Western Separation

[Matt]

Please, the Liberals have stong numbers in many other provinces than just those ones because they are the only middle party. People only go to the extreme sides (far-right (Conservatives)/far-left (N.D.P.) when there is a crisis in the country, if people are satisfied they tend to vote for the middle. Also Proportional Representation would not work finacially. These governments get disolved within a year so because people cannot agree that well ever really. So what happens is people get to vote again, and that results in more elections. Elections are costly, and I would rather see that money going to help people and have an election about every four or five years as opposed to every year.

[Bizud]

Except that these governments don't get dissolved every year. Come on, man, you don't know what you're talking about, you just pulled that right out of your ass. I actually am somewhat familiar with the recent electoral histories of the countries I listed, I could make a really long post showing the average lifespan of a government or the time between elections in these countries, but I hope that won't be necessary.

 

Please, the Liberals have stong numbers in many other provinces than just those ones because they are the only middle party. People only go to the extreme sides (far-right (Conservatives)/far-left (N.D.P.) when there is a crisis in the country, if people are satisfied they tend to vote for the middle.

 

That's by no means the case - the Liberals got well under 40% of the votes in the last election - but I don't see what you're getting at anyway.

[Matt]

Let me guess you are a political sciences student and think you know it all because you are a political sciences student. These governments do not last long and I did not pull that out of my behind. Also people are willing to vote for the N.D.P. now because it does not matter actually. After twelve years of the Liberals dominating politics federally means some people feel they will win the election resulting people in voting for other parties to help them out. If an election was seriously on the line, many people would more than likely vote for the Liberals as opposed to the N.D.P. because they risk having the Conservatives winning over a divided left.

[Bizud]

Alright, alright, we'll do it the hard way. We'll start with New Zealand, since they used to use our voting system and switched to Mixed Member Proportional as of their 1996 election. Since then, they've had elections in 1999, 2002, and there's one scheduled for a few weeks from now. Every three years, exactly the same rate as before the switch since three years has always been the maximum term in NZ.

 

Next up, Germany, the other country that uses MMP. There's an election for the Bundestag scheduled for September, and they've had elections in 2002, 1998, 1994, 1990, 1987, 1983, and so on. So, between three and four years, the standard for a democracy.

 

Single Transferable Vote: Ireland. Last election was in 2002. Before that, there were elections in 1997, 1992, 1987, and 1982. There was a brief flurry of instability right before that, but that was an anomaly - the norm is clearly four to five years between elections in Ireland.

 

Norway uses pure party-list PR. Elections in 2005, 2001, 1997, 1993, 1989, 1985, 1981, 1977, and so on. Every four years exactly. What instability!!

 

Sweden: 2002, 1998, 1994, 1991, 1988, 1985, 1982. Three to four years.

 

Spain: 2004, 2000, 1996, 1993, 1989, 1986, 1982.

 

Portugal: 2005, 2002, 1999, 1995, 1991. And so on and so forth. Need I go on? God I hope not.

 

Finally,

 

Also people are willing to vote for the N.D.P. now because it does not matter actually. After twelve years of the Liberals dominating politics federally means some people feel they will win the election resulting people in voting for other parties to help them out. If an election was seriously on the line, many people would more than likely vote for the Liberals as opposed to the N.D.P. because they risk having the Conservatives winning over a divided left.

 

That's accurate enough (though I wouldn't place the Liberals on the left - Trudeau was the last left-liberal leader, everyone since has been a "business liberal," rolling back the welfare state, lowering taxes, privatizing crown corporations and opposed to intervening in the economy), but again, I don't see your point. If we had PR, there would be no need to vote Liberal to keep out a Conservative, since vote-splitting wouldn't be a factor. That's kind of the whole point, genius. There would also probably still be a Progressive Conservative party.

Edited August 24, 2005 by Bizud

[Moonlight_Graham]

C'mon people, whats with the personal attacks on Matt and calling him an "idiot" etc.?

 

If you guys think you are such superior debaters, you'd know your arguments are fallacious because those personal attacks are an 'Ad Hominem'.

 

You guys would get your point across a lot better if you avoided the name-calling. Why not just politely correct the guy when he makes an honest mistake?

