Best Time to Abolish House of Lords

Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.

If you live in a society consisting of two wolves and a sheep, you have greater problems than a governmental system can fix.

I live in the Western World's Elective Dictatorship, par excellence. New Zealand has a unicameral Parliament, complete parliamentary sovereignty with no judicial review system, and no written constitution (we do have a very weak Bill of Rights that is solely a tool for interpretation). There is no external organisation like the EU to restrain lawmakers, and until the mid 1990s, we had First Past the Post on top of that.

Are there abuses? Yes. 1975-1993 was an interesting period. But we're hardly hell on earth. In contrast to other countries, we achieved gay marriage via Parliamentary vote, not through the courts.
 
While we're at it, there are things like New Zealand's unique Accident Compensation laws, which would have never passed under the American or Australian model of governance. You know, because of the entrenched special interests thing?
 
If you live in a society consisting of two wolves and a sheep, you have greater problems than a governmental system can fix.

I live in the Western World's Elective Dictatorship, par excellence. New Zealand has a unicameral Parliament, complete parliamentary sovereignty with no judicial review system, and no written constitution (we do have a very weak Bill of Rights that is solely a tool for interpretation). There is no external organisation like the EU to restrain lawmakers, and until the mid 1990s, we had First Past the Post on top of that.

Are there abuses? Yes. 1975-1993 was an interesting period. But we're hardly hell on earth. In contrast to other countries, we achieved gay marriage via Parliamentary vote, not through the courts.
So prime ministers can do as they like?
 
I’m in favor of informal social norms, but not hardwired. A great example of the wrong way to do it is the U.S. Senate filibuster. A clear better alternate is simply a norm that we are interested in and will listen to minority positions.
 
What I’d really love is a social norm of medium step, and honestly looking at feedback. I wish people were just more focused on this. I’d argue that this was a big part of the success of the U.S. civil rights movement, the Apollo space program, as well as successful sports seasons. The idea of relatively rapid cycles of medium step and feedback.

But I don’t know how to hardwire this in.
 

kernals12

Banned
I’m in favor of informal social norms, but not hardwired. A great example of the wrong way to do it is the U.S. Senate filibuster. A clear better alternate is simply a norm that we are interested in and will listen to minority positions.
The Senate filibuster could easily be eliminated through the twice used nuclear option.
 
agree in full with all of @Analytical Engine posts in this thread

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If you live in a society consisting of two wolves and a sheep, you have greater problems than a governmental system can fix.

I live in the Western World's Elective Dictatorship, par excellence. New Zealand has a unicameral Parliament, complete parliamentary sovereignty with no judicial review system, and no written constitution (we do have a very weak Bill of Rights that is solely a tool for interpretation). There is no external organisation like the EU to restrain lawmakers, and until the mid 1990s, we had First Past the Post on top of that.

Are there abuses? Yes. 1975-1993 was an interesting period. But we're hardly hell on earth. In contrast to other countries, we achieved gay marriage via Parliamentary vote, not through the courts.

New Zealand has under 5 million people there are cities that have more people then you do.

The UK meanwhile has over 60 million people. Think about the difference between how a small town can be run and what a major city requires and now up grade it to the nation state level.
 
What I’d really love is a social norm of medium step, and honestly looking at feedback. I wish people were just more focused on this. I’d argue that this was a big part of the success of the U.S. civil rights movement, the Apollo space program, as well as successful sports seasons. The idea of relatively rapid cycles of medium step and feedback.

But I don’t know how to hardwire this in.
In Information technology terms, this is Rapid methods vs Waterfall.


Guess which was adopted first and which is now the norm ;)

For the few non nerds

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterfall_model
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_application_development
 
So prime ministers can do as they like?

Pretty much. If they don't do as we like, we vote them out though.

(I think this is ultimately the difference in political culture between New Zealand and the USA. The USA resolves things via bipartisan agreement, because if it doesn't, nothing happens. New Zealand resolves things via elections - giving one side absolute power for three years, mitigated only by the proportional representation system we picked up in the 1990s. In theory, Parliament could pass a law tomorrow sending all people with hazel eyes to concentration camps. The reason it doesn't is that the sort of Government to do that wouldn't win election in the first place).
 
I think it depends. Simply abolishing the House of Lords would enter lots of opposition (just look at this thread and how people have decided to bring in personal opinions when they're irrelevant here) but abolishing it and replacing it with a more modern body without crazy stuff like bishops having legislative power may not. Unicameralism is too much of a stretch for a nation used to bicameralism. I think replacement is pretty doable in any case, but the question is, with what?
 
i love discussions like that.
anything that makes you try to look beyond your biases is healthy as fuck, even if i know i try my utmost not to.
 

kernals12

Banned
I think it depends. Simply abolishing the House of Lords would enter lots of opposition (just look at this thread and how people have decided to bring in personal opinions when they're irrelevant here) but abolishing it and replacing it with a more modern body without crazy stuff like bishops having legislative power may not. Unicameralism is too much of a stretch for a nation used to bicameralism. I think replacement is pretty doable in any case, but the question is, with what?
I guess a Senate with equal representation for each of the 9 regions in England plus Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland.
 
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