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The structure of the US government has an unusually high number of veto points. Presidents have, as opposed to similar positions in other countries, much less
by x0x0 11y ago
The structure of the US government has an unusually high number of veto points. Presidents have, as opposed to similar positions in other countries, much less power to push their agenda. People who don't understand that change comes slowly in the US, and requires serious organization to push through the house and senate, are being silly and simultaneously sabotaging their ostensible goals. viz Obama supporters not voting in off-presidential year elections and hence crippling his ability to push legislation.
- lambdasquirrel 11y agoWell go ahead. All of you mod me down. But you cannot explain the executive Branch's response to Snowden. Did the Republicans in legislature do that? No. That was purely the administration's choice.
- dang 11y ago> Well go ahead. All of you mod me down The HN guidelines ask you not to comment like this: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- bigufufhug 11y agoLol, yet another example of selective moderation. Keep up the good work of harassing the pov you disagree with.
- peterwwillis 11y agoModeration is supposed to be selective. And a downvote is not harassment.
- x0x0 11y agoThe national security state has a lot of inertia. There's a long discussion to be had about what Obama's choices realistically were (and never forget I'd say there's at least a 50% chance the cia assisted in assassinating a sitting US president), but you seem more interested in the green lantern theory of the presidency. fyi I didn't mod you down
- Yaggo 11y ago> The structure of the US government has an unusually high number of veto points. Presidents have, as opposed to similar positions in other countries, much less power to push their agenda. Actually the opposite is true. In many (Western) countries the head of state has zero actual power. The US president has some actual power, e.g. limited veto right on bills.
- tomp 11y agoYou need to compare the US president by the similarly positioned person in each country. E.g. in France it's the president, in the UK and Germany the chancellor, in Slovenia the prime minister (in Germany and Slovenia the president is powerless).
- germanier 11y agoI wouldn't call the German president completely powerless. They can veto laws that seem unconstitutional (and this was done multiple times in the past). In case of war they play an important role. Their speeches often have large Impact. But compared to other countries that's still relatively few powers.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- Ntrails 11y agoPresident is far more akin to Prime Minister in the UK than chancellor, although in some ways I suppose not since the president is not a member of either house and rarely speaks/debates there. Also the power of Veto is one thing - but the power only to maintain the status quo is a pretty limiting thing.
- tomp 11y agoOops... I guess I confused Cameron and Osborne. You're right, Prime Minister is the one!
- bigufufhug 11y agoFunny, Obama certainly didn't lack the power to wage mass genocide on brown skinned people.
- yourapostasy 11y ago> People who don't understand that change comes slowly in the US, and requires serious organization to push through the house and senate... A lot of people new to the US political process (that is, get consistently involved beyond simply voting, even more involved than voting in primaries), do not understand the slow pace of change is a deliberate feature designed-in from the start, not a bug. Normative slow policy change means it is just as slow to implement adverse policies as well, giving time for citizens to put in the effort and time to roll it back just as slowly. Hence Benjamin Franklin's "...if you can keep it" quip. What we see as alarming, fast-paced changes today are the culmination of generations of dogged efforts at policy changes frequently made opportunistically rather than specifically goal-directed, incubating emergent adverse behavior given rise by generations of insufficient citizen participation assiduously maintaining the republic's edifice. The US political arena has its version of Usenet's Eternal September, where newcomers arrive (often timed to presidential elections) in a fresh, eager batch putting in tons of time and effort, then ebb like the tide when they don't see the results they anticipated (forgetting Bismarck's dictum that "Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable — the art of the next best.") within 1-4 years. Only a smattering remain to welcome the next batch. When life changes (job-related moves, children, extended family medical issues, etc.) enter the picture, it filters out even more (interesting relationships to explore here between most citizens unable to find stability navigating those life changes, and political participation). It's a stamina-oriented sport with results often measured in decades, and the work that produces real results is often very tedious and distinctly lacking glamor.