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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

#181

Post by martythemaniak »

alexpotato wrote: post #68
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…

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.

That view is a leftover from a bygone era, when others could look at the US with often grudging admiration. Today? The US itself doesn't think much of itself, and to the rest of us it is a cautionary tale.

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

#182

Post by trebligdivad »

alexpotato wrote: post #68
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…

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.

Note that this change is not getting rid of the Lords; it's just getting rid of Hereditary piers - i.e. those passed down through generations. We'll still have Lords who have been selected by previous governments within their lifetime; so they still provide that speed bump; but do it in a way that means they were at some point chosen by an elected body.

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

#183

Post by laughing_man »

Jensson wrote: post #165
laughing_man wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's really no way around the possibility that whatever you've written down in your constitution will be ignored in the heat of the moment, or become degraded over time.

But you don't need to put the military under the direct command of the civilian president like US does, if parliament can take military action against the civilian president and civilian action against the military leader then they have ways to deal with both. American president is too powerful to deal with since he controls both the civilian and the military side.

There's a mechanism by which Congress can remove the president if he gets out of control.

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

#184

Post by charcircuit »

kergonath wrote: post #78
mindwok wrote: post #20

British democracy and government is cool. It's not enshrined in some document they got together and wrote down like the US constitution, it's this organic thing that they've stumbled towards over the last ~800 years with small changes like this one gradually evolving them into a modern liberal democracy.

> It's not enshrined in some document they got together and wrote down like the US constitution It’s also very brittle and one charismatic populist away from unraveling like the American government. Too much depends on gentlemen agreements and people trusting other people to do the right thing. It works in a stable environment, but shatters the moment someone with no shame and no scruples shows up.

Being able to vote in a strong leader to fix things directly is a feature. Democracy is not always the answer and when it is it can be too slow when time matters.

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

#185

Post by mastax »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #174
skissane wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My guess is that all those who are actually useful will get "grandfathered in" by this legislation making them life peers The government made a political deal with the hereditary peers-drop their fight against this bill, and in exchange the government will grant a subset of them life peerages But that political deal is just an informal extralegal “understanding”, it isn’t actually in the text of the bill-having the…

> The government made a political deal with the hereditary peers-drop their fight against this bill, and in exchange the government will grant a subset of them life peerages Wouldn't a "deal" theoretically benefit both sides? That one doesn't offer the hereditary peers anything they don't already have.

Only 92 of the 842 peers are hereditary currently, so it’s not really necessary to convince them to agree; the deal only needs to be seen as fair enough by the other peers. Or really, it only needs to be seen as fair enough to the House of Commons.

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

#186

Post by themafia »

mindwok wrote: post #20

British democracy and government is cool. It's not enshrined in some document they got together and wrote down like the US constitution, it's this organic thing that they've stumbled towards over the last ~800 years with small changes like this one gradually evolving them into a modern liberal democracy.

It's significantly ruined by automated royal assent. The balance that's meant to protect the realm has not functioned for decades.

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

#187

Post by themafia »

nxm wrote: post #144
sb057 wrote: post #27

Also in the pipeline: elimination of jury trials https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cm2x01yne13o

What a horrible idea - your fate should never be decided by a single individual.

In the US it's just called a "bench trial." You can ask for one. It's often advantageous to do so.

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

#188

Post by Affric »

trimethylpurine wrote: post #158
xp84 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it's in my opinion one of the great tragedies of our time that some of our established countries are so hard to change. I don't mean this as the policy needs change, everyone will differ on those. I just mean the technology of government like you're saying. Efficient and more fair ways of voting on laws and electing representatives do exist. For example my own (US) has a political system basically frozen in ambe…

> "The framers didn't realize that most changes would be blocked by at least one party, out of fear that it would advantage the other guys." Check out some of the founders' essays. This is no accident, or oversight. It's absolutely intentional and for good reason. The Constitution grants power to all three branches of government, which is the same as granting power to none of them. The more they disagree, the less po…

Working very well as we can see currently.

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

#189

Post by queuebert »

xp84 wrote: post #111
kimos wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love this about Ireland because they are such a young republic. And democratic systems are a technology. Something that we understand better over time, and somewhere new can pick and choose from what is best, where it is _extremely_ hard to change existing systems in established countries.

Yes, it's in my opinion one of the great tragedies of our time that some of our established countries are so hard to change. I don't mean this as the policy needs change, everyone will differ on those. I just mean the technology of government like you're saying. Efficient and more fair ways of voting on laws and electing representatives do exist. For example my own (US) has a political system basically frozen in ambe…

New and shiny is not always better. Science has spoiled us in the last century, but it has little to say about how a good government should operate.

Many of us have a popular set of ideals that we think are superior and have attempted to overlay those on every aspect of modern life, but they have little to no data behind them and are ultimately just beliefs that make us feel good. As such, there is no reason to expect they are optimal for governing either.

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

#190

Post by throwaway85825 »

kergonath wrote: post #78
mindwok wrote: post #20

British democracy and government is cool. It's not enshrined in some document they got together and wrote down like the US constitution, it's this organic thing that they've stumbled towards over the last ~800 years with small changes like this one gradually evolving them into a modern liberal democracy.

> It's not enshrined in some document they got together and wrote down like the US constitution It’s also very brittle and one charismatic populist away from unraveling like the American government. Too much depends on gentlemen agreements and people trusting other people to do the right thing. It works in a stable environment, but shatters the moment someone with no shame and no scruples shows up.

Constitution and laws are just pieces of paper. They only matter if the population acts as if they matter. Liberia has the same Constitution as the US.
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