Should we do away with the Presidency?

[Recursion]

I'm starting to think the risks outweigh the benefits. A disturbing number of countries with our general form of government have become dictatorships.

Would we be better off with a parliamentary form of government?

[begin_within]

1. Maybe a board of directors.

[npk]

2. Hell no. We just need a better president

Like Obama. He will change your opinion when he takes office.

[Recursion]

3. We can't count on one

That was the general theory, as I understood it, from the founders: don't trust people in high places. Obama would be a hell of a Prime Minister, too.

Also, the Constitution was written for more politically involved and (depressingly) more literate population than we are.

[bluecatz]

4. We should do away with Republicans

Sounds better to me.

[Recursion]

5. Good point, and welcome to DU

Let them go the way of the Whigs and Federalists.

[magellan]

16. A fair number of Repubs are modern day Federalists

Anyone who supports the concepts of a Unitary Executive, the co-mingling of church and state, silencing critics with threats of jail or deportation, a provocative military stance and a party dominated by wealthy businessmen supports Federalist principles. That describes pretty much the entirety of the GOP, including most of the current administration.

It's well known (or should be) that Bush**'s appointee to Chief Justice of the SCOTUS, John Roberts, was a member of the Federalist Society in the late 90s.

The Federalists lost power 200 years ago and for good reason. But did we learn from history? Evidently not.

[Nye Bevan]

6. No- ours is the best system in the world

A parliamentary government can much more easily become an electve dictatorship, as the executive effectively controls the legislature when its party has a big majority in parliament. This is what happened with Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair.

The Founding Fathers were geniuses; this system has served us well for 200+ years.

[Recursion]

7. But it's failed everywhere else

Most places this is tried it devolves into a dictatorship; the point of a parliamentary government is that the legislature can take down the government.

[Nye Bevan]

8. The problem is the career path of the legislators

Almost all of them want government jobs (or to be opposition spokesmen), and voting against their party is one way to ensure that they will remain backbenchers. It is very rare in the UK for a government with a large parliamentary majority to lose a vote in parliament; parliament effectively becomes a rubber-stamp for the executive. This is why Tony Blair could follow the chimp into Iraq despite the deep personal misgivings of many in the parliamentary Labor party.

[1]

9. a good thought! we live in the age of computers...

how about every morning when we wake up... a series of questions are presented to us.

should we do this? < > or should we do that < >?

they would have to explain thing to us to get us to vote the right way. right?

tell us the truth?

of course it would require that we all have computers and internet access. (but how hard would that be? come on!)



i saw a tv show tonight that said "years ago, radio would have been a dream..."

true that!

[Kablooie]

10. What we need is Twilight Zone's "Old Man in the Cave"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Old_Man_in_the_Cave

[MiniMe]

11. There has been enough shredding on the Constitution in the last 7.5 years

And that would be totally unconstitutional.

[Kitty Herder]

12. It is amendable, you know.

I don't think an amendment creating a parliamentary system would ever pass, but it is possible for that change to be made without shredding the constitution.

[Recursion]

14. We were supposed to re-write one every 20 years or so

Read article 5: we're supposed to be having new Constitutional Conventions whenever 2/3rds of the states call for one.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

13. Yes. In a parliamentary sytem it's easier to fire the bastards.

[eowyn_of_rohan]

15. This one and his master, Cheney, should be done away with ASAP

[deutsey]

17. We should be an anarcho-syndicalist commune

where we take it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week.

But all the decisions of that officer have to be ratified at a special biweekly meeting. By a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs, but by a two-thirds majority in the case of more--

:evilgrin: