[lhopki01]

I'm not sure why Americans are so certain that their system of separation of powers is the right one. Most countries don't separate the executive and legislative like that. The executive is whoever can command the support of the legislative. If you think about the US system it makes no sense. An executive can just ignore the rules created by the legislative by just not enforcing it and the only means to stop that is a 2/3 majority in a body that by it's nature is not representative of the population but rather of States.

As far as I can tell the US system is designed for gridlock. Things like filibuster, lower house elections every two years, state elected upper body, electorate system are all designed to create girdlock.

While Americans as a whole are to blame for some of this they are working in a completely broken system. In tech we try not to blame a person when something goes wrong so we look at what process allowed this to happen. I think many of the US problems are explained by their underlying system which is basically a copy of the English one at the time of Independence with a monarch and a parliament. Unlike the English system though it barely evolved since then.

[lordnacho]

I think it's designed that way because it wasn't originally seen as one country, more as a federation.

Even by the time of the civil war, Robert E Lee decided he was Virginian ahead of his national identity.

If you have a bunch of sovereign states, then you need some state-level evening out. If everyone is a citizen of one large state, you can just go proportional.

On top of this, it was never going to be easy to gradually move from one to the other with the issue of slavery looming large, so they didn't fix it. This was still a huge issue in 1848 when a lot of Europe was grappling with how to do a constitution.

So it stayed broken and here we are.

[lhopki01]

Yes I understand it was designed that way 250 years ago. What I don't understand is why so many Americans think that it was perfect. Why aren't Americans open to the idea that their system of "separation of powers" is fundamentally flawed. I went to an American school and separation of powers is talked about is as if it's the only possible right answer.

The US quickly realized that the loose federation wasn't going to work and centralized a lot of power. It should continue to evolve it's system.

It's worth noting that even the US doesn't think it's system is a good idea. When it imposes a new government on countries (like Iraq) it chooses a parliamentary system.

[oblio]

Heh, the separation isn't even the worst part.

The fact that the US Constitution is basically more sacred that the Bible when you talk to the average American is even weirder. The Founding Fathers are the Original Gods (Gangsters?).

[lhopki01]

The issues are intertwined. The Constitution is sacred so therefor the system of government it's setup is sacred and so on.

[RupertSalt]

A sola scriptura republic

[anthonypasq]

responded the same to the person you responsed to but perhaps this is a decent explanation.

because theres no example in history that has worked better. Its unclear how much of the success of the US should be attributed to the Constitution (what history would have looked like if the US had a canadian constitution for example), but what cant be argued is that the US is the most successful political body in world history and it is the old continuous Constitution in the world.

Under that lense it makes sense that Americans are fairly conservative about changing the constitution and why the founders are so revered. Its just fucking worked out great for us until now. Its really a miracle in many ways.

[ceejayoz]

> what cant be argued is that the US is the most successful political body in world history and it is the old continuous Constitution in the world

That’s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_San_Marino.

[anthonypasq]

sigh... ty for the irrelevant and useless pedantry. inescapable on this forum

[Aloisius]

> When it imposes a new government on countries (like Iraq) it chooses a parliamentary system.

I'd avoid reading too much into this. The US simply tries to avoid making too many major changes to the system of government and Iraq was familiar with a parliamentary system already.

The Empire of Japan was a parliamentary semi-constitutional monarchy. Today it is a parliamentary constitutional monarchy. That doesn't mean the US loves kings/emperors.

By contrast, the Dominican Republic stayed as a presidential system.

[anthonypasq]

> What I don't understand is why so many Americans think that it was perfect.

because theres no example in history that has worked better. Its unclear how much of the success of the US should be attributed to the Constitution (what history would have looked like if the US had a canadian constitution for example), but what cant be argued is that the US is the most successful political body in world history and it is the oldest continuous Constitution in the world.

Under that lens it makes sense that Americans are fairly conservative about changing the constitution and why the founders are so revered. Its just fucking worked out great for us until now. Its really a miracle in many ways.

[lordnacho]

> what cant be argued is that the US is the most successful political body in world history

You can very much argue about this.

If you've ever had the task of writing an essay about the nature of success, I don't think you would offer a sweeping statement like this.

[lhopki01]

There are plenty of examples from history and now of better governed countries. I don't know how anyone can look at the US and think it's success is because of constitution and not from being the 3rd largest country on earth with a land empire full of abundant resources that it's never given up and successfully assimilated via imported populations.