[Bizud]

Matt makes the same "honest mistake" every time PR comes up, has never substantiated his claims that proportional representation means unstable government and frequent elections, or that coalition governments don't work, and ignores all evidence that contradicts his nonsense theories. Even after that post I just made he'll probably continue to argue the point. And I use the term "argue" very loosely. "PR just does not work, you guys, come on, it doesn't work. It would never work, because, you know, it doesn't work."

[ecnarf]

They aren't honest mistakes. It's an opinion held contrary to all facts, and held consistently so.

[Moonlight_Graham]

well alright, i didn't know u guys had a history of debating the subject with him.

[Matt]

It's not an honest mistake, most prop-rep systems do not work or they work poorly. The extreme parties tend to control the system, which is wrong. The parties with most of the support have to give in on things they do not want to, simply to have enough support inside the government to continue to govern. Take Germany (pre-World War Two), if the Nazis did not get their way they'd walk forcing yet another election. They got just enough support that Hindenburg needed Hitler's support to govern. Something seems wrong with that picture. Israel (modern day) tends to take hard-line stances because it is rare, if ever, someone has a majority so the extreme parties have control. The main parties need their support to stay the government. There is something wrong with that, and obvisouly people are not getting what they voted for, the minority of voters are getting what they voted for though. The majority gets screwed over though.

[ecnarf]

Like it or not, Matt, but the truth remains that people actually voted for Hitler at one time. A significant amount, of them, too. In fact, at one point, were the Nazis not the largest party in the Reichstag? Extremist, yes, but not a fringe party.

[Matt]

At one point they were a fringe party too, which is when I was reffering too.

[Bizud]

Yeah, but they were never in government until they had become the largest party in the reichstag. While they were a fringe group they weren't in government, nor did they exercise any control, because the other parties cooperated to keep them out. Israel is an exception, and one where the major parties are hardliners and extremists themselves. You could also argue that the need to build stable coalitions has moderated the conflicting demands and allowed for a more democratic society. You could also argue that maybe the Israeli parliament should consider using an electoral threshold to prevent lots of one- and two-seat parties from entering parliament, but they don't seem to mind it. Typical of the PR opponent to pick probably the worst example of instability in PR - in fact, maybe the only modern example, except for maybe Italy - and use that to argue that "most PR systems don't work." ;)

 

I probably wouldn't get so annoyed if I hadn't had this debate with opponents of PR like a hundred times during the leadup to the STV referendum in BC.

[Matt]

It is an unstable system though, the idea that having conflicting views makes government better is bogus. Imagine if the Liberals had to work with the Conservatives on getting through some social issues, that could work out pretty poorly considering these two parties don't agree on many social issues. That is what happens in Israel. Hitler, got lots of power though before they were out of a fringe party because he would cause an election pretty much every year. People grew weary of this too, and slowly gave him more power, such as Hindenburg did.

[ecnarf]

The problem with that idea is that the liberals often do have to work with the conservatves.

 

Ever heard of a country called the United States? Unless a party has 60 seats in the senate, they need to co-operate with members of the opposite party if they want serious stuff to get done.

 

Oh, and the other thing is, in a multi-party system, the liberals would have to work with the conservatives - they'd work with parties like the NDP or, in a proportional representation system, the green party, to pass legislation.

[Bizud]

It is an unstable system though, the idea that having conflicting views makes government better is bogus. Imagine if the Liberals had to work with the Conservatives on getting through some social issues, that could work out pretty poorly considering these two parties don't agree on many social issues. That is what happens in Israel. Hitler, got lots of power though before they were out of a fringe party because he would cause an election pretty much every year. People grew weary of this too, and slowly gave him more power, such as Hindenburg did.

 

1) Hitler got more power because he kept getting more and more votes. That's not surprising, governments were collapsing and getting voted out of office left and right during the Great Depression (which hit Germany harder than almost any other country), and elected socialists, fascists, Social Crediters, you name it. Proportional representation played a very minor role in this. I mean really, there have been dictators elected by just about every voting system under the sun.

