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What gets me more than the partisanship (we have plenty of that here, but generally it's reserved for the politicians at Prime Minister's Question Time - you'll struggle to find a British forum where people act as cheerleaders for their side as much as some of the crazies on here) is how ridiculously long and complicated your election campaigns are and how so much of it is down to how much financial backing a candidate has. Months of generating publicity, months of primaries and caucuses, months of people waving flags and pom-poms and getting really excited at overly stage-managed conferences and rallies, then the election (and after all the hype and the money spent half the people don't even vote! Lol!) and even then the new president has to wait another few months to take over, leaving the existing president a sitting duck (why?)
In Britain the party leaders/election candidates are elected internally amongst MPs or members of the party, not the general public - we often know years in advance who the election candidates will be, and people vote more for the party and their manifesto than the personality. Elections are not usually major talking points among the average person, and I've never seen a car bumper sticker saying who somebody voted for - they just wouldn't be produced in the first place. One other big difference is that campaigning generally takes no more than 4-6 weeks (the election dates are not set in stone - the PM can call an election whenever he/she likes within five years of the previous one, and doesn't have to give much notice in advance) and as soon as one side claims victory their leader goes to Buckingham Palace to ask the Queen's permission to form a government (it's just a formality, though she is the head of state and in theory could say no) and becomes PM usually within hours of the polls closing. Voter turnout has fallen in recent years but is generally about 65%.
Your differences are very interesting but so much of what you don't understand is in our written Constitution and therefore prescribed as how we do it. Either of your two main points is done because it is mandated by the Constitution.
People think we should be better informed, for whatever reason, but the length of our campaigns has been determined by the media because they want it that way. Maybe all the primaries should be held close together and then the election coming as soon as possible after that. However, we do have quite a larger population than you do and that may be part of it.
Also, our population is distributed over a much larger territory than yours is.
Thanks for trying to explain how you do your elections. Do you think that when a country doesn't use the system you do to elect the head man we should do it like you do. We use what is known as a Presidential system and yours is called by a totally different name. I sure am glad that the people in our Congress can't determine who that leader should be.
Do our discussions educate and enlighten you? Or do they make us look like an uncivilized people?
This could have been an excellent thread if only the outsiders had taken part but too many of the later responders didn't even know that you had questioned them. If people could read the OP always before jumping in all threads would be more logical in nature, but most don't do that.
The best response to your question came from Ben86 who tried to explain how the British system works. Most of the rest have been nothing but the usual we are better than you are and so forth.
I read many posts before I got in because of what I am saying. I read your OP and just didn't see many of the early responders responding to your question. Nice try, anyway.
You think that it is perfectly acceptable to summarize the enormously complex issue of providing healthcare for over 300 million people to a soundbite of "but the richest and most powerful country in the world doesn't care about helping its citizens?"
That is an incredibly unintelligent argument.
The vast majority of human beings believe in a deity. And that includes those human beings that you claim are are laughing at us.
The vast majority of people in developed countries either do not believe in a deity, or do not give the matter any thought. The US is out on its own in this regard.
The vast majority of people in developed countries either do not believe in a deity, or do not give the matter any thought. The US is out on its own in this regard.
America´s religiosity unique among industrialized countries - Muslim Women - Religion, culture and Islam - timesunion.com - Albany NY (http://blog.timesunion.com/muslimwomen/america´s-religiosity-unique-among-industrialized-countries/705/ - broken link)
I agree but blind rage is completely counter intuitive and counter productive in my experience. Reason and a genuine desire to move forward has to be far more constructive. Screaming until you are blue in the face achieves nothing apart from making the culprit look insane and unhinged.
Very few of us will not be enraged or at least frustrated by our Politicians but there has to be a better way than mud slinging and personal attacks. Whichever side of the fence you are from you have to learn to live with the other side if not in harmony at least in a civil fashion.
I see a lot of rage, anger and frustration but I also see blind hatred, unfocused arguments and a lack of direction as well as to be blunt a lot of ignorance on a lot of issues. A lot of people prefer to speak before they think and I think that causes a lot of damage to whatever causes they are proponents of.
Excluding both extreme sides of the arguments, left or right I would argue that reasonable people from both moderate sides should be able to come together, have civilised discussions and respectfully listen. A consensus simply has to be reached on most issues so that moderation is the main force behind mainstream politics not rage and emotional outbursts.
We ALL are affected by our Politicians for good or worse, but at the end of the day as voters we have duties of care as well as rights.
I cannot fathom how we can ever move forward when we spend most of our time throwing excrement at the other side instead of trying to find a middle ground on many issues. Not everything has to be black and white, a little in-between grey is often the only mature thing to do. It might satisfy our lust for blood and all out political warfare but I can't honestly say how it would be worse than what is in existence at the moment. Give and take. Compromise. It works for couples and can work for parties.
I find Politics fascinating because all aspects of it impact on us all no matter who we are and I believe the only way to even begin and make a difference is to be a little more thoughtful, to keep ourselves a little better informed , to be more socially and politically engaged and active and to want to change the system without completely destroying it.
In many ways I believe the American Political system is eating itself up from within as well as from without. Politicians at each other's throats , not engaging in rational discourse whilst their followers descend into their own madness and simply let good judgement and common sense fly to the winds. Not exactly a very positive outcome.
Democracy as we know it is still our best form of governance despite its many flaws and to engage truly in the process we have to be truly willing to see the other side and come to rational consensus and moderate our ridiculous outburts of churlishness.
Politics should not be a playground. It is far too serious, far too important to mess around and up with and deserves genuine desire to move forward, to be positive and to engage without constantly demeaning the other side. We must bring back Politics from the brink and accord it the respect it deserves.
Rage might be a catalyst for positive action but it cannot take over the process because that to me is simply a total failure.
America´s religiosity unique among industrialized countries - Muslim Women - Religion, culture and Islam - timesunion.com - Albany NY (http://blog.timesunion.com/muslimwomen/america´s-religiosity-unique-among-industrialized-countries/705/ - broken link)
From what I can see in your links, 52% of Europeans believe in a god with another 27% believing in some spiritual or life force.
Only 18% are atheist or don't believe in a spiritual or life force.
In addition, just like in Europe, there are large areas of this country where religion plays virtually no part in people's lives nor does it have any bearing on their political choices.
Don't get me wrong, I really love the USA and the American people. Having said that I would like to say that American politics embodies everything that is bad about the country. It's nearly totally corrupt. Just for a minute consider the number of politicians that are either in jail, under indictment or investigation. It's just historical in the country. Big corrupt political machines are and have been used in all manner of criminal ways. There really is not a whole lot of difference between organized crime and organized corrupt political machines. This corruption goes from the bottom power structure at the local level through the state level and right on up to the federal level. It's impacts on the justice system is just a travesty. Just as wall street is defined by it's greed to the uttermost degree, American politics is defined by a different sort of greed and betrayal of the people.
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