Freedom Of Speech

that's a nice one, We changed our constitution in 97 or so, as far as I know we can change everything it (as I said you need 66% in both houses and a lot of other stuff as well) doesn't happen unless like 90% of parliament agrees with it

Originally posted by Ushgarak
Only with assent from the people, which is what they got but only because the people had become intimidated and mis-led.

The Republic failed. The system fell apart, and became something it was never intended to be.

It is only an example of a FAILED democracy, not a peril OF democracy.

Well it could happen again. Not in germany we took care of that 😛.
And especially if you say it shoukld be decided by the leaders. What do you think Bush would cut in the freedom of speech?

Originally posted by Fire
that's a nice one, We changed our constitution in 97 or so, as far as I know we can change everything it (as I said you need 66% in both houses and a lot of other stuff as well) doesn't happen unless like 90% of parliament agrees with it

Same with us we need 66 % to change anything in the constitution and the first 20 parts are absolutely unchangable.

Bush was elected on fair principle in a system entirely designed to prevent him ever having too much power. One of the problems in US politics is ever getting ANYTHING done at all, with the number of checks and balances it has. What is happening in the US is absolutely democracy in action.

Except for this the winner gets it all thing I agree.

But I am not argueing agains Bush I am saying no one can really decide what to limit in the FoS

Idd he was elected by the rules and regulations of their system, altho the dude goes on and on about the "mandate" he got I mean not even 40% of the people who are allowed to vote voted for him

Exactly but oh well he won according to their rules. But he shouldn't be allowed to cut back on any freedoms (oh wait he did)

Well that patriot act is a big joke IMO, but well their country their rules.
Bardock what kind of political system do you believe in (you like your german two vote system?)

Its ok, not the best but I like it a lot more. I can't think of a better at the moment though 😛

it's quite a good one, I wonder how the actual formula works tho

YOu mean how we vote or what?

I know about the first vote and the second vote thingy, I also know that the parties who get less in the first vote get more chairs in the second vote (nice idea) but I wonder how they actualy assign the chairs to the parties (I know how the Belgian formula works, disappointingly easy)

Well I think we go after the percentage, first parties need to get over five percent to go to parlament anyway Then there is a given amount of seats they can get and so every party has seats and for the people that get voted with our second vorte, I am actually not sure how exactly that works but I think they get the other half of the seats. So one the one hand we vote for a party we support and then for people we want to have in the parlament. Actually pretty neqat I think.

I knew that, but the whole idea about the parties who score low in the first system get more seats in the second system is just weird.

IWell thats not true, it depends, its possible for a party that doesn't get above 5% to still get seats in the first vote as long as 3 candidates of that party get voted into parlament.

weird rule, entirely weird system, well I assume they'll teach me how it works at uni 🙂

Yeah they should its good because, you can vote for the ideas of a certain party but at the same time for someone you know that you think wopuld be good in parlament, it is like the midway between two extremes.

True, but as I said before to people, in belgium that regional bonding is not really cared for that much

Oh well, we just thought it was usefull when we created the system, doesn't mean its right 😛

True, altho with the german history in mind. I think it's regional ties are far more important than in belgium