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Somehow I thought that the part of governing in a democracy was about compromise between factions of the people. While I agree that they are certainly busy and doing what they think is best for their party and possibly constituents the deadlock really isn't helping us any. It should be hard and it should be very thoroughly debated, but it is taking a lot longer than I think it should. Obviously, I have no idea what goes on in the Congress building or how often they debate a particular bill, but a year seems a bit much.

Luco wrote:Somehow I thought that the part of governing in a democracy was about compromise between factions of the people.

Not necessarily. That's how some democracies work (consensus democracies) but, in general, representative democracy has very little to do with compromise. That said, the latter form will often appear to entail compromise, though that is generally because the range of relevant interests is narrow, or because one particular interest is extremely powerful.

Luco wrote:
While I agree that they are certainly busy and doing what they think is best for their party and possibly constituents the deadlock really isn't helping us any. It should be hard and it should be very thoroughly debated, but it is taking a lot longer than I think it should. Obviously, I have no idea what goes on in the Congress building or how often they debate a particular bill, but a year seems a bit much.

It isn't when you consider the amount of money and political power involved.


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Melissia wrote:

Ahtman wrote:That doesn't describe a legislator

You can say that all you want, but you are wrong.

No, he's correct. What Congress is supposed to do, as a unit, has no bearing on what individual legislators are supposed to do.

More to the point, Congress is not required to pass a budget. In fact. the Congress isn't strictly required to do anything. It has powers, not obligations.

Melissia, the thing you're not understanding is that the performance of congress won't be improved by heaping inaccurate and incompetent criticism on them. Actually developing an understanding of the workings of the system, and the motivations of individual members and how the deadlock has been reached may help, but just saying 'they're not doing their jobs' is easy but very useless.

Melissia wrote:

WARBOSS TZOO wrote:They have nothing to be elected on.

Keeping said programs instead of cutting htem.


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Ahtman wrote:@Melissa: Again, it easy to just say that but how are you planning on making it happen?

The only thing I legally can do, I already have done-- I've written my representative and senators to urge them to actually get the damned budget going.

I'm not a congresswoman Ahtman, I don't have any other power aside from that. They do. It's their job to do this gak, and they're FAILING. Don't try to push the blame on me just because the elected representatives, who I voted against in the first place, are screwing up and not doing their damned jobs.

The failing of American governance is a failing of the american people to understand that representative democracy requires an educated populace to be run intelligently. When the populace doesn't know what they want then the government can only do what it's constituents want. That being "We don't know". Criticism without reason or explanation is useless and not knowing what you want a government to do in a representative democracy is akin to wanting it to fail.

ShumaGorath wrote:The failing of American governance is a failing of the american people to understand that representative democracy requires an educated populace to be run intelligently. When the populace doesn't know what they want then the government can only do what it's constituents want. That being "We don't know". Criticism without reason or explanation is useless and not knowing what you want a government to do in a representative democracy is akin to wanting it to fail.

I don't think the Australian electorate is any more educated than the American one, I think at some level what really matters is the ethics of the political parties. We complain in Australia about our politicians, but the fact is that they aren't sinking the political debate with disingenuous bs like their US equivalents.

Melissia wrote:Actually the dems do want it, because then they can get the social programs they need. But they're too incompetent to fight the Repugs properly.

Yet it was a Democratic controlled Congress that failed to make a budget for the first time in what-history? OK maybe when they were running from the Brits or something, but really?

This is probably what the Europeans don't understand. Our government is incompetent, at all levels. Maybe your government provides efficient services and why you feel better about it, but ours is like taking the worst of Italy, Mexico, and 1960's Bulgarian bureaucracy and saying-look we can do even worse!"
At least we're not Zimbabwe?

I think I've figured it out.

The current budget posturing is just that: posturing. Boehner is an old pro, he wants to keep his job and help the GOP in 2012, but he knows the score: the Dems hold the Senate and the White House. However, he has a raftload of freshman reps that were elected on a "cut the budget" platform.

Now, those new guys want to be able to say they fought for as many cuts as possible, but everybody knows that they're not getting what they want.

So, they keep messing around with small cuts to things, and everybody looks tough. Eventually, fiscal year 2011 simply ends, and they worry about the next budget.

For all the fervor of that base, the fact is that the government budget has actually been cut very little for this year, thanks to continuing resolutions.

