Although this thread does not function under the same strict guidelines as the USPMT, it is still a general practice on TL to provide a source with an explanation on why it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion. Failure to do so will result in a mod action.
On February 02 2016 22:07 Wegandi wrote: IIRC aren't the Netherlands still a Monarchy with a Parliamentary system...
...What you're saying is that all power should be representative based on population - which would disenfranchise huge swaths of folks. Not even Greece was this dumb. Any country who instituted such a system would not last very long
What you're saying is that all power should be representative based on population - which would disenfranchise huge swaths of folks. Not even Greece was this dumb. Any country who instituted such a system would not last very long
Can't tell if troll bait or not.
If I'm misinterpreting his position then I don't see much disagreement, however, from what I've read I don't believe I am. If the Government was instituted where Senators/Representatives (I guess in UK's case...MP's / House of Lords (if they were to be elected)), were based on solely municipal/whatever State/Provincial system you use in Britain population all the voters not in densely packed urban centers would have no reason to vote. They'd always be in the minority no matter what and since they would necessarily have less representation they'd always get out-voted. This is assuming that urban centers and rural areas generally vote different, which seems to be the case in most places in the world and especially in the US. Why would these people who are constantly disenfranchised want to remain a part of a country where they have little to no influence? It makes complete sense to make representation equal among states. If we're talking about how the seats are divvied up that's something else, and maybe that's what is being talked about...I have no problem with proportional apportionment for political parties of seats, but even better I would love to not have political party affiliations represented on the ballots at all. Just a list of names. Would be better imho than parties putting up representatives for seats and then people voting based on party and say, if one State gets 6 representatives that those 6 are determined proportionally based on popular vote.
I say FPTP with no political affiliations on the ballot is the most ideal imho. That way people would actually have to research who they are voting for instead of being a drone and voting strictly party line.
That is where having a multi-party government comes in. You can have a 20% farmers party still be influential, because they can make a deal with a 35% libertarian party to achieve a majority for some goals.
I have no idea why people would be disenfranchised if they are represented proportionally, that only happens in a two-party system. This seems to be something that makes sense to an american, but is completely alien to me.
Why should the vote of a rural farmer be worth more than that of a person in a city? That seems very weird to me. Should peoples votes generally count more the less of those people there are, so they don't feel disenfranchised? That seems to be the main argument here, and i don't think it makes any sense.
The system in the Netherlands is very simple. Like you said it's a monarchy (without power ofc) with a parliament.
We have 2 chambers like the US but they're not both as powerful. The 2e kamer (house of representatives) is the most important one and is the one which can initiate and amend legislation. The 1ste kamer (our senate) can only review the laws. This is mostly a more technical review. I.E. does it fit with the rest of the laws we have. There have actually been discussions about it not being very useful anymore and dropping it.
The way voting works is a bit different for both of them. The house of representatives has 150 seats. The amount of votes you need to get a seat is determined by amount of votes / amount of seats.
Senate elections are 2 tiered. First you vote for the Provinciale Staten and these people then vote for the ones who get into the senate. The amount of 'Provinciale Staten' every province has is determined by population with a minimum of 39. So this is a bit more like the US senate where every state gets at least 2 senators but in practise only one province out of 12 is at the minumum. I don't think there has ever been an argument ever in the Netherlands that there was a province with too little influence though in modern times. In the past it's different of course since Holland was basically all powerful.
The reason why minorities still have a reason to vote is because of the multiple party system. Basically if you think you're not represented well you can make your own party and get into the legislature. 50+ is a good example for older people or the SGP for christian conservatives. These do get influence in policy making as well due to the fact that to get a majority in the legislature multiple parties have to form a coalitian. Because our parliament is very fractured at the moment they actually have a lot more influence than you would expect.
I think a clear difference between NL and the US in this case is that we don't really have that state vs federal government battle going on. The fact that Zeeland has less power than Utrecht is simply pretty irrelevant.
edit: That is not to say our system doesn't have its fair share of problems though. I think any of them do but I still prefer it over FPTP.
On February 02 2016 23:02 Simberto wrote: That is where having a multi-party government comes in. You can have a 20% farmers party still be influential, because they can make a deal with a 35% libertarian party to achieve a majority for some goals.
I have no idea why people would be disenfranchised if they are represented proportionally, that only happens in a two-party system. This seems to be something that makes sense to an american, but is completely alien to me.
Why should the vote of a rural farmer be worth more than that of a person in a city? That seems very weird to me. Should peoples votes generally count more the less of those people there are, so they don't feel disenfranchised? That seems to be the main argument here, and i don't think it makes any sense.
I think the idea for this line of reasoning is that since there are more city people, those city people will vote in representatives who push an agenda only beneficial to city dwellers, since all their voters want that.
This exact rhetoric is used in Sweden as well from the liberal/leftist establishment. Note the relativistic argument in the end where the mayor says "we do it to", arguing that this kind of behavior has nothing to do with culture but has always existed, also in our own culture to equal extent.
In Sweden, liberals and leftists argue that the problem isn't cultural values but *men*. Apparently, nothing has changed at all, these things always happen and in the same extent. All cultures are apparently inherently compatible with liberal democracy, and If someone claims otherwise, they are a racist bigot and need to check their privilege.
