Congress Crams Language to Criminalize Streaming, Meme-Sharing into Omnibus Bill
commondreams.org
commondreams.org
Sometimes, I think evil has a game called, attempts, if you try X number of times at the end something corrupt will pass.
Interesting enough in the same week in Serbia they want to pass law that will "Forbid people insulting high government official if that could cause deep emotional stress to their family members"
The linked article as well as the criticism here aren't exactly mindful, either.
For a start, the article only ever says "Congress" did this or that. Such unspecific language only furthers cynicism and is damaging for democracy. There certainly are lots of members of congress that are against this, from both parties. But they'll get accused of this as well as any other real or imaginary ill.
As such, cynicism becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: When people literally no longer care about the actual work you do, why bother trying? When they assume you are "corrupt" or "deep-state" or whatever, why shouldn't you start selling your vote to the highest bidder?
At least the "CARES Act" also does no such thing as "criminalising meme-sharing", as far as I can tell. It is a civil law establishing a small claims courts pathway for copyright infringement. Both sides need to opt-in to this process. If one side doesn't, exactly nothing changes.
Because this is about reducing overhead costs of litigation, it doesn't do much to help Disney. Its stated intend is to help smaller or one-off creators who see their works reused without their permission and do not have the means to pursue claims in federal courts. The merits here are debatable, and I believe some sort of collective rights managements system would be better. But imagine taking the single greatest photo of your life and seeing it used everywhere with people not even bothering to give you credit?
The criminalisation targets sites that knowingly and repeatedly stream copyrighted content. Unless you reject copyright altogether, I can't really find fault with that.
> fascism 2.0
Congress gets a lot wrong, but at at least they tend to stay clear of Godwin's law. Diminishing the industrial slaughter of millions of people by comparing it with some minor adjustments to copyright law is certainly not raising the level of debate.
This is highly undemocratic and should have be ruled out of order and never even gone onto the order paper.
Having briefly interned in both Parliament and Congress, I'm not entirely sure which is the better/worse system. Parliament certainly wouldn't allow this - but then, if the government wants giveaway bills its basically got the power to put them through Parliament with little-to-no oversight. Where Congress has independence, it also has this kind of legislative log-rolling and low-level corruption. I prefer the UK system, but it's not clear-cut.
Meaning it'll be added as one of the hundred other things that you agree to in the TOS that is too long to read in less than an hour every time you register for a service that you "agree" to by clicking a button but if you want to opt-out requires postal mailing a written request.
Without defending the poster’s point about fascism 2.0 too much, I’d like to point out that Fascism isn’t equivalent to genocide or nazis. It’s a political ideology against a liberal democracy, characterized by ultra-nationalism, corporatism, forcible suppression of opposition and strong regimentation of society and of the economy. Some would argue that a government governing in close ties with corporations against the wishes and interests of the population at large is a form of fascism. Sort of like the society shown in the move Robocop.
In the modern U.S. that has some similarity to the highly polarized debate the last decade along party lines.
This however? It's mortal political enemies coming together to elbow-bump over ... pork-barrel end-of-term politics. That, from a realist perspective, is America. It's not great, but it's not 1930s Nazism either.
"Let's fix this rotten system by replacing it with our new system (which just so happens to be a dictatorship, but don't mind that...)," is a pretty common way for democratic governments to fail. It even happened to Rome.
Fascism is about an alliance between industry and government against the people. Genocide is neither necessary nor sufficient to label a system "fascist."
Also should check out who the sponsoring Senator was for the last version of the amendment in question that failed to get yea votes a few years ago, and what party that person belongs to. That too is publicly accessible.
It is truly a bunch of chaos monkeys behind a keyboard. Given enough time, their random strokes will result messy code that , regardless of best efforts at bug work-arounds, it breaks the app.
Something as simple as forcing 2 full reads in the physical presence of all YEA votes could end this 6000 page monstrosity.
Simple rules like random switching of winning candidates between each other (senator for assemblyman, mayor for health commissioner , etc) would take giant lobby money off the table since it introduces risk to any lobby "investment". What a dream to see lobby money at a big risk ! Make them think twice.
Finally, make a hard rule of 99% tax rate on every penny earned above the historical average for any public office holder (pre-election), and you stop the rags-to-riches path by using govt as the path.
