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Old 07-18-2018, 07:57 AM   #381
vicky_molokh
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Default Re: Exotic Governmental/Legal Systems

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Originally Posted by Þorkell View Post
Uh, isn't this roughly the way the US Senate and House were set up?
AFAIK their setup was completely partyless. Parties came later as a loophole and I'm not sure if there's any constitutional support for them at all.
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Old 07-18-2018, 08:18 AM   #382
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AFAIK their setup was completely partyless. Parties came later as a loophole and I'm not sure if there's any constitutional support for them at all.
Freedom of association covers it.
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Old 07-18-2018, 08:18 AM   #383
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As a non-American I'm not an expert, but both their houses are geographically based - but they're based on different geographical boundaries. I believe.

The Canadian parlimentary system was set up somewhat along these lines, with the House of Commons being geographical, and the Senators being appointed for life by the current Prime Minister (although with traditional emphasis on equal geographic representation in the Senate). This results in the Senate having a bias to the previous PMs party at the beginning of a new government, and a bias to the current PMs party after a few terms.

But now the House of Commons is geographic but dominated by party lines, and our Senate is losing party affiliations; no organizational structures survives centuries without change.
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Old 07-18-2018, 08:25 AM   #384
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Default Re: Exotic Governmental/Legal Systems

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Originally Posted by David Johnston2 View Post
Freedom of association covers it.
In the same way as jury nullification is covered by anti-double-jeopardy protection and protection of juries from being arbitrarily punished for their decision. I.e. by indirect consequence rather than as part of the original blueprint of the government in the canonical text. Right?
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Old 07-18-2018, 08:37 AM   #385
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As a non-American I'm not an expert, but both their houses are geographically based - but they're based on different geographical boundaries. I believe.

Yes, both houses are based on geography: every congressman has a state they belong to, and people from outside that state have next to no say in determining who that person is (other than aid in campaigning).



House representatives belong to specific areas within the state. For example, Paul Ryan is from Wisconsin, but he's especially from the area south east of Milwakee. The voters in Milwakee itself don't get to vote for him, they voted in Gwen Moore. The exact alignments of these districts is up to the state legislatures.



Senators represent an entire state, and there are only two per state. In Wisconsin that's Ron Johnson and Tammy Baldwin. Everyone in the state got to vote for or against both of these senators. So senators are still localized, but they are less localized than representatives.



In any case, Both houses are very similar in terms of power. They were designed to be out of sync with each other and be split on issues that are very close. The senate has a touch more power, if only because they run conformation hearings.



In contrast, the system proposed has two houses with very different powers intentionally separated instead of mirrored.
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Old 07-18-2018, 10:44 AM   #386
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<Moderator>
A reminder to keep current, real world, politics to someplace else. They are a very good way to get a thread shut down.

Thank you.
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Old 07-18-2018, 01:04 PM   #387
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Default Re: Exotic Governmental/Legal Systems

Each candidate drinks a half-pint of vodka and smashes it into the fireplace. If any candidates are still standing process is repeated. So on ad-infintum until there is only one candidate. He is granted absolute power. With the sole caveat that he has to drink a half-pint of vodka before each decree.
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Old 07-18-2018, 01:09 PM   #388
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Default Re: Exotic Governmental/Legal Systems

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Originally Posted by vicky_molokh View Post
In the same way as jury nullification is covered by anti-double-jeopardy protection and protection of juries from being arbitrarily punished for their decision. I.e. by indirect consequence rather than as part of the original blueprint of the government in the canonical text. Right?
Parties have no formal role or standing in the US government. The people writing the US Constitution were certainly aware they existed but opted not to say anything about them in the text. This is sometimes interpreted as an endorsement, or a condemnation, depending on one's view, but given that parties already existed I don't think you can call them a *consequence*.

I suspect most of them felt it was more an unrelated side issue - that parties weren't necessary for their ideas to work but weren't a problem either.
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Old 07-18-2018, 01:17 PM   #389
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Parties have no formal role or standing in the US government. The people writing the US Constitution were certainly aware they existed but opted not to say anything about them in the text. This is sometimes interpreted as an endorsement, or a condemnation, depending on one's view, but given that parties already existed I don't think you can call them a *consequence*.

I suspect most of them felt it was more an unrelated side issue - that parties weren't necessary for their ideas to work but weren't a problem either.
Parties are in a sense a normal part of republican politics and not unknown in Imperial or Monarchial politics either. A massive political machine that is also an ideologically based faction is perhaps a peculiarity but perhaps not so much as might appear. Politics in America could however have been primarily kin-based or occupationally based just as easily, some regimes have stressed that, and an imaginary state might do so as well. Of course all those different factors play in (Traveller: First In gives an overview of how factions of a culture might congeal).
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Old 07-18-2018, 01:17 PM   #390
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Each candidate drinks a half-pint of vodka and smashes it into the fireplace. If any candidates are still standing process is repeated.
So if there are multiple candidates still standing but none of them can hit the fireplace anymore, does it go to a runoff tomorrow night?

I can almost see this system evolving though. There are after all those traces of Indoeuropean traditions of considering any important issue at two councils, one sober and one drunk.
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