I'm coming to the view that the constant banging of 'rights' in the US is being used against, rather than for, it's people. There are more than a few politicians here who wish to hell they didn't have to try and impress anyone else other than their most ardent registered fans enough to vote for them. But they do.
I've tried but haven't yet mastered getting my head around the complex structure of your politics and the intricacies of voting procedures. I've had it explained by a kind and patient US member on a previous forum, who seems to have gotten lost on the trek here, but while on the surface it makes sense if you have been born with doing things that way it does seem far more complex than it needs to be.
We don't need 'delegates' and layers of selection and all that jazz. A candidate is chosen to represent a Party and stands in an electorate against others in other Parties and we go along and vote for whoever we deem the best of a bad lot.
We don't need bells and whistles and a 4 year run in because we don't have to elect a President to angst over.
5 weeks is our usual campaigning time.
The Party which gets the most candidates up then runs the joint. They pick their own leader who then becomes our Prime Minister. If he turns out to be an idiot then they toss him to the back bench and elect someone else who then becomes Prime Minister. Eeeaaasyyyy.
Instead of that POTUS worry we have the Monarch as 'Head of State' who stays out of our business and let's us get on with things as we choose but holds figurehead status to be drawn on when things get out of hand.
The Monarch has essentially no powers at all except to control the parliarmentary procedures when a deadlock occurs which amounts to issuing an order to have another election. No brainer! Even that is done through a 3rd Party, the Governor General who is not elected, but appointed by the Prime Minister. So in essence the PM tells the Queen who her representive is whether she likes it or not. No Royal declarations or decisions to bother us at all.
Good system, you should have kept it.
Too late?
Most of our pollies have backgrounds as burned out lawyers or Union bosses looking to further their ambitions to run everybody's life. A couple of millionaires there, even a billionaire, but most just wheeler dealers in a career change.
Obama made much of pointing out those who sprang from humble beginnings to reach the pinnacle (yeah right.) of a political career.
Well now how does that happen exactly? Excluding those in the population whose humble beginnings were overcome to make them multimillionaires or at least leading lights of their communities, how did those politicians achieve the pinnacle? 'Hard work' was mentioned. Really? Hard physically, nup.
Hard intellectually? sort of. But to achieve the pinnacles of politics takes a vastly different kind of talent than to build a business.
What career politicians have mastered despite their 'humble' beginnings is the ability to shelve conscience, and to figure out how to fang and claw their way over everyone else in their path to power. You don't get to the top standing in the corner being nice in politics.
You really so proud of that talent Barrack? all those others applauding themselves? Yeah, I guess leaving the bodies of rivals laying in your wake would be hard work. Never forget this bloke out-politicked Hilary Clinton! Now that really does show talent!
Sorry, not having a go at your politics, (just pointing it out as a scoring point for Warri,) as similar things went on here. Some were sooooo impressed that we had a woman PM. They were so blinded with ecstasy that they didn't give a thought to how she got there.
Over the bodies of all the many male rivals along the way who she then had the unmitigated gall to make a speech about, denouncing them for mysogony!!! Here she was, the Red Queen, blaming her victims for messing up the bloodied sword she was trying to wield on the opposition Party the same way she'd lain waste to anyone worthwhile who might rival her in her own Party.
'Poor Julia' huh! .... poor Genghis!!!
All politicians should be seen as flawed human beings, we shouldn't elect them for their marketing spiel and poisonalities, we only need people competent to make sensible decisions. They are supposed to be working for us!
We'd be better off choosing at random a few number cruncher accountants and some Civil Engineers. We have to have career diplomats but they can be appointed, we can fire them if they stuff up. All we need elect are a few Politicians to oversee the various authorities. Most ministers have little more than clue about their portfolios anyway. They are experts at nothing except politics itself.
