The question of the "filibuster" is rightly placed front and center by Heather and in particular for its oft anti-democratic character. However it is a direct reflection of the anti-democratic intentions of the founding fathers when writing the Constitution. Never did they think that the majority of the population should be able to overr…
The question of the "filibuster" is rightly placed front and center by Heather and in particular for its oft anti-democratic character. However it is a direct reflection of the anti-democratic intentions of the founding fathers when writing the Constitution. Never did they think that the majority of the population should be able to overrule their "wise council" as they, as opposed to the uneducated masses, were guided by reason and the greater good of the "nation" as opposed to the "individual" whilst of course the "mob" would only vote their passions and the deire for vengence upon their "betters"! We may of course laugh now after Reagan, Bush and Trump!
Obviously exactly the same considerations were brought to bear in designing the Electoral College and thus the indirect election of the President. The limits on the numbers of Representatives in the lower House is a measure in the same vein.
Europe is struggling collectively with exactly the same problem in trying to eliminate absolute majority requirements on most issues that face the Union; getting fully 27 countries to agree to work for the common good as opposed to fighting uniquely their own corner. The lack of success in this and the maintenance of veto rights for individual countries has largely condemned the EU to inertia and the "lowest common denominator" approach.....and is neither really democratic, overly credible nor appreciated greatly by the people.
The other aspect of this question that needs to be faced is common to all bi-cameral systems. Italy has 2 houses...Senate and House...just like the US each with equal power! The result is habitual stagnation. France and the UK have 2 Chambers and the Senate in France and the Lords in the UK have a residual role, for discussion, delay and a limited filibuster but the "lower" house can overrule them without a great deal of difficulty. The result.....things move if the Executive is so inclined or is sufficiently daring and organized!
Thank you for bringing Europe into the conversation! Very interesting. How do you recommend my gaining daily access to international news. NYT isn’t doing it for me. 🙏🏻❤️🤍💙
The Guardian at least covers Europe from close by. And is a terrific paper that also covers climate change with the seriousness of a mission. Der Spiegel is Germany’s Time/Newsweek only a little more thoughtful, and there’s an English language version. The very good French online paper Mediapart, heavy on investigative reporting, publishes many of its articles in English translation. The Irish Times is also a good paper. (I live in Europe sometimes, that’s why I know about these papers!)
As long as you recognize that Mediapart, much as it is practically alone in France really doing investigative journalism, has a distinct preference for investigating its "poitical foes" viewed from a relatively extreme left wing positioning. Guardian is soft left in comparison.
Mr Attewell, I live in France often. All French papers, very much including Le Monde, have political leanings. Not many people in France would agree with you that it’s ‘hard left’! We don’t even have a left in the US, so what wd be seen as center-left in France—at most—might seem hard left to an American reader. But that is one of the benefits of reading the international press, don’t you think? Being able to place our country in a wider context.
My hard left label referred to Mediapart and not Le Monde which you rightly say is somewhat center left.....".bobo intellectual" for want of a better description and still often imbued with its own importance....not what it used to be!
Unfortunately, Le Monde was recently "recapitalized by Bill Gates and has become largely irrelevant because of its insistance on " political correctness" and mdedia part is a pillar of what is referred to the "Islamo-gauchism" . libération "only"belongs to the Rothschilds!
Mr. Attewell we clearly have different political views. Some of my French friends would also consider that an attitude of peaceful coexistence with immigrants and asylum seekers from Muslim-majority or multi-religious Middle Eastern countries can be accurately mocked with a word like “Islamo-gauchism.” With them as with you I settle for agreeing to disagree. I have lived on and off in France for many years, and have friends there too from the feared and hated populations—poets, doctors, engineers, students, neighbors of mine, the staff of the hamam next door where I get massages in the winter. Islamophobia is a spreading disease in France, thanks to the horrific deeds of mostly Belgians, and the use the National Front puts them to, but I have hope that even in that nativist country they will eventually be accepted—as increasingly they are in this one, now that the gross violence of 19 Saudis is a generation behind us. Of course we have a long history of grudgingly absorbing immigrants from countries other than England
another word for your "peaceful coexistence with immigrant communities" is "communautarianisme" in french and has created areas in France where the law of the land can not be applied
It's often a question of numbers. A little can be easily absorbed but the French are now frequently expressing the opinion that there are now too many to be absorbed and that the immigrants have indeed stopped wishing to be absorbed...and they are still arriving at a rate of 300,000 a yr. It doesn't help that a teacher was recently beheaded in the street because he followed government education policy and explained to his students what is meant by freedom of speech. And this after frequent terrorist killings in major cities.
