Hacker News Reader

Comment by llm_trw | Hacker News Reader

Decentralise government so a single election doesn't destroy everything.

In short: states rights.

Or, reform your Presidency to be a constitutional role only, with executive power devolved to the party or parties of your elected representatives that is able to show the head of state that they have the numbers to govern.

E.g. like the President of Ireland, or the King of England (via the Governor General proxy) in countries like Canada, Australia, New Zealand.

Also, the Electoral College is an archaic anachronism, and may I recommend a system of proportional representation?

Devolution to "states rights" is exactly that, a devolution.

What works for a country the size of a New York neighbourhood doesn't work for a country the size of a continent.

Britain ran a global empire using this model, why wouldn't it work for the US?

Maybe read up on how it works before rejecting it out of hand?

Britain has a bicameral parliament, with the leader of the majority of the lower house forming the executive, but the head of state retains the constitutional ability to dissolve parliament and order new elections if the current government is unable to function.

Having an apolitical head of state might be worth looking into.

Britain had two parliaments in the home island - Scotlands and Englands.

The only people who can possibly think the British empire was centralised are those who have never opened a history book about it.

Oh mate, I am feeling Fremdschämen / vicarious embarrassment for you very hard right now.

You obviously haven't opened a history book either, but at the very least, go to Wikipedia before making confident statements.

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

Subtle hint - 1707 to 1999.

> Britain ran a global empire using this model, why wouldn't it work for the US?

The “global empire” was systematically disenfranchised under that model, which is a big reason why it broke up, and that was specifically called out by the US when it left.

I mean, there are arguably good examples of parliamentary democracy working at significant scale in a state, but the UK’s government at home while the empire was managed through a bunch of other systems is very much not one of them.

Which country are you referring to?

Presumably Ireland. Because it doesn't fit Canada, Australia, or New Zealand.

Wait, it doesn't even fit Ireland.

Unless they were talking about population? Then maybe NZ would fit. Is there a New York neighbourhood with 5 million people?

That’s odd, unlike the USA, Australia is in fact a country the size of a continent…

> What works for a country the size of a New York neighbourhood doesn't work for a country the size of a continent.

While I personally think the problem with the US system is much more in lack of proportionality in the electoral system used for the legislature , but, even so, I can recognize thet parliamentary government doesn't only work at small scales.

Alternatively: we need to rein in the powers of the presidency. Right now we've got a dynamic of "the president says what to do and the legislature obeys" (or, recently, "the president does stuff on his own"); we might be better off with "Congress decides what to do and the president makes it happen".

California has half the population of Germany and twice the GPD.

We can't pretend the US is some dinky country in Europe that can be ruled the same way.

How long will California maintain GDP dominance when major parts of business are in the pocket of Trump? Won't they just pack up and leave, tanking Californias economy with it?

Longer than Germany at the rate things are going in Germany.

Half the population, and the same GDP.

The problem is that the president can direct funding to primary a congressman. There are ways to make that harder to do, but they have to try

Oh, so Congress makes law and the President sees that the law is faithfully executed?

We should definitely amend the Constitution to include that.

Interesting to see this come up so often I. the context of the Democratic party. It sure seems like our two parties have flipped again.

It's not terribly interesting. There have always been two strains of thought for the Democrats in the US. Once has been that we must move the whole country in the right direction kicking and screaming - this has been the ideology that has been in ascendency since Kennedy. The other that we must be allowed to be as progressive as possible without interference from the Federal government. That's not been in vouge since the end of the new deal.

I'm completely in the second camp and would move back to the US if it were possible to get it adopted at the national level.

To Republicans' credit, they have not flipped on states' rights even when they dominate DC. Maybe this is a good time for everyone to (pretend to) be aligned on states' rights and ram through some measures to that end.

There are inklings of a change there. You can see it in things like proposing to prevent women from traveling to another state to get an abortion, or forcing states to assist the federal government with immigration enforcement. I expect we will see more of that if it helps them get to their desired policy goals.

Absolutely. "Conspiracy to commit abortion" is being proposed if not partly a thing in many states, and runs the gamut of anything from looking up info online, to traveling, to financially supporting or even giving a place to stay for someone doing this.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com