The conditions right before WWII was a party going from 2% of the vote to plurality in 4 years [0], against a backdrop of economic catastrophe. There is little risk of slow creeping dictatorship - the risk is institutions weakening to the point there is a sudden reform to dictatorship when a large group of people decide to do something different quickly without anyone stopping to design some safeguards against human nature.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_Party#Rise_to_power:_1925...
And before anyone says "but the US only has adversarial courts" - well, the US had a secret spy court for more than a decade that rubberstamped anything the NSA/FBI requested, and it didn't seem to be an issue until the Snowden documents leaked and there was major backlash against it.
But honestly, a Constitutional Court is what the US needs right now. Something to stop the insanity of politicians in the mid-term.
Long-term, you stop their insanity by actually preventing them from getting elected in the first place. You do that by getting rid of money in politics, the FPTP voting system that promotes party a 2-party system and extreme polarization, and gerrymandering (a proportional representation voting system would fix both of the last 2 issues).
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/20/opinion/trump-justice-dep...
The overton window in the USA has shifted so far right it's almost falling off the house.
You forgot how to explain to do that ;)
Set fixed spending caps on candidates and parties, or maybe even make their budgets government provided ( so that everyone is on an equal footing), criminalise spending over it and gifts to politicians and family members, and you're decently covered.
I think you're both giving too little credit to the original fascists, and to much credit to the people falling for it a second time. Fascism was plenty good at deception and bending of truths the first time around, and at this point in the second go around, they've stopped being subtle about it.
Remember that a) plenty of people supported the Nazis, and that Hitler's party was voted into power, and
b) people on the left have been pointing out the proto-fascist rhetoric since Trump's first campaign, and moderate liberals are all acting surprised that the neo-fascists are suggesting fascist things (like subverting a democratic election with military force)
This is a misrepresentation of what happened. They first tried a coup in 1920. When that failed they tried gathering votes.
They won a plurality, not a majority. After that this guy is responsible for the transformation into a dictatorship: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_von_Hindenburg
> In 1925, Hindenburg returned to public life to become the second elected President of the German Weimar Republic. Despite being personally opposed to Hitler and his Nazi party, he was nonetheless a major player in the political instability that resulted in their rise to power. Upon twice dissolving the Reichstag in 1932, Hindenburg ultimately agreed to appoint Hitler as Chancellor of Germany in January 1933 when the Nazis won a plurality in the November elections. In response to the Reichstag Fire allegedly committed by a communist arsonist, he approved the Reichstag Fire Decree in February 1933 which suspended various civil liberties. Later in March, he signed the Enabling Act of 1933 which gave Hitler's regime emergency powers. After Hindenburg died the following year, Hitler combined the Presidency with his office as Chancellor before proceeding to declare himself Führer und Reichskanzler des deutschen Volkes (i.e. "Leader and Reich Chancellor of the German People") and transform Germany into a totalitarian state.
You speak of this as if it's not a legitimate electoral structure in place in many countries today, especially America. When OP says they voted fascists into power it carries the same weight whether it was by majority or plurality, in the former case it means most people 'wanted' it, in the latter it means enough people were okay with letting it happen.
This is a misrepresentation of what happened too. The democratically-elected Nazis formed a coalition government with the democratically-elected German National People's Party (DNVP); it was this coalition government which was approved by the democratically-elected Hindenberg. The Enabling Act was also first passed by the democratically-elected Reichstag.
So yes, Hindenberg failed to fulfill his role as the "check and balance" against the rise of someone like Hitler; but it's not like what he was doing was strange or unusual.
Looks like it's going to the Senate, poised to pass. There's not much else an average person can do than call in and object. I would encourage anyone in a position of power to enforce laws like this to say No. Do not implement systems to enable this. Make it as hard as possible for the copyright mafia to extort ordinary internet users. Civilly disobey. It's a tough fight, but it's one we can't give up - or one day your device will have to run ContentID before you can Ctrl-V.
Printing funny green pieces of paper is a felony too. I get the rhetorical effect you're going for, but it's silly to pretend that all felonies are as severe as murder.
If only prosecutors were blindfolded, administering "justice" evenly and blindly, without regard for political fallout: "It doesn't matter who posted this cat picture, they must be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Oh shit, it's a 4 year old, this isn't going to make 'the land of the free' look very good."