Also, if you have time, we watch the UK's Questions and Answers with the Prime Minister. It gives insight into the issues at play across the UK and especially in the ongoing Labor/Conservative debate. For sheer fun and irreverent comic take, Mock the Week. Both have managed to survive largely virtually through the shut downs.
CNN is of course a place to start or indeed the BBC as both are free. I look at Reuters too as it is also free. Otherwise in print media you need to check the main papers in each country but they are frequently at least partially on subscription. That would be Times in UK or Guardian if you insist on a left wing slant, Le Figaro (right) or Libération (left) in France but readership is far from being as important as in England and coverage of anything but French affairs is "not very important to the French mind. On the screen you will also find Euronews in English.
Stuart, if I may insert a caveat; BBC World News America has, as their 'resident experts', only GOP mouthpieces - Jonathan Turley, the conservative law prof, Anthony Zurcher, their American reporter, and Ron Christie, a Republican analyst.
You can't blame the filibuster on the writers of the Constitution. It was invented a half-century or more later, by John C. Calhoun, as a pro-slavery maneuver when he noticed the Senate's rules left room for it. The Senate makes its own procedural rules, as does the House.
Calhoun would indeed have his place in todays GOP and not his Democratic origins. He at least was mostly coherent and consistent in his "States rights" philosophy. In those days speeches by key Senators were a major political event and tended to be very long anyway. My point really was that it fitted very well with the approach of the founding fathers as it permitted the majority to obstruct the wishes of the majority...and with impunity ...other than perhaps a little fatigue!
The question of the "filibuster" is rightly placed front and center by Heather and in particular for its oft anti-democratic character. However it is a direct reflection of the anti-democratic intentions of the founding fathers when writing the Constitution. Never did they think that the majority of the population should be able to overrule their "wise council" as they, as opposed to the uneducated masses, were guided by reason and the greater good of the "nation" as opposed to the "individual" whilst of course the "mob" would only vote their passions and the deire for vengence upon their "betters"! We may of course laugh now after Reagan, Bush and Trump!
Obviously exactly the same considerations were brought to bear in designing the Electoral College and thus the indirect election of the President. The limits on the numbers of Representatives in the lower House is a measure in the same vein.
Europe is struggling collectively with exactly the same problem in trying to eliminate absolute majority requirements on most issues that face the Union; getting fully 27 countries to agree to work for the common good as opposed to fighting uniquely their own corner. The lack of success in this and the maintenance of veto rights for individual countries has largely condemned the EU to inertia and the "lowest common denominator" approach.....and is neither really democratic, overly credible nor appreciated greatly by the people.
The other aspect of this question that needs to be faced is common to all bi-cameral systems. Italy has 2 houses...Senate and House...just like the US each with equal power! The result is habitual stagnation. France and the UK have 2 Chambers and the Senate in France and the Lords in the UK have a residual role, for discussion, delay and a limited filibuster but the "lower" house can overrule them without a great deal of difficulty. The result.....things move if the Executive is so inclined or is sufficiently daring and organized!
Thank you for bringing Europe into the conversation! Very interesting. How do you recommend my gaining daily access to international news. NYT isn’t doing it for me. 🙏🏻❤️🤍💙
The Guardian at least covers Europe from close by. And is a terrific paper that also covers climate change with the seriousness of a mission. Der Spiegel is Germany’s Time/Newsweek only a little more thoughtful, and there’s an English language version. The very good French online paper Mediapart, heavy on investigative reporting, publishes many of its articles in English translation. The Irish Times is also a good paper. (I live in Europe sometimes, that’s why I know about these papers!)
As long as you recognize that Mediapart, much as it is practically alone in France really doing investigative journalism, has a distinct preference for investigating its "poitical foes" viewed from a relatively extreme left wing positioning. Guardian is soft left in comparison.
Mr Attewell, I live in France often. All French papers, very much including Le Monde, have political leanings. Not many people in France would agree with you that it’s ‘hard left’! We don’t even have a left in the US, so what wd be seen as center-left in France—at most—might seem hard left to an American reader. But that is one of the benefits of reading the international press, don’t you think? Being able to place our country in a wider context.
