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by portpecos 1415 days ago
Maybe India takes inspiration from her colonizers?

"How did the British Parliament become a place where the person speaking is constantly interrupted while the US Congress is one where the audience is quiet?"

Answer: "It didn’t become such a place, it always was such a place. It started life as a collection of people sent by various towns to meet the King to petition him for some action or other. It was a totally formless group of individuals admitted to the King’s larger meeting hall when and if the King permitted. As such they would shout over each other in the attempt to get the King’s attention. Over the centuries it became more formalised and more structured, and a modicum of order imposed. But it has always had the character of a rowdy everybody against everybody discussion rather than an academic debate.

Famous Parliamentarians, particularly Winston Churchill, have enjoyed it being so and encouraged it. The width of the gangway is still two swords lengths, so they cannot engage swords across it, and the cloak rooms outside still have ribbons intended for you to hang your sword before entering the chamber. Parliament values its traditions of being a barely orderly town meeting."

I don't know how accurate that answer is, but it was the top comment in quora. Other sites show similar answers.

1 comments

Makes sense that it's the system we inherited. For what it's worth, I'd rather have my representatives voice dissent loudly rather than compliance. I wish that dissent was channelled productively rather than show for the TV cameras, but alas, that's what we've got. I do think it's a superior system to the two party US system, especially for such a large and diverse nation like India. It desperately needs reform, though.