Only a couple years ago they were prosecuting teen couples for child pornography for having nudes of each other.
Don’t play these games over streaming video sites.
So i still think its not comparable to that either. Not to say there aren't other felonies that are probably stupid.
Exactly. End the Fed.
I got a pretty decent home theater setup and still, an actual cinema beats it by far. My biggest issue is sound - in a cinema, you can feel low frequencies... if I would crank up the amp that far at home, I'd get a visit from the cops.
There are plenty of lesser crimes that are felonies also.
Also remember that they are referring to the producer of the copyright infringing stream, not the consumer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_S.978
https://twitter.com/SenThomTillis/status/1341133844712480769
> It will end commercial piracy by criminal organizations and will not apply to internet users.
I guess it's aimed at putlocker & co in that case? I'm surprised that they both lasted so long and that we need any extra laws to regulate them. If mega got prosecuted, that seems like a proof we don't need more rules.
I.e., to instead pass laws that guarantee the right of citizens to share information, make content, etc in ways that shall not be infringed. Laws that affirm freedom of expression and free speech in the digital space, instead of laws that increasingly punish common behavior in the name of copyright or "think of the children" type rhetoric.
I don't have much experience in law so I don't know if something like this is even possible. Can laws only dictate punishments? Is it possible to use legislation to make encroachments of freedom harder, or does that require a constitutional amendment? Is it a question of financial lobbying power?
Perhaps a more legally informed user could chime in about how feasible it is to push for legislation in the other direction.
This phrase just drags me into darkness. Things are so broken, that such legislation is impossible to imagine today.
IANAL, but theoretically, yes, we have the ability to pass and enforce laws that would protect individual and societal rights. In practice, you would need a complete overhaul of both the rules and incentives of the current political system; however, such an overhaul would need a fair and just system to be here in the first place, otherwise it'll just entrench the authoritarianism and/or refuse to enforce the good parts, put in there only as platitudes. So, actually, no.
How can you encourage them to do anything when people "vote #color no matter who"?
Our First Past the Post electoral system [1] encourages this blind tribalism. Attempting to vote outside of the two party system puts #otherside in power.
Representatives have no incentive to be anything other than not the other political party.
People are forced to vote against someone they don't want in office, rather than for someone they do want in office.
Yes, but technologically, not legally. We need technology that's impossible for them to police. "The lesson here is that it is insufficient to protect ourselves with laws; we need to protect ourselves with mathematics." -- Bruce Schneier
Most fights worth fighting are like this. Resistance doesn't guarantee success; indeed it usually loses. But that's no reason not to fight, and it makes you appreciate the precious wins when they do come.
“The only kinds of fights worth fighting are those you're going to lose, because somebody has to fight them and lose and lose and lose until someday, somebody who believes as you do wins.” - IF Stone
Pick up the can, citizen.
But in all seriousness, I unfortunately agree.
Two points: 1. Although it wasn't the intention, the 2A creates the conditions for insurgency. Super powers don't do well against insurgency. 2. The military by nature is much much less likely to turn against the citizenry. The militarization of the police is much more likely.
While comforting, is this actually true?
We have seen this happen very recently with protests occurring - yes the police were there and heavily armed, but so was the actual military, who came swiftly to the president's beckoning.
It's an organization that prioritizes rank, the chain of command, and doing what you're told without question or hesitation. There even seems to be quite a lot of perks (think education, monetary reparations) to getting your hands dirty so that elected officials don't have to.
There's plenty of scenarios where the utility benefits of guerilla warfare (to the guerillas) outweigh the economic costs. To go right to Godwin's law as an extreme example, if every jew in 1930s Germany had engaged in guerilla warfare against the government instead of meekly getting on the trains, the utility benefits to them as a group would have wildly exceeded the economic costs of the hypothetical civil war.
Of course, the best gun is one you never need to fire. A rational alternate-universe government would foresee this, and know that by pursuing policy goal X they would create conditions where guerilla war was utility-positive for group Y, which would hurt the economy and so also the utility for the government. So the government would be (depending on the hypothetical ability of group Y do impede it) incentivised to pick policies that don't leave group Y no recourse but to start shooting.
Mutual armament as common knowledge leads to incentives for both sides to cooperate.