My hard left label referred to Mediapart and not Le Monde which you rightly say is somewhat center left.....".bobo intellectual" for want of a better description and still often imbued with its own importance....not what it used to be!
Unfortunately, Le Monde was recently "recapitalized by Bill Gates and has become largely irrelevant because of its insistance on " political correctness" and mdedia part is a pillar of what is referred to the "Islamo-gauchism" . libération "only"belongs to the Rothschilds!
Mr. Attewell we clearly have different political views. Some of my French friends would also consider that an attitude of peaceful coexistence with immigrants and asylum seekers from Muslim-majority or multi-religious Middle Eastern countries can be accurately mocked with a word like “Islamo-gauchism.” With them as with you I settle for agreeing to disagree. I have lived on and off in France for many years, and have friends there too from the feared and hated populations—poets, doctors, engineers, students, neighbors of mine, the staff of the hamam next door where I get massages in the winter. Islamophobia is a spreading disease in France, thanks to the horrific deeds of mostly Belgians, and the use the National Front puts them to, but I have hope that even in that nativist country they will eventually be accepted—as increasingly they are in this one, now that the gross violence of 19 Saudis is a generation behind us. Of course we have a long history of grudgingly absorbing immigrants from countries other than England
another word for your "peaceful coexistence with immigrant communities" is "communautarianisme" in french and has created areas in France where the law of the land can not be applied
It's often a question of numbers. A little can be easily absorbed but the French are now frequently expressing the opinion that there are now too many to be absorbed and that the immigrants have indeed stopped wishing to be absorbed...and they are still arriving at a rate of 300,000 a yr. It doesn't help that a teacher was recently beheaded in the street because he followed government education policy and explained to his students what is meant by freedom of speech. And this after frequent terrorist killings in major cities.
Oh, dear. Just the other day, either Daria? or Ellie Kona?, or somebody referred me to DW News: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCknLrEdhRCp1aegoMqRaCZg
She also recommended this site: https://www.france24.com/en/
Also, if you have time, we watch the UK's Questions and Answers with the Prime Minister. It gives insight into the issues at play across the UK and especially in the ongoing Labor/Conservative debate. For sheer fun and irreverent comic take, Mock the Week. Both have managed to survive largely virtually through the shut downs.
Thank you very much, Carol Stanton. 👍🏻❤️🤍💙
Reuters International, All Africa - https://allafrica.com/ , Reuters Asia - https://www.reuters.com/news/archive/asia , The Moscow Times - https://www.themoscowtimes.com/ - I tend to seek non- US international news sources.
Thank you very much, Jan Angevine. 👍🏻🤍💙
❤️🤍💙
CNN is of course a place to start or indeed the BBC as both are free. I look at Reuters too as it is also free. Otherwise in print media you need to check the main papers in each country but they are frequently at least partially on subscription. That would be Times in UK or Guardian if you insist on a left wing slant, Le Figaro (right) or Libération (left) in France but readership is far from being as important as in England and coverage of anything but French affairs is "not very important to the French mind. On the screen you will also find Euronews in English.
Stuart, if I may insert a caveat; BBC World News America has, as their 'resident experts', only GOP mouthpieces - Jonathan Turley, the conservative law prof, Anthony Zurcher, their American reporter, and Ron Christie, a Republican analyst.
🙏🏻👍🏻❤️🤍💙
Also Deborah. I am an avid reader of The Economist magazine.
🙏🏻👍🏻❤️🤍💙
Thank you very much, Stuart Attewell. 👍🏻❤️🤍💙
You can also check out DW News (Germany) and France 24 (France). Both have streaming services in English.
You can't blame the filibuster on the writers of the Constitution. It was invented a half-century or more later, by John C. Calhoun, as a pro-slavery maneuver when he noticed the Senate's rules left room for it. The Senate makes its own procedural rules, as does the House.
Calhoun would indeed have his place in todays GOP and not his Democratic origins. He at least was mostly coherent and consistent in his "States rights" philosophy. In those days speeches by key Senators were a major political event and tended to be very long anyway. My point really was that it fitted very well with the approach of the founding fathers as it permitted the majority to obstruct the wishes of the majority...and with impunity ...other than perhaps a little fatigue!