And the longer these new congressmen are in Washington, the more time they have to either:
1) be corrputed by the system, or
2) realize how the system works,
depending on your view of the process.

Frazzled wrote:

Melissia wrote:Actually the dems do want it, because then they can get the social programs they need. But they're too incompetent to fight the Repugs properly.

Yet it was a Democratic controlled Congress that failed to make a budget for the first time in what-history? OK maybe when they were running from the Brits or something, but really?

Agreed, they fethed up.

Meh. I don't think my criticism is inaccurate at all. Maybe I have too many friends working in the public sector right now or something, but the impression I get is that all of this budget bullgak is playing hell on government institutions and the douches in DC are too focused on politics to actually care about the efficient running of the government.

The short-term budget shenanigans are the result of the Democrat-controlled legislature failing to pass a budget for FY 2010-11. The President proposed a budget in February, for funding starting in October (before the elections), and it never got approved.

I don't remember what the holdup was, whether it was a filibuster by those dastardly Republicans (although I'm reasonably sure filibusters of the budget aren't allowed) or just standard congressional bickering.

Either way, the Democrats had a majority in both the House and Senate from February to October 2010, so there's no reason not to dump responsibility for the current mess on them.

I guess the important thing now is to blame somebody.

Polonius wrote:I guess the important thing now is to blame somebody.

I blame Canada.

Frazzled wrote:

Polonius wrote:I guess the important thing now is to blame somebody.

I blame Canada.

Hot damn, now we're getting somewhere.

Let South Park show us the way:

Frazzled wrote:

Melissia wrote:Actually the dems do want it, because then they can get the social programs they need. But they're too incompetent to fight the Repugs properly.

Yet it was a Democratic controlled Congress that failed to make a budget for the first time in what-history? OK maybe when they were running from the Brits or something, but really?

This is probably what the Europeans don't understand. Our government is incompetent, at all levels. Maybe your government provides efficient services and why you feel better about it, but ours is like taking the worst of Italy, Mexico, and 1960's Bulgarian bureaucracy and saying-look we can do even worse!"
At least we're not Zimbabwe?

"government of the people, by the people, for the people"

Which makes sense, given the stupidity of the average person here locally anyway. There's STILL more than enough people trying to argue that Obama isn't qualified to be president because he wasn't born in the US here, and blaming Obama for everything that happens (even more than people blamed Bush-- they blame Obama for their car crashes for example). Meh.

sebster wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:The failing of American governance is a failing of the american people to understand that representative democracy requires an educated populace to be run intelligently. When the populace doesn't know what they want then the government can only do what it's constituents want. That being "We don't know". Criticism without reason or explanation is useless and not knowing what you want a government to do in a representative democracy is akin to wanting it to fail.

I don't think the Australian electorate is any more educated than the American one

Having never been to australia I can't really venture a guess, but the ignorance of the American public concerning economics, foreign policy, and things like "budgets" is astounding.

I'm becoming saddened by the lack of Blame Canada brand placement in this thread.

ShumaGorath wrote:Having never been to australia I can't really venture a guess, but the ignorance of the American public concerning economics, foreign policy, and things like "budgets" is astounding.

I don't know about the US, but literally half of the evening news on pretty much any channel available is entirely sport related around here.

That might speak to how eddicated I feel the locals are, it might not. YMMV,

A lot of it is probably international sport, though, like the Six Nations and 50/50 World Cup.

I think for Americans it is very easy to forget there is a world outside their borders. You can ignore foreign policy and a lot of what the government really has to do.

Frazzled wrote:
This is probably what the Europeans don't understand. Our government is incompetent, at all levels.

In a democracy the state is a reflection of the electorate.

dogma wrote:

Frazzled wrote:
This is probably what the Europeans don't understand. Our government is incompetent, at all levels.

In a democracy the state is a reflection of the electorate.

God help us all.

Seriously though, a good easy read about that is A Strange Defeat, which is about why France fell so easily to Germany in WWII. One of the main factors was the moderate and and more numerous middle let the fringes take control of the political dialogue.

Frazzled wrote:This is probably what the Europeans don't understand. Our government is incompetent, at all levels.

American exceptionalism is weird.

Everyone thinks their government is terrible. Whether they're American or European or whoever, they assume their government is incompetent at all levels. This is because people don't notice government when it works smoothly (who notices when roads are quickly and efficiently repaired?), and news media being inherently what news media is the focus is always on the failings of government (who ever read a story about the majority of government programs that come in on time, on budget?)