Also look at stuff like the Millennium Challenge, in which the United States Navy had multiple battleships with the latest and greatest technology sunk to the bottom of the ocean because of a couple guys riding around on bicycles passing notes and some small rafts with explosives.
An individual can do a lot.
You hardly need it.
You can see what guerrilla forces do to the standing army of a superpower, by looking at Iraq and Afghanistan. They can't stop it, its demoralizing, and even if the superpower kills at a 2 to 1 or greater ratio, the losses are considerable. And in this case that force would be domestic, so all the negative PR/image consequences are radically amplified (your army might kill at a 2 to 1 or 4 to 1 ratio, but every one of those citizens that you kill makes the general population hate you more and brings out more recruits for the opposition).
The US has maybe 12 to 15 million functional, trained former soldiers, many of whom have been to war, they know everything the military knows, they have experience in every aspect of combat, and they have a vast number of arms and a hundred million sympathetic people behind them. It makes Afghanistan look like a cakewalk. A standing army trying that in the US would be butchered, they'd bleed like a stuck pig. And that's to say nothing of the vast internal sabotage and assassinations that would immediately begin to occur and would never cease; it would instantly split the military into factional pieces that would fight against eachother.
> That though all lances split on you, > All swords be heaved in vain, > We have more lust again to lose > Than you to win again.
~ G. K. Chesterton - The Ballad of the White Horse - Book III https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1719/1719-h/1719-h.htm#link2...
The side that is willing to loose one more time than the "winning" side is willing to win ... they win in the end.
Will they have probable cause for a wiretap if I talk about watching a movie, but my credit card data (which they have) shows no evidence of purchasing that movie?
Now we see why they tried so hard to ruin at Aaron Swartz. Had he survived his encounter with the Justice Department, Aaron would probably be a member of Congress leading the charge against this monstrosity. They are shutting down the Open Technology Fund as well, an important early supporter of both signal and tor.
Isn't it essential for democracy that lawmakers decide on laws based on merits, instead of their adoption being dependent on all kind of unrelated laws and other external factors? How did this practice ever become a defensible one? I guess there will plenty of US citizens who have found a way to rationalize/defend this process, but I sincerely wonder if that might not be the most fundamental mistake of them all.
Seriously though .. why does anyone consider the USA a democratic state of law? I mean, both in absolute terms and in comparison with many other countries, it simply appears to be neither .. that despite unparalleled volumes of systemic propaganda to the contrary and many of its citizens stubbornly holding on to this belief that the USA is somehow a beacon and example to the rest of the world.
I grew up, as many others who grew up in NATO countries during the 80s, with horror stories about USSR and Chinese state propaganda. I have no doubt that a lot of that was actually true and certainly devastating. However, with the years, it increasingly appears as if the USA might actually be (and may always have been) the worst of them all. Just that most of its propaganda hides in plain sight, under banners of individual freedom and prosperity. Sure, you can say whatever you want, as long as you don't pose any real threat to anything of importance. But that is actually not all that different in most parts of the world (Russia and China included; despite the US trying to convince everyone to the contrary). Sure, the USA appears to act less oppressive towards its citizens (or at least compared to the stories they tell about events in other countries). But with a population so thoroughly brainwashed since birth, and being able to do what they do (most lucrative/criminal things almost exclusive in other countries) unopposed either way, maybe they just don't need it as much.
Feel free to down vote and flag, I honestly don't care (anymore). In fact, I would prefer to delete this account if HN allowed that. Because sincerely, I'm done with this site and this "community". Good luck to you all.
Just don't expect any sympathy, for anyone who will argue something along the lines of "we didn't know" or "we could not have seen that coming".
But, you know, welcome to the club, because we have a massive issue with a lack of democracy in the UK too.
Regardless, seems like a wildly inaccurate and unhelpful metaphor.
Representative democracy was invented to solve that problem by having the representatives and their staff do that education, but they took the easy way out and listened to those with the biggest campaign contribution coffers.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo
Say for example you voted for Andrew Yang in the iowa democratic primary. He drops out super Tuesday (IIRC). You no longer have any say in the Democratic primary. If we switched to a more representative electoral system, these people can still have their vote count.
These people could still put Yang during the general election, while still having their vote count for the candidate with the better chance to win.
There is also no reason for our multi state primaries to occur over many days. This ensures the media has maximum influence on the results.
