Coming to America

[dbmk]

My father is not the King of Zamunda, neither am I going to Queens.

But coming I am. In 10 hours I am taking of from Copenhagen to LA. From there me and tree friends are going to San Francisco and then to Las Vegas.
(I guess thats what your new Vice Polar Bear Hunter might call the Triangle of Sin.)

"What is this relatively useless piece of information doing in GD: P?", you might think.

Let me try to justify it. :)

Once upon a time in the spring 2008 I made one of my first posts here. It was a rather long bit about how Obamas emergence made me, as a Danish citizen, pay attention and get interested. I will spare you the long list of yaddayadda about why and how.

But here is why it I want to share this with you guys:
This place started out as a place for me to get information. But I soon found myself nosedeep in primary rules, congressional district layout, Rules & Bylaws comittee rules (if I dare mention them) and as a spectator and sometimes fighter in the... lets call it spirited.. debate on who should your nominee for president. (And I like the one you ended up with, if there should be any doubt. And Hillary would have been absolutely fine too, had it come to that).
I now know fx., that all real bluecollar workers are born in Scranton, Pennsylvania. :)

But most of all I found that I had almost accidentally fallen into a bottomless pool of information and emotions, supplied by people that shared the same indignation and despair that had grown to be almost unanimous in my part of the world, in terms of the direction your administration had taken the country in. It opened my eyes to how strongly this was felt and by how many. That the blue 50% (or 51% as it might well be argued by some) was not sitting idly by, and that the one dimensional view entertained by most europeans (and fueled by your own administration, some might say) was too forgetting of the fact that there actually is a large part of the US population that has different ideas and visions for the USA. I of course knew this before. If it had occured to me to speculate on it, that is.

All the trolling, joking and harsh words aside, you people amaze me on a daily basis on the speed and most importantly on the level of information that is being brought to bear. This is the first and the last place I check every day.
It is especially appreciated by me because I don't have access to US radio and TV at the flick of a switch. Nor the historical political or local insight, needed to make otherwise logical deductions.

I made almost the same trip last year in August. This year I am looking forward to it for far more reasons. It will be a completely different set of eyes taking your (beautiful) country and its people in. It will be a different mind processing what it sees. And I will relish being being there while this is going on.

So if any of you runs into a Danish guy called Morten over the next couple of weeks - it might be me and I will definately buy you a beer. Because you guys rock. You represent your country well, and you deserve to be reminded of it. (And I guess can make my small donation to the campaign that way. :))

Take care of this place while I am gone (and probably internetless most of the time), ok?

[gateley]

1. What a lovely post!

Just because you're over here doesn't mean you have to do without DU -- WiFi is rampant!

Have a wonderful, fun fun fun trip, and I hope you win lots of money in Las Vegas!

:hi:

[PetrusMonsFormicarum]

2. You don't need TV

As it is all lies designed to sell yogurt and laundry detergents.

There are lies and misinformation here on DU, too; at least when you're here, it's point-and-click to corroborate or refute the things you may read or see.

Thanks for the kind words and for being a part of this vibrant community, but most important of all, thank you for not lumping Americans in with BushCo!

[phrigndumass]

3. Triangle of Sin, LOL!

Very nice post! When I hear about others outside of the U.S. taking an interest in the happenings here, it gives me hope that we can help turn what's happening here on its heels.

When's the next Danish election cycle? Maybe I could visit a board that's local to you and learn about how it works there.

Safe trip, win big in Vegas!

:hi:

[dbmk]

5. Thanks!

And as far as boards go... Maybe you might hit a language barrier. :)

I can sketch out though: Every four years, with exceptions here or there, the Prime Minister announces that there will be an election. He must do it after four years - but can do it before. I'll get back to that.

This is usually announced 2 months before I think. But it has happened with 4-3 weeks notice a lot of times, I think.

Usually there are about 10 more or less serious parties to pick from. And there might be a few less serious ones. (10 years ago or so, a comedian actually got in. Platform: Promising more backwind on the bicycle paths.)

They compete for 179 members spots in the parliament. 2 of those are voted for on Greenland alone, and two on Faroe Islands. (They are usually tied to some of the blocks in Denmark, politically.)

These spots are more or less alotted based on straight percentages of the total votes. You have to get 2% to get in. Currently we have 8 parties in the parliament. Ranging from 3 votes to 47. Relatively closely split left to right as blocks.

Once the Members allocation is clear, the party leaders will then point to who they think should be reponsible for forming a government. The person who then has the backing of the majority, will put together his cabinet and decide which parties actually form up the government (and go an inform the Queen about it :) ). It is not necessarily all the parties that supported it.
And I don't think it has ever happened that the appointed person was not the Prime Minister to be.

The advantages I can see, compared to a presidential election such as the one you have:
Broader representation. The Prime Minister might not take all parties supporting him into the government. But he will still need their votes to get anything through. For a long time smaller parties on the middle made sure that things didn't swing to far away from the public average so to speak. (Unfortunately the situation is sort of reversed atm, where a small, very nationalistic party is dragging it out to the right. Or downwards would be a more appropriate description).
But overall it forces compromises. No one or even two parties has a majority. Well two specific ones does. But thats not a likely combo on most issues.

If a government finds itself in position where it its routinely outvoted or is specifically subject to a succesful vote of no confidence, the Prime Minister will usually call for an election. Or if he thinks the political climate needs a restart, if to much bickering and too little results are happening. He can also technically do it if it seems like a good time for him.
I would guess about 1 out of four or five terms are not run the full 4 years.

That was the short version. :)

Oh, and technically the queen has veto power on the laws. But if she wants to stay living in that fancy castle of hers, she better not use it.

[phrigndumass]

7. Wow, it sounds like recreating the government from scratch every few years!

I can see that it would benefit representation having eight political parties. We should think about a no-confidence vote here! Bush's "air apparent" would have occurred long ago.

The last line killed me, lol! Wish we could oust Bush from that white house. It'll be enough to keep McCain out.

:D

[dbmk]

8. What amazes me most is how votes for "smaller" candidates are useless

Would have made sense that someone like Nader fx, could give his votes to someone else, in case he didn't have the most. But that of course would then require representation at some suppoerting level to have any meaning and bearing.

We don't have so much of a geographical issue to take into account though. It is still designed to have representation spread evenly geographically. But we still have 179 spots covering 5,6 mil people.

That would make for quite a Congress in your case, if the level of representation should be the same. :)

[phrigndumass]

9. We'd need a stadium to hold all the congresspersons, lol

Imagine a filibuster with 10,000 representatives. We'd achieve nothing!

[phrigndumass]

4. KICK

:kick:

[dbmk]

6. Thanks