On February 02 2016 23:03 RvB wrote: The system in the Netherlands is very simple. Like you said it's a monarchy (without power ofc) with a parliament.
We have 2 chambers like the US but they're not both as powerful. The 2e kamer (house of representatives) is the most important one and is the one which can initiate and amend legislation. The 1ste kamer (our senate) can only review the laws. This is mostly a more technical review. I.E. does it fit with the rest of the laws we have. There have actually been discussions about it not being very useful anymore and dropping it.
The way voting works is a bit different for both of them. The house of representatives has 150 seats. The amount of votes you need to get a seat is determined by amount of votes / amount of seats.
Senate elections are 2 tiered. First you vote for the Provinciale Staten and these people then vote for the ones who get into the senate. The amount of 'Provinciale Staten' every province has is determined by population with a minimum of 39. So this is a bit more like the US senate where every state gets at least 2 senators but in practise only one province out of 12 is at the minumum. I don't think there has ever been an argument ever in the Netherlands that there was a province with too little influence though in modern times. In the past it's different of course since Holland was basically all powerful.
The reason why minorities still have a reason to vote is because of the multiple party system. Basically if you think you're not represented well you can make your own party and get into the legislature. 50+ is a good example for older people or the SGP for christian conservatives. These do get influence in policy making as well due to the fact that to get a majority in the legislature multiple parties have to form a coalitian. Because our parliament is very fractured at the moment they actually have a lot more influence than you would expect.
I think a clear difference between NL and the US in this case is that we don't really have that state vs federal government battle going on. The fact that Zeeland has less power than Utrecht is simply pretty irrelevant.
edit: That is not to say our system doesn't have its fair share of problems though. I think any of them do but I still prefer it over FPTP.
I see. Well, each State in the US only gets 2 Senators (hence the Senate being 100 members) to equalize power amongst the states. You have to realize how disparate and large the US is, that your system is inherently untenable, especially considering our founding. The US is a confederation - the original 13 colonies were independent states who came together and there was no way that say, Georgia was going to agree to be apart of the union with New York or Massachusetts if they had less say in the national Government.
Similarly, each State is quite different - the culture in Louisiana is quite a bit different than Maine, and Alaska is not too similar to Michigan. Hell, Hawai'i and Idaho are very different politically. There is no way that you could have all these people come together in one Nation if the more populated states had more power than the less populated.
As to the other poster who actually believe that urbanites and rural folk vote roughly the same well...if you actually look at the data that's not even remotely close and that's true for most countries around the world. You should see the data on rural vs urban voting patterns in the US. It's hilariously different. For example, Austin is one of the most progressive cities in the country while all the areas around Austin, TX are polar opposites :p Last time I checked urbanites voted something like 65% Democrat, while Rural folk were like 70% GOP.
There'd be riots in the streets if tomorrow California, New York, Illinois, Florida, and Texas suddenly got 10 more Senators than everyone else. Imagine 10 more Barbara Boxers or Kirsten Gillibrands while only Texas got 10 more conservative Senators...There'd be no reason for a large part of the country to vote for Senators anymore since certain power centers in the country would dominate and there'd be no stopping them. You can't keep a country together where one ideology completely crushes a not insignificant part of the country.
On February 03 2016 00:29 Sent. wrote: Why not just create constituencies (not sure if it's the right word) with roughly the same population instead of relying on state borders?
Because the only people who can change the system are the people who profit from the current system, hence change only happens under great social pressure.
This exact rhetoric is used in Sweden as well from the liberal/leftist establishment. Note the relativistic argument in the end where the mayor says "we do it to", arguing that this kind of behavior has nothing to do with culture but has always existed, also in our own culture to equal extent.
In Sweden, liberals and leftists argue that the problem isn't cultural values but *men*. Apparently, nothing has changed at all, these things always happen and in the same extent. All cultures are apparently inherently compatible with liberal democracy, and If someone claims otherwise, they are a racist bigot and need to check their privilege.
The same exact story in Finland too, apparently women here are in greater peril at home and more concerned about nazis.
The People that still bring up the founding of the US when it comes to this are just mindblowing. The US constitiution was inspired by the old swiss constition and the next swiss constitution was then in turn by the newer and better US constitituion. Yet we don't get constant boner when we talk about our constitution (and change it whenever we feel like it, which is too often, but thats another problem ) while also having had our fair share of civil and other wars until the country became truely stable.
By not reforming a constitution your actually hurting it, whats the point of constantly redefining what the amendments/articles/paragraphs or whatever you got in yours mean until everyone can clearly see, that the modern interpretation has nothing to do with the actual document? It makes the, for its time truely awesome, document just look bad.
There'd be riots in the streets if tomorrow California, New York, Illinois, Florida, and Texas suddenly got 10 more Senators than everyone else. Imagine 10 more Barbara Boxers or Kirsten Gillibrands while only Texas got 10 more conservative Senators...There'd be no reason for a large part of the country to vote for Senators anymore since certain power centers in the country would dominate and there'd be no stopping them. You can't keep a country together where one ideology completely crushes a not insignificant part of the country.