Of course, but there is very little utility to it when the vote counting is hidden behind an opaque software system, and you have no way of confirming that the vote counting is secure. So sure, go vote, but with absence of verified and secure counting it's almost pointless.
https://www.lp.org/blogs-staff-libertarian-party-kill-cispa-...
Here are some essays by individuals on the topic.
http://freenation.org/a/f31l1.html
https://mises.org/library/intellectual-property-and-libertar...
So far, the county election supervisors have resisted. I do not know what the next step that would compel them to force an independent audit. Maybe contempt charges?
I wonder what it would take to have a more global distribution of hosts? Or is it impossible for a creator/developer who is based in the U.S. to avoid this even if the site were to be hosted elsewhere?
Now corrupt politicians can pass such garbage without any repercussion.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnibus_bill
Side note, who mandates these time constraints? Why are seemingly arbitrary deadlines applied? If a bill can stand on its own, why rush it at all unless you intend to enable surreptitious changes that will hopefully be missed?
For instance, Jack Danger is a pinball streamer who does the newest games, and Stern just released a Led Zeppelin game, and his stream was cut off mid-way through because the fully licensed game plays LZ tunes.
Not only does this fall under fair use, he is more than willing to pay a fee to legally stream these games and the music they play. But Twitch doesn't offer this option. Neither does YouTube, or Facebook.
There needs to be a point where we can say "you got paid once for this, and you can't keep inventing new fragmentary rights and segmentations to get another bite at the same apple." It feels like that point should be when Stern paid to include the songs in the machine.. That minimizes the burden on everyone else, trying to guess what is permissible and having to cut things up to satisfy the licensing bureaucracy.
It reminds me of the situation where we have crappy TV box sets where the music gets replaced because the concept of a home-video release wasn't even on the radar to consider when the original series was prepared and paid for. Again, the license should have been paid for and exhausted at that point.
I really believe the ultimate answer is a mandatory (presumably state-run) IP clearinghouse-- whether you want to pay 10 cents to buy cover for the neighbour's TV audio bleeding into your livestream, or a bajillion dollars for "every movie ever made" to populate your streaming service, there should be a way to cut out the complexity of "who do I speak with" and "what do I do if they're dead/unreachable/intentionally uncooperative". Twitch writes a cheque for a few hundred grand a month to for blanket coverage, and the IP cartels fight behind the scenes to slice it up.
Besides, other issues probably impact which way constituents are likely to vote more than copyright law.
TITLE II - INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
Subtitle A - Copyrights
SEC. 211. - UNAUTHORIZED STREAMING.
(a) AMENDMENT. Chapter 113 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by inserting after section 2319B the following:
2319C. Illicit digital transmission services
(a) DEFINITIONS. In this section
(1) the terms "audiovisual work", "computer program", "copies", "copyright owner", "digital transmission", "financial gain", "motion picture", "motion picture exhibition facility", "perform", "phonorecords", "publicly" (with respect to performing a work), "sound recording", and "transmit" have the meanings given those terms in section 101 of title 17;
(2) the term "digital transmission service" means a service that has the primary purpose of publicly performing works by digital transmission;
(3) the terms "publicly perform" and "public performance" refer to the exclusive rights of a copyright owner under paragraphs (4) and (6) of section 106 (relating to exclusive rights in copyrighted works) of title 17, as limited by sections 107 through 122 of title 17; and
(4) the term "work being prepared for commercial public performance" means
(A) a computer program, a musical work, a motion picture or other audiovisual work, or a sound recording, if, at the time of unauthorized public performance
(i) the copyright owner has a reasonable expectation of commercial public performance; and
(ii) the copies or phonorecords of the work have not been commercially publicly performed in the United States by or with the authorization of the copyright owner; or
(B) a motion picture, if, at the time of unauthorized public performance, the motion picture
(i)(I) has been made available for viewing in a motion picture exhibition facility; and (II) has not been made available in copies for sale to the general public in the United States by or with the authorization of the copyright owner in a format intended to permit viewing outside a motion picture exhibition facility; or
(ii) had not been commercially publicly performed in the United States by or with the authorization of the copyright owner more than 24 hours before the unauthorized public performance.
