Congress or Parliament (opinions?)

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Which is better? The American Congress or the English Parliament?

Congress has two houses, better for checks and balances and making sure no one gets power hungy and out of control. It also watches over the bureaucracies to make sure they are doing their jobs. They also approve most important positions the president nominates, which keeps him from stacking the government with any old ninny he wants. But it also discourages third parties with the winner-take-all system. This is where only the majority matters, and whoever gets the majority gets the seats. The third parties have trouble gaining seats due to the two party dominance created my the Congress. This also leads to people thinking they will waste their vote by voting for a third party...which in turn leads to a drop in voter participation in politics.

~Disclaimer~ I am in no way attacking either form of government. I just want a discussion on them.

[ August 10, 2003, 06:17: Message edited by: Tigress ]

 

Well, the British got a lot of the same problems, because they too got a 2-party-system, caused by a majority-vote system. And they've got two chambers, house of commons, house of lords.

And the US-goverment was shaped after the British goverment in the 18th, which was idealised by Montesquieu.

I guess your main point is, majority-vote system or proportional-vote system ? In a proportional-vote system, every vote counts and there aren't only two parties.

[ August 10, 2003, 09:37: Message edited by: Yago ]

 

What political system does Briten use for electing the house of commons?

 

@ Yago: Right, that's what i was strying to say by winner-takes-all system, the proportional-vote system is alot better becuase it allows virtually more voter-participation. But, does the one pro for the parliament necessarily make it a better governing body?

 

The British have a majority-vote system, not a proportional-vote system. At least that secures, that the BNP won't end up in the parliament, but it condems the UK to a two-party system.

In a parlimantery system there's separation of power too. Me persoanlly, I think a parliamentrary system is the best possible system. No doubt. But I do not think particularly about the UK.

And by the way, the US-system is called presidential-system. Because congress is supposed to be parliament too. And it's not decicive if a parliament has two chambers or not, I think nearly all countries have got two chambers, with actually nearly the only exception of the UK, which had cut parts of the powers of the house of lords at the beginning of the 20th century.

 

I like parliament, mostly because the I think it's cool that the PM can be held directly accounting by the parliament. I love watching them argue back and forth! I wish Congress was like that.

 

Sir Bel,

There really are times when they squabble like children though, and I'm quite embarrassed to see them on TV. It certainly can get lively though I'll grant you.

As far as the two party system goes, well, it really is sort of a three party system with additional regional interest parties in Wales and Scotland. Northern Ireland have their own parties all together. Interesting that Labour who are currently in power is the most recently established of the main parties. Our two parties used to be the Liberals and the Tories. Now we thus have three main parties really.

I would rather we did move to proportional representation though. The first past the post system skews the power in favour of the slightly more popular party. With less than 50% of the votes the Labour party has something like 70% of the MP's. Not quite right.

Sure, if enough people want to see a BNP MP, so they can have it. It would certainly expose them for the scum they are to see them stand up in parliament speaking nationally on race issues (which is the only important policy in their book since everything else is based around their belief in white supremacy). I wouldn't neccesarily advocate a national scheme though, rather a scheme based for example by county or some such. That way people can still vote for semi local politicians rather than just whoever happens to be on the national party list. Just even it out with a few extras on a national basis to make up for the differences this would cause.

A democratic parliament is the most important part of our society, so if more people can be encouraged to use their right to vote, all the better. In that respect of course I would consider the US House and Senate a parliamentary body.