[anthonypasq]

why would you muck with one of the most complicated systems humans have ever created on the off chance you fuck everything up when the current system has made you the most successful civilization in human history and has done so for 250 years.

i mean is it really hard to imagine why Americans might be wary to change things? maintaining a stable civilization is a pretty precarious undertaking.

[ceejayoz]

> why would you muck with one of the most complicated systems humans have ever created

That system explicitly encourages mucking with it. We have elections every 2/4/6 years. It has an amendment process. Parts of it, like judicial review and qualified immunity, were just plain invented.

Per Jefferson:

“On similar ground it may be proved that no society can make a perpetual constitution, or even a perpetual law. The earth belongs always to the living generation. They may manage it then, & what proceeds from it, as they please, during their usufruct. They are masters too of their own persons, & consequently may govern them as they please. But persons & property make the sum of the objects of government. The constitution and the laws of their predecessors extinguished then in their natural course, with those who gave them being. This could preserve that being till it ceased to be itself, & no longer. Every constitution then, & every law, naturally expires at the end of 19 years.”

[tracker1]

The difference is in cases where the parliament chooses the executive is it leads to it's own collusion and corruption in terms of excessively growing govt... not that it's barely held the US from doing so. The point is to be in an adversarial context in order to resist overreach of govt.

For better or worse, our system today isn't quite what it was originally designed as... The Senate was originally selected by the state govts, not direct election... the Vice President was originally the runner-up, not a paired ticket and generally hamstrung as a result. The VP didn't originally participate in the Senate either, that came after WWII.

The good part about the constitution is there is a reasonable set of ground rules for changing said constitution with a minimum that should clearly represent the will of the majority of the population. (corrupt politicians not-withstanding)

[lhopki01]

Almost every country ranked for having the least corruption is a parliamentary system. Actually proportional parliamentary seem to be even better in terms of little corruption.

The reasonable set of ground rules seem to favor states over the will of the majority of the population. It is possible to change the constitution with states representing only 25% of the population. And remember you'd only need a majority in each of those states so could be way less of the population.

Overall the system seems flawed in that instead of having clearly delegated areas of responsibility to states and then doing the federal system as based on the population of the whole country it muddled areas and then made a federal system that couldn't respond to the population.

[tracker1]

I include legislative anti-liberties as corruption. If you can be jailed for reposting a meme on twitter, for example... If you post a picture of your dog with a paw up, and make a nazi joke about it and risk winding up in prison as a more specific example.

There are clearly delegated responsibilities to the states... the 10th amendment specifies as much... that the govt has grown beyond this wouldn't have been stopped by a parliament any more than the current system.

[lhopki01]

I can understand your point in terms of negative liberty but I tend to hold positive liberty to be just as important. It is not sufficient to me that there is no law preventing me from having healthcare, I expect that the government should ensure I have the ability to have a healthy life.

The 10th amendment isn't clear. Too many areas are dual responsibility. That's never going to be clear.

[tracker1]

So if there is nobody willing to be a doctor for the pay rate the govt is offering, what happens? Does your "right" to healthcare extend to literal slavery?

I'm being a bit hyperbolic only to make the point... I don't think anyone's "rights" should include forced labor of anyone else. So certain things, even food cannot be a right... I would think that public lands and a right to hunt/gather or even some level cooperative gardening/farming might be okay as a middle ground though.

[lhopki01]

What happens when no one is willing to be a police officer to enforce your negative liberty at the going rate?

[DangitBobby]

What happens when no one is willing to be a public defender at the going rate?

[AnthonyMouse]

> As far as I can tell the US system is designed for gridlock.

At the federal level the US system was designed for gridlock on purpose, with the premise that something shouldn't be federal policy without widespread consensus, and without that consensus it should be left to the states.

The problem is really that many of the gridlock-inducing measures have been thwarted, e.g. delegation of rulemaking power from Congress to the executive and direct election of Senators to prevent state-representing Senators from voting down federal overreach. But those things weren't just there to induce gridlock, they were also the accountability measures, so without them you put corruption on rails and here we are.

[lhopki01]

Any system designed for gridlock will lead to increasing anger and pressure that will eventually break out in bad ways. If people see the results of their own actions then they are not going to end up so extreme.

I'm not sure why Americans think that the creation of agencies is the problem when other well governed countries do the same. The idea that a legislative body could possible create appropriate regulation in a modern complex world is crazy. That's what a parliamentary system solves. It keeps the executive accountable to the legislative at all times.

