Originally posted by Graeme the mad
As pointed out by other people on this thread it is not a flaw in democracy merely canadian (and British) democracy.
GREAT TO SEE A LIBERAL SUPPORTER on the boards btw Pellaken (All you in england vote lib dem on thursday (unless its already happened when you read this of course in which case you xant vote this thursday because that would be silly)
However I would like to point out what has been seen as a flaw in proportional representation (though I support it) - it tends to lead to large numbers of parties none of which can gain a majority and so coalition governments are more likely to be formed and these tend to be very bad at getting anything done and even worse at managing not to disintegrate completley and call for another general election (where people vote exactly the same way)
However I would like to point out some other flaws inherent in democracy as it exists and there are a lot - first and formost is that a party may not exist that gives people what they want (in the next round French presidential elections for instnace - just imagine that if there had been no jospin to begin with). Secondly Democracy assumes that the vast majority of people are always right which is complete nonsense (I'll argue that if anyone disagrees but cant be bothered now cos I believe your all intelligent enough to accept it)
Thirdly politicians try to get votes not to do what is right (connected to the second point) and will almost always argue agains all the policies of all the other parties so that choice of people is further limited.
Fourthly democracy leads to ultra high levels of beurocracy and
fithly democracies are inadept at making desicions fast and in times of real national crisis find themselves reduced to near dictatorships (look at ww1 and ww2)
ANyway theres my thoughts on it (fell free to get angry and call me stupid and say I dont understnad and other things which are propably true)
well, too many people complan about majority governments, what other then a minority, can we have? the US is a good example of this, despite the endless bickering, thier 2 houses and president actually do get things done. perhaps after years of deadlock, canadian politicans would finally get it into thier head, that they cant get what they want all the time!
I'd like a sply PR system. this# of sears done by PR, and this# of seats elected by district. even another, this# of seats elected from the provinces... as well as a senate.
my 'dream' system is:
1 leader.
president, emperor, etc. very powerful
12 council.
cabinet for example. acts as supereme court at times, and is powerful.
100 senate
this senate is electeed 100% by district {as is the way in US, UK, and Can today} the senate is very powerful
400 house
this house is made up of members elected in a number of different ways.
200 are elected in proportional representation. the minimum 'cut off' is 2% any party with less then this is not counted.
100 are elected in districts. the same districts as the senate. so a voter in a district, casts 3 ballots, one for PR, one for a senate cand. and one for a house cand.
100 are elected by provincial PR. "whats provincial PR?" here, I'll tell ya
lets say the nation has 3 provinces:
province
state
and
territory
state has 400thousand people on it
province has 400thousand
territory 200thousand
lets say that state voted, in the last election:
liberal 50%
conservative 25%
communist 25%
it has 400T and therefore, 40% of the nation, so 40% of the seats. thats is 40 seats. 50% of these 40 seats, is 20, so the liberals get 20 seats right there. the consevratives and communists get 10 and 10.
and so on...
this will ensure that people dont just vote one wat in a provincial election and not vote the same federally. PEI has a way of doing this... currentley, all 4 federal rep's are liberal, but 26 of the 27 provincial seats are conservative.
anyways