(b) PROHIBITED ACT. It shall be unlawful for a person to willfully, and for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain, offer or provide to the public a digital transmission service that
(1) is primarily designed or provided for the purpose of publicly performing works protected under title 17 by means of a digital transmission without the authority of the copyright owner or the law;
(2) has no commercially significant purpose or use other than to publicly perform works protected under title 17 by means of a digital transmission without the authority of the copyright owner or the law; or
(3) is intentionally marketed by or at the direction of that person to promote its use in publicly performing works protected under title 17 by means of a digital transmission without the authority of the copyright owner or the law.
(c) PENALTIES. Any person who violates subsection (b) shall be, in addition to any penalties provided for under title 17 or any other law
(1) fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 3 years, or both;
(2) fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both, if
(A) the offense was committed in connection with 1 or more works being prepared for commercial public performance; and
(B) the person knew or should have known that the work was being prepared for commercial public performance; and (3) fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 10 years, or both, if the offense is a second or subsequent offense under this section or section 2319(a).
(d) RULE OF CONSTRUCTION. Nothing in this section shall be construed to
(1) affect the interpretation of any other provision of civil copyright law, including the limitations of liability set forth in section 512 of title 17, or principles of secondary liability; or
(2) prevent any Federal or State authority from enforcing cable theft or theft of service laws that are not subject to preemption under section 301 of title 17.
(b) TABLE OF SECTIONS AMENDMENT. The table of section for chapter 113 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by inserting after the item relating to section 2319B the following: 2319C. Illicit digital transmission services.
Some commenters may be concerned more with potential for abuses justified under law, rather than the specific use case the law appears to have in mind.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use#U.S._fair_use_factors
The line item veto is a backhanded way to try to do this, but isn't the best solution.
|
| ... the copies or phonorecords of the work have not been commercially publicly performed in the United States by or with the authorization of the copyright owner; or
| (B) a motion picture, if, at the time of unauthorized public performance, the motion picture
| (i)
| (I) has been made available for viewing in a motion picture exhibition facility; and
| (II) has not been made available in copies for sale to the general public in the United States by or with the authorization of the copyright owner in a format intended to permit viewing outside a motion picture exhibition facility;
EDITS - on page 2543 https://rules.house.gov/sites/democrats.rules.house.gov/file...
3 years for released works.
5 years for unreleased stuff.
So it's not just for pre-release. Pre-release just gives you an additional 2 years in prison!
I cannot recall the details (40 years ago) but I asked to see the actual full text of the petition, and it was just loaded with so much baggage, that it was only vaguely related to banning nuclear weapons, and was loaded with a bunch of socialist dogma.
But hey, you know, banning nuclear weapons. And they were really attractive. So wow, the number of signatures.
The mind absolutely boggles trying to understand how a legislator can force an unpopular act like this into an unrelated appropriations bill and think they're doing something good.
I don't know if they're acting on greed, malice, or if their campaign funding is somehow tied into the companies and lobbies that push for these bills, but they know as well as we do that this would never pass if citizens had the opportunity to lobby against it and other legislators had the opportunity to question it. It's a failure of our system.
It is. But there is more to it than that. Most people in elected office aren't robots just following the biggest diner checks. A lot of times they believe in what these amendments. The lobbying and whatnot actually works. Because just like you and me, they are susceptible to the environment in which they dwell.
A lobbyist can't buy a legislator's vote but they can buy you a legislator's time. That time let's you create the information environment that can influence any person. Which is of course why these lobbying relationships become so long and so entangling.
Mark my words, the people behind this amendment believe pirates are cheating honest companies out of something.
Lobbyists work for foundations and politicians before lobbying and sometimes return to their roots after a time. They even ping pong back and forth. Just like tech workers bouncing through the industry.
Those relationships and networks are powerful. This is part of why, until the new conservatism arose there was a good deal of cooperation and agreement among legislators. The professionalization of the government and it's connections to elite academy and industry created a singular cultural entity.
How do you get marijuana legalized? You sure as hell aren’t going to find the political spine in the house/senate/executive to pull it off at the federal level.
The state level also seems to have a scaled down version of the federal quagmire if you rely on the state legislatures to dictate the initiative.
But that ballot referendum just seems to work. People vote, it passes, a state gets what it wants. Then, other states follow suit, and voila, you just scaled something as once-obtuse as marijuana legalization from one state to fifty, effectively replicating federal law.