That's how it is, and that's how it's always going to be and that's fine. Government is full of big, grown up people and they can stand being complained about.

But this thing where you think that the US is somehow uniquely incapable of having a competent government is just plain weird.


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ShumaGorath wrote:Having never been to australia I can't really venture a guess, but the ignorance of the American public concerning economics, foreign policy, and things like "budgets" is astounding.

That's pretty universal. The level of knowledge here is just as bad, and other places I've been in the world it doesn't get any better.

Which is why politicians are elected to lead, not follow. They can dick around all they want with this and that, trying to score points on each other and win the next election, but they should understand at the end of the day running the country is serious business, and politics shouldn't get in the way of that.

Kilkrazy wrote:A lot of it is probably international sport, though, like the Six Nations and 50/50 World Cup.

Next time I'm not on the night shift I'll time it, but I'd say that the international content is less than half. Mostly it's about the various forms of football.

Amused by the fact that there is a significant chunk of new republican freshman who refuse to vote for bills that don't contain the "riders" to defund planned parenthood, defund HCR, defund NPR, defund etc. Bohner is going to have a fun time trying to keep them on his side since he is an old school politiker... not a new school "CUT IT ALL".

So, "riders" just sound like extra language written into the bill for pet projects, and don't really have to do with the budget?

Ahtman wrote:

God help us all.

Seriously though, a good easy read about that is A Strange Defeat, which is about why France fell so easily to Germany in WWII. One of the main factors was the moderate and and more numerous middle let the fringes take control of the political dialogue.

scary. I would say the fringes here have COMPLETE control of the political dialogue... because that's what gets people to tune in I guess.

Don't confuse the commentary on the process for the process.

American politics are still about pacifying the people while enriching the interests that fund both parties.

Polonius wrote:
The essence of government is still pacifying the people while enriching the interests that fund both parties.

Generalized.

dogma wrote:

Polonius wrote:
The essence of government is still pacifying the people while enriching the interests that fund both parties.

Generalized.

Sure. But both parties have core values that ensure that the country will have a strong military, a relatively interventionist foriegn policy, be pro-business (in the sense of encouraging businesses to develope) and pro investment (ditto).

Neither parties, even on the fringe, will change those things. The stuff being argued over tends to run more minor.

Polonius wrote:
Sure. But both parties have core values that ensure that the country will have a strong military, a relatively interventionist foriegn policy, be pro-business (in the sense of encouraging businesses to develope) and pro investment (ditto).

Neither parties, even on the fringe, will change those things. The stuff being argued over tends to run more minor.

I would argue that what you're describing has been a feature of all powerful states in history. I'm not disagreeing with you, merely pointing out that what you're describing isn't about America so much as its about humanity.

dogma wrote:

Polonius wrote:
Sure. But both parties have core values that ensure that the country will have a strong military, a relatively interventionist foriegn policy, be pro-business (in the sense of encouraging businesses to develope) and pro investment (ditto).

Neither parties, even on the fringe, will change those things. The stuff being argued over tends to run more minor.

I would argue that what you're describing has been a feature of all powerful states in history. I'm not disagreeing with you, merely pointing out that what you're describing isn't about America so much as its about humanity.

All powerful, stable states certainly. Although you can make the argument that no all states are interventionist (look at modern Japan), but I think the fact that neither party seems to want to change the core of system means that the fringes aren't really in control. They just make a lot of noise about gay marriage and the like.

Polonius wrote:
All powerful, stable states certainly. Although you can make the argument that no all states are interventionist (look at modern Japan), but I think the fact that neither party seems to want to change the core of system means that the fringes aren't really in control. They just make a lot of noise about gay marriage and the like.

The argument from Japan is one of the central tenets of liberal (in the IR sense) thought, though the counterargument is pretty strong (basically, Japan and Germany are special cases). There's also the point about what "powerful" means, and how being at the top of the dog-pile creates a unique set of conditions that influence states to be especially interventionist (America, old school Britain, Rome, the Ottomans, old school Russia).

But yeah, you're right, the dominant force in American politics, as practiced, is the moderate push for the status quo. The dynamism of the thing is confined to the fringes, though that isn't necessarily unexpected in a prosperous state.