It’s election time in America, which means, of course, time to decide who gets the gun.
For some reason, in 2016, Americans decided to throw the gun into the monkey enclosure at the zoo. The rest of the world watched in horror, but were still unable to look away. Luckily, a bunch of opportunists jumped into the monkey enclosure too. A few made sure the safety on the gun was on, and others nudged the gun in the direction they thought it should be pointed.
In 2020, the gun was handed to a career politician who put it in a box and only glanced at it in occasion to make a point.
Then, in 2024, inexplicably, the gun was thrown back into the monkey enclosure. This time the monkey started throwing shit at anybody who wanted to control his gun, so now the world watches on as the shit-throwing monkey swings the gun around wildly.
(But don’t worry, America’s system of checks and balances will ensure that … HA! Just kidding. You think that a bunch of 20 year olds in the 1700s knew enough about human psychology and game theory to come up with a system that would rein in a corrupt king, as long as he kept others in line with bribes and threats?)
I feel like the problem is less the people from the 18th century, and more the lifetime political appointees in the 21st century who re-interpret what the people from the 18th century wanted via the medium of seance.
Fix that - and Citizens United - and you’d probably make quite a few steps in the direction of “functioning democracy”.
I’m going to hazard to guess that neither of the parties are campaigning on fixing the Supreme Court or Citizens United though, so we can’t really consider the current clownshow an aberration.
My point is that the US political system is in very dire need of a fundamental overhaul. The forces that prevent this are explicitly doing so to prevent the will of the people from being enacted.
No, they used some of the names from the Roman system so it wouldn’t be as obvious that they were just copying the British system. The roman system was completely different. The roman system didn’t have a “lower house”. Senators served for life. Rome had praetors, consuls and censors. There’s nothing equivalent to any of those roles in the US system. The US doesn’t elect army generals which was a key part of the Roman system. Romans voted on laws directly, not using the representative democracy that the UK and US use.
The US senate is basically the “house of lords”. The house of representatives is basically the “house of commons”. The king was renamed to a president, but has many of the same powers. The supreme court follows roughly the same model as the British one. They eliminated the role of the prime minister, but then just recreated it as the speaker.
The main difference is that the US system is more closely based on an earlier British system when the king had more power. In the modern system the monarch is a figurehead who basically only has ceremonial powers and it’s the Prime Minister who’s really in charge. In the US system, the “head of state” has all the earlier kingly powers of the earlier British system, except that it’s an elected position and not hereditary.
American here, can confirm, except that you forgot that there are some monkeys who are egging on the one with the gun, and pointing out who they would like it to be used on.
It’s election time in America, which means, of course, time to decide who gets the gun.
For some reason, in 2016, Americans decided to throw the gun into the monkey enclosure at the zoo. The rest of the world watched in horror, but were still unable to look away. Luckily, a bunch of opportunists jumped into the monkey enclosure too. A few made sure the safety on the gun was on, and others nudged the gun in the direction they thought it should be pointed.
In 2020, the gun was handed to a career politician who put it in a box and only glanced at it in occasion to make a point.
Then, in 2024, inexplicably, the gun was thrown back into the monkey enclosure. This time the monkey started throwing shit at anybody who wanted to control his gun, so now the world watches on as the shit-throwing monkey swings the gun around wildly.
(But don’t worry, America’s system of checks and balances will ensure that … HA! Just kidding. You think that a bunch of 20 year olds in the 1700s knew enough about human psychology and game theory to come up with a system that would rein in a corrupt king, as long as he kept others in line with bribes and threats?)
TBF, it did work reasonably well back then. You can’t expect people from the 18th century to design a political system that would work in the 21st.
I feel like the problem is less the people from the 18th century, and more the lifetime political appointees in the 21st century who re-interpret what the people from the 18th century wanted via the medium of seance.
Fix that - and Citizens United - and you’d probably make quite a few steps in the direction of “functioning democracy”.
I’m going to hazard to guess that neither of the parties are campaigning on fixing the Supreme Court or Citizens United though, so we can’t really consider the current clownshow an aberration.
My point is that the US political system is in very dire need of a fundamental overhaul. The forces that prevent this are explicitly doing so to prevent the will of the people from being enacted.
Sure, they copied the British system and relabelled things. The British system worked pretty well.
They mostly copied the Roman system and then sprinkled British Common Law all over it.
No, they used some of the names from the Roman system so it wouldn’t be as obvious that they were just copying the British system. The roman system was completely different. The roman system didn’t have a “lower house”. Senators served for life. Rome had praetors, consuls and censors. There’s nothing equivalent to any of those roles in the US system. The US doesn’t elect army generals which was a key part of the Roman system. Romans voted on laws directly, not using the representative democracy that the UK and US use.
The US senate is basically the “house of lords”. The house of representatives is basically the “house of commons”. The king was renamed to a president, but has many of the same powers. The supreme court follows roughly the same model as the British one. They eliminated the role of the prime minister, but then just recreated it as the speaker.
The main difference is that the US system is more closely based on an earlier British system when the king had more power. In the modern system the monarch is a figurehead who basically only has ceremonial powers and it’s the Prime Minister who’s really in charge. In the US system, the “head of state” has all the earlier kingly powers of the earlier British system, except that it’s an elected position and not hereditary.
American here, can confirm, except that you forgot that there are some monkeys who are egging on the one with the gun, and pointing out who they would like it to be used on.