Now rinse and repeat and get other things passed. It seems like the ultimate short circuit for this circus.
Minnesota has single issue bills. Some of their congress still tries to do omnibus bills because its less work and they want to be seen as "getting a lot done".
Crony capitalism at its finest.
One immediate fix would be for strict party line votes being the norm. It would remove horse trading from the equation: a majority party would pass the legislation it wants to, without adding extreme elements to negotiate away, or riders to buy critical swing votes. The result would be more coherent legislation that can be judged on its merits.
Also, this sort of policy would make an even SMALLER minority of the country to have absolute rule over everyone else. Think about what would happen.
Ok, so now the party that has 51% of the congress has absolute legislative power. The other 49% shouldn't even bother to show up, they aren't even voting on anything anymore.
Now we have to figure out what are the party positions? What laws are we going to pass? Well, we have to come to some internal agreement, so they probably end up having some kind of vote on each issue. So now, only 51% of 51% of the legislature have to agree on something for it to become law. Suddenly, only 26% of the population has to agree on something for it to become a law.
That is terrifying.
We do not need anything that REDUCES the level of agreement required to do something. In fact, I think some of the best aspects of the US governmental system are the checks on simple majority rule. Tyranny of the majority is a real thing to be afraid of.
Also, we already have the issue of a two party system not being able to accurately reflect the myriad combinations of viewpoints that real people have, and we don't want to exacerbate the problem by removing entirely the ability to have diversity of positions within a party. We elect representatives who have a particular set of views, and that person is (usually) a member of the party whose viewpoints more closely align with. This doesn't mean they agree on every issue.
Nowadays you have members of Congress trying to earnestly explain how they "voted for it before I voted against it".
The Canadian Senate is a rubber stamp. It does have party affiliation. The Senate threatened to reject a bill that had passed the House of Commons in the 70s; Pierre Trudeau said "pass it or I'll appoint as many Senators as I need to for it to pass". They did. The uselessness of the Canadian Senate is a perpetual and low priority topic of reform in Canadian gov't. It's a house of sinecure, at this point and an occasional source of special committees.
Elected members of the House of Commons vote along party lines or they're ejected from the party, which cuts them off from party resources and essentially prevents re-election. It's an electoral death sentence. No one votes against the party unless the head of the party declares a "conscience vote", freeing the members to vote as they will. In Canadian politics it's viewed as an act of governmental cowardice, allowing a bill the governing majority could pass to fail along "conscience" lines. It rarely happens; the last time was allowing gay marriage, when the Conservative Party allowed itself to lose the vote so it had an excuse for allowing it to be legislated.
Yes, there are multiple readings and such, which takes time. The only effective check at this point is if a sufficiently negative public reaction takes hold, at which point the gov't may reconsider. Unlike U.S. politics, amendments are always "friendly", and not used to buy support from individuals; instead, they're the ruling majority's mechanism to modify the bill in response to public pressure.
The big difference between Canadian and American politics, aside from party line voting, is that there are more than two effective parties. A party that wins with a plurality but not a majority of seats (a "minority gov't") has to have the support of one of the other parties to pass legislation.
A vote of no confidence can only succeed if the party doesn't hold a majority; with a majority and normal party discipline, or a strong coalition, it always fails. Its only impact is in minority gov'ts, when it indicates that no other party will partner with it.
Effectively, at the provincial and federal levels, there are 3-4 players, all of whom have a viable shot at forming a government, and who, historically, produce more sane, less complicated legislation than is passed in the U.S. The current U.S. system, besides creating poor quality legislation, full of loopholes and special interest riders, effectively prevents more than two parties from being actual players because to have influence you need to have party seniority, and no minority parties like the Reform Party ever gain enough traction.
Under the Westminster System in Canada, the average voter has more viable choices to represent them because there are 3-5 parties, rather than 2.
At the very least you’d need to massively increase the term length of Congress. Radical swings back and forth every 2 years would be a nightmare for planning anything.
It would also basically ensure that any policy that took more than a few years to make a positive impact was doa.
Systems with proportional representation tend to be much less susceptible to this, as a few seats changing won't tip the balance from one extreme to the other.
I have no idea how such a thing could be enacted though, as legislative power is in the hands of the two parties that would be the major losers in a switch away from FPTP.