As said.. In Switzerland we have one chamber that is based on Population and one that is just hardcoeded to 2 per state and both are about equally powerfull. So while the cantons with bigger populations have a bit more power due to more representation in one chamber, the others - if they stay together - still have potential to sink stuff they don't like in the smaller chamber.
On February 02 2016 23:03 RvB wrote: The system in the Netherlands is very simple. Like you said it's a monarchy (without power ofc) with a parliament.
We have 2 chambers like the US but they're not both as powerful. The 2e kamer (house of representatives) is the most important one and is the one which can initiate and amend legislation. The 1ste kamer (our senate) can only review the laws. This is mostly a more technical review. I.E. does it fit with the rest of the laws we have. There have actually been discussions about it not being very useful anymore and dropping it.
The way voting works is a bit different for both of them. The house of representatives has 150 seats. The amount of votes you need to get a seat is determined by amount of votes / amount of seats.
Senate elections are 2 tiered. First you vote for the Provinciale Staten and these people then vote for the ones who get into the senate. The amount of 'Provinciale Staten' every province has is determined by population with a minimum of 39. So this is a bit more like the US senate where every state gets at least 2 senators but in practise only one province out of 12 is at the minumum. I don't think there has ever been an argument ever in the Netherlands that there was a province with too little influence though in modern times. In the past it's different of course since Holland was basically all powerful.
The reason why minorities still have a reason to vote is because of the multiple party system. Basically if you think you're not represented well you can make your own party and get into the legislature. 50+ is a good example for older people or the SGP for christian conservatives. These do get influence in policy making as well due to the fact that to get a majority in the legislature multiple parties have to form a coalitian. Because our parliament is very fractured at the moment they actually have a lot more influence than you would expect.
I think a clear difference between NL and the US in this case is that we don't really have that state vs federal government battle going on. The fact that Zeeland has less power than Utrecht is simply pretty irrelevant.
edit: That is not to say our system doesn't have its fair share of problems though. I think any of them do but I still prefer it over FPTP.
I see. Well, each State in the US only gets 2 Senators (hence the Senate being 100 members) to equalize power amongst the states. You have to realize how disparate and large the US is, that your system is inherently untenable, especially considering our founding. The US is a confederation - the original 13 colonies were independent states who came together and there was no way that say, Georgia was going to agree to be apart of the union with New York or Massachusetts if they had less say in the national Government.
Similarly, each State is quite different - the culture in Louisiana is quite a bit different than Maine, and Alaska is not too similar to Michigan. Hell, Hawai'i and Idaho are very different politically. There is no way that you could have all these people come together in one Nation if the more populated states had more power than the less populated.
As to the other poster who actually believe that urbanites and rural folk vote roughly the same well...if you actually look at the data that's not even remotely close and that's true for most countries around the world. You should see the data on rural vs urban voting patterns in the US. It's hilariously different. For example, Austin is one of the most progressive cities in the country while all the areas around Austin, TX are polar opposites :p Last time I checked urbanites voted something like 65% Democrat, while Rural folk were like 70% GOP.
There'd be riots in the streets if tomorrow California, New York, Illinois, Florida, and Texas suddenly got 10 more Senators than everyone else. Imagine 10 more Barbara Boxers or Kirsten Gillibrands while only Texas got 10 more conservative Senators...There'd be no reason for a large part of the country to vote for Senators anymore since certain power centers in the country would dominate and there'd be no stopping them. You can't keep a country together where one ideology completely crushes a not insignificant part of the country.
Your comment shows you don't really know a lot about Dutch history ^^. We're formed out of territories which had different cultures, traditions and even language. In fact when we were a republic our states had a strong sense of independence as well. They even had tariffs and stuff between each other. Anyway not really trying to make a point just thought it's interesting how differently our histories went and the cultural effects of them today even though the starting points are actually remarkably similar.
Hilariously enough, Tocqueville draws this exact comparison between Dutch and US type of federation and gives the advantage to the US with interesting arguments. Except that they relie on his prediction that the US federal government will forever remain a lot less powerful than individual states so on the stregth of local democracy. Well...
Well, his argument doesn't deal with that, his problem is that Holland was given too strong of a hand and could bully the rest of the federation. I don't know how accurate this argument is as I don't know much about the Dutch Republic except when it comes to Louis XIV and Spinoza, but I think history proves he was pretty wrong about the US, so it really wasn't that great. I do think the reliance on the strength of local democracy to counteract the federations' power is interesting though. Hello Brussels btw.
This exact rhetoric is used in Sweden as well from the liberal/leftist establishment. Note the relativistic argument in the end where the mayor says "we do it to", arguing that this kind of behavior has nothing to do with culture but has always existed, also in our own culture to equal extent.
In Sweden, liberals and leftists argue that the problem isn't cultural values but *men*. Apparently, nothing has changed at all, these things always happen and in the same extent. All cultures are apparently inherently compatible with liberal democracy, and If someone claims otherwise, they are a racist bigot and need to check their privilege.
EPT
) while also having had our fair share of civil and other wars until the country became truely stable.