[AnthonyMouse]

> Any system designed for gridlock will lead to increasing anger and pressure that will eventually break out in bad ways.

Only if there is no other way to address the issues, but the system provides one. You adopt the policy at the state level instead.

> I'm not sure why Americans think that the creation of agencies is the problem when other well governed countries do the same.

The US at the federal level is larger than nearly all other countries. North Carolina has more people and a higher GDP than Sweden. California has almost as many people as Canada and a higher GDP. The US has the same order of magnitude in size and population as the whole EU.

Bureaucracies have diseconomies of scale. There is a point past which "larger" is no longer getting you significantly better amortization of fixed costs and is instead just increasing communication costs, adding layers of middle management, exacerbating the principal-agent problem and making you a more attractive target for corruption.

The US federal government is well past the optimal size for solving most problems; probably even California is too big.

[lhopki01]

>Bureaucracies have diseconomies of scale. There is a point past which "larger" is no longer getting you significantly better amortization of fixed costs and is instead just increasing communication costs, adding layers of middle management, exacerbating the principal-agent problem and making you a more attractive target for corruption.

You write this as a self evident truth but it isn't. In what way is having a single trucking standard for the entire country less efficient than having 50? In what way is having a single currency across the entire country less efficient than having 50? In what way is having a single standard for approval of medication less efficient than having 50?

The US's advantage is precisely because of it's scale. It provides a massive addressable market allowing companies to scale rapidly.

[AnthonyMouse]

> In what way is having a single trucking standard for the entire country less efficient than having 50? In what way is having a single currency across the entire country less efficient than having 50?

This is why issuing currency and interstate commerce (meaning actually crossing state lines, not the modern interpretation of anything that affects commerce anywhere) are among the explicitly enumerated powers of the federal government.

> In what way is having a single standard for approval of medication less efficient than having 50?

It allows large states to set their own standards and smaller states to choose which of the standards to apply, e.g. Arizona says you can sell anything in Arizona that you can sell in Texas, without requiring everyone to agree on how the trade offs should be made, e.g. California can have more stringent rules than Texas. Meanwhile people in Texas could still choose not to consume anything if it hasn't been approved in California and people in California could go to Arizona to get things they think California is being too reserved by prohibiting.

> The US's advantage is precisely because of it's scale. It provides a massive addressable market allowing companies to scale rapidly.

Which in itself has the tendency to promote megacorps and market consolidation over competitive markets with larger numbers of smaller companies, and consolidated markets themselves have significant inefficiencies and costs.

Meanwhile why would that require the federal government to insert itself into local education policy or be issuing subsidies to oil companies etc.?

[bregma]

The structure of British government during the Hanoverian times was little different from what the UK has today. The monarch was effectively a powerless figurehead and executive decisions were made mostly by faceless very wealthy individuals in back rooms with the public face carried by a small set of charismatic figures who usually sat in parliament.

The US system was designed as a grand experiment. It made a certain amount of sense at the time: the country as a vast plantation steered by a benevolent master with policy set by wealthy landowners and businessmen who knew what was best for everyone. It was a system already in place in the Americas for generations and most national arguments could be hashed out at the club over some fine imported brandy or, for people like Franklin, some imported tea.

As far as it goes, there have been worse set-ups.

[lhopki01]

It's quite different. The House of Lords was much more powerful well into the 19th century. The monarch was hardly a powerless figure in those times. The Bill of Rights 1689 probably shifted the power more towards Parliament than before but the monarch was still very powerful. The UK system continues to evolve with notable precedents being set very recently like requiring a consultation of Parliament before embarking on military action and the limitation of prorogation powers.

The setup isn't the problem. The refusal to evolve is the problem.

I'd argue that it wasn't really the system in place. The system in place was one of states governing themselves. Before independence the states didn't really deal much with each other.

[mjd]

The filibuster isn't part of the system; it's not even part of the law. It's just part of the rules that the Senate chose for their own internal procedures.

[lhopki01]

It's just another thing that means people don't face the consequences of their own actions. If the extremeness of the elected party is blocked by the filibuster then people are angry at things not changing and so go even more extreme.

A similar problem in the United States is the excessive amount of law making by the Judiciary. In most countries the Judicary doesn't' make law it just tells Parliament that they need to change the law. This again means the consequences of who you voted for are not faced.

The pressure builds till there's a breaking point.

[specialist]

> the US system is designed for gridlock

Yup. aka vetocracy