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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

#241

Post by crooked-v »

Chinjut wrote: post #12
theodric wrote: post #11

The point of the hereditary peerage was the same as the point of having a non-elected Senate. Now both will have been lost in the name of "democracy" - a system of government that constantly fails to do either what is the desire of the people OR what is truly in their interests. From here on out it'll just be whoever manages to connive their way into power through connections, payola, corruption, island meetups, and…

The Senate is, while not the whole story, a significant part of the reason the government constantly fails to do what is either the desire of the people or what's in their interests. I wouldn't lament losing the Senate.

The Senate was fundamentally from the start a compromise in favor of the slave-owning ogliarchy. You just have to look at free and slave states being admitted in pairs to preserve the status quo of slavery to see how that went.

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

#242

Post by justonceokay »

MichaelRo wrote: post #225
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.

[flagged]

At least we know this wasn’t written by AI

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

#243

Post by amiga386 »

That something is ancient and traditional doesn't mean it's good.

Rotten boroughs also existed for hundreds of years. Parliament got rid of them in 1832, and good fucking riddance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotten_and_pocket_boroughs

> For centuries, parliamentary representation and the right to vote in elections to the House of Commons remained largely unchanged from medieval times, even as population and economic activity shifted, contributing to an unequal distribution of seats by the early 19th century. In some constituencies the electorate was so small that seats could be controlled through patronage, bribery, or coercion, and many seats were treated almost as "property" under longstanding family influence. Early 19th-century reformers used the term rotten borough for depopulated constituencies that retained representation, and pocket borough for constituencies effectively "in the pocket" of a patron who could dominate the outcome.

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

#244

Post by kelseyfrog »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #222
IgorPartola wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that the US constitution was written before people realized that the natural consequence of that type of constitution is a two party system. You cannot have a viable third party in the long run because it will necessarily weaken one or the other existing party and that party will then absorb it. So no you have a situation where the government can have split brain: some parts of the legislative branch c…

> The problem is that the US constitution was written before people realized that the natural consequence of that type of constitution is a two party system. The two party system is a consequence of using first past the post voting, which the US constitution doesn't even require. Use score voting instead, which can be done by ordinary legislation without any constitutional amendment, and you don't have a two party sy…

Are we reading the same constitution?

Article II, Section 1

> The Person having the greatest Number of Votes shall be the President

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

#246

Post by hunterpayne »

JCattheATM wrote: post #211
tialaramex wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's simply not as clear or coherent as a written one. No. As you have surely seen, the US written constitution just gets contorted to "clearly" mean whatever it is the partisan Justices decided suits their current purpose. The effect is extremely corrosive - they even decided it means their guy is above the law. I agree that using a better voting system (STV) is a meaningful benefit and worth replicating elsewhere…

The power of a constitution is in it being the highest law in the land, that legislation can't just override. It's only recently in the US that there is a blatantly corrupt kakistocracy who feels free to ignore it.

Counterpoint, the recent ruling on the Tariffs.

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

#247

Post by cindyllm »

justonceokay wrote: post #238
queuebert wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 expec…

It’s true. In the long arc of history I have no doubt that our current government systems will be considered childish

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

#248

Post by telesilla »

fy20 wrote: post #213
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…

> these nobles have lost their inherent power The nobles were the land owners, the business owners, the OG entrepreneurs, they were educated, and their children would grow up to be the same. Historically the system made sense. But the last 150 years or so have basically taken their power away. A couple of years ago an estate - that included a 9 bedroom country house, plus an entire village with a population of 100 pe…

Because 150 years ago the labour to keep the estate running was very cheap. Now that labour is expensive, it costs more in maintenance than the property is worth, unless it's highly productive land. Reminds me of the joke, how to make a thousand dollars: buy a million dollar boat.

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

#249

Post by r14c »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #176
Jensson wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is the one argument left for monarchy; that the military in the UK (and technically Australia) swear loyatly to the monarch, not the Prime Minister. In the event of an obviously-lunatic elected official ordering the troops into civilian areas to "pacify" civilian populations, the monarch could (in theory) countermand that order.

Isn't that worse? You don't even get to elect the commander in chief, its just some random guy who was born into it?

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

#250

Post by burnt-resistor »

bradleyjg wrote: post #236

When the logic for bicameralism disappears, you should get rid of the second chamber. Not just find some other random thing to do with it. See, also, US state legislatures post Reynolds v. Sims.

The logic is to divide power into as many pieces as possible to prevent tyranny by structure. Unless you admire totalitarianism and unitary executive theory.
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