are gerrymandering our democracy.

There is no reasonable definition of "the Left" that includes the British Labour party. The only one that fits would be "to the left of the British Conservative party", but that's as arbitrary as redefining it "to the left of Reform UK" and then starting to call the tories "The Left".

Re: Britain is ejecting hereditary nobles from Parliament after 700 years

#149

Post by lo_zamoyski »

endoblast wrote: post #57

When Wellington thrashed Bonaparte, As every child can tell, The House of Peers, throughout the war, Did nothing in particular, And did it very well; Yet Britain set the world ablaze In good King George's glorious days! (from Iolanthe by Gilbert and Sullivan) Gather a group of the most powerful people in the land; give them ermine robes and manifold privileges; require of them nothing other than that they meet regula…

> meet regularly to converse and debate

Senators play a similar role. Their aim is heavily weighted toward oversight and advisory. Gov’t in general is weighted in that direction, because governments govern which is mainly about being a kind of referee, maintaining the social order, and aiding human beings in attaining their end as human beings through legislation.

Without this function, we have activity with little reflection spurred by politicians pandering to the mob.

Re: Britain is ejecting hereditary nobles from Parliament after 700 years

#150

Post by BigTTYGothGF »

rvz wrote: post #58
pjc50 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fairness, this is not unique to Britain. For America read "4" instead of "5".

Are there unelected hereditary nobles somewhere in the US that is entitled to having a seat in congress and can vote against laws being passed? Nope. I don't think so, not even the length of the term is the same.

In the US our unelected hereditary nobility just buys candidates.
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