 

2) Labour and Likud are often in coalitions together in Israel. It works out fine. They're called "grand coalitions." Our Liberals and Conservatives could easily govern together. They agree on 90% of issues, and issues they don't agree on, well, Parliament can take it issue by issue. Part of the problem is that in countries that don't have frequent coalitions, all parties treat minority governments as an inconclusive result. You know, the "real result" has just been delayed by a year. Quoth Stephen Harper, "the battle is not won or lost until someone wins a majority." That kind of thinking makes cooperation difficult. But if parties know that they'll never win a majority on their own, they'll be more willing to compromise. And compromise exists in all party systems, whether they're within the parties or between parties. Personally, I like voting for a smaller party with a clear stance on issues, one that isn't made up of a bunch of factions.

 

Coalition governments are more common than single-party government in the developed world. And, it's pretty clear that they make people happier with their government, too. If you want, I'll post a reference later on to a book that argues this point, in my opinion, quite convincingly, it's pretty much a matter of fact. People have more confidence that their governments are not complacent, are always working for them (because if they don't, they will easily be replaced) and will have a difficult time passing unpopular legislation.

[Matt]

And then the minority would pass things that only the minority wants to see passed, that means the majority and Liberal voters do not get what they voted for.

[Bizud]

Now how would the minority pass legislation that a majority didn't want? What are you on? You'd still need parties having a combined majority to agree in order to pass any legislation. When parties "compromise" that doesn't mean majority parties agree to legislation they don't want. Nobody agrees to vote yes on something they oppose, silly. If Liberals and Conservatives teamed up, they'd pass what they agreed on and nothing else. They wouldn't pass some things the Conservatives opposed and some things the Liberals opposed, that wouldn't make any sense. Geez.

[Matt]

If the N.D.P. budget is what the majority of Canadians wanted, why didn't they vote N.D.P. in the last election? The people voted for the Liberal solution but they didn't get that because a minority government is in place. So the majority got screwed over, why? Oh yeah so the Liberals could stop a non-confidence vote, what does that have to do with the budget? Nothing.

[Bizud]

That doesn't even make any sense. First of all, the "NDP budget" is a Liberal budget through and through. It was already slanted to the right because it looked like the Conservatives were going to support it, but it does contain one concession to the NDP - namely, there won't be a huge corporate tax cut...yet. That's not an "NDP budget." Second, a majority of Canadians are happy with it according to every poll I've seen. Third, a majority of Liberal voters in the last election said they didn't want the Liberals to get a majority. Oh yeah, and fourth, "The people" didn't vote for the Liberal solution. 36 percent of them did. So tell me again how the majority got screwed, because the way I see it the majority gets screwed if anyone gets a majority government with a minority of the votes.

[Circum]

I've lived in BC, ALberta AND Ontario. In not ONE place did I feel any strong senses of seperatism. Nor did it feel like it wasn't Canadian.

 

People in BC feel they are American? What non-sense. People in BC and Alberta are just as much Canadian as people in Ontario. Having lived in all 3 provinces I have the right to say that because I lived good years in the West and the East and I know what the people are like. The whole concept of Western Seperatism is bullshit and won't happen because not enough people will support it.

 

The whole concept is ridiculous.

Edited August 28, 2005 by Circum

[Matt]

If the "Liberal budget" was not an N.D.P. budget then why did Jack Layton say it was the first N.D.P budget to be passed? Also the majority of Canadians voted for the Conservatives and Liberals so if anything it should be a joint budget by those two, not the Liberals and N.D.P.

 

Back to the topic at hand, Circum, I mentioned earlier how there was a growing support for the Liberals and the N.D.P. in B.C. too. In the last election, the Liberals gained a few seats in B.C. and I believe the N.D.P. gained some more seats too.

[Bizud]

Jack was posturing? The NDP can definitely benefit from the idea that we can have an actual impact on politcs, but I thought Jack's labelling it an "NDP budget" was kind of absurd from the beginning.

 

Also the majority of Canadians voted for the Conservatives and Liberals so if anything it should be a joint budget by those two, not the Liberals and N.D.P.

 

Except that the Liberals and NDP both campaigned from the left, while the Conservatives campaigned from the right, and most people (yourself included, probably) would argue that the NDP are a much better natural partner for the Liberals than these Conservatives. Besides, the combined Liberal-NDP vote was also a majority of votes, albeit a thin one.

 

It's not about giving the reins of government to the two biggest or three biggest parties, it's whichever group of parties can secure a majority of seats by agreeing to work together. In a PR system if parties can secure a majority of seats, they represent a majority of voters, too, by definition. Moreover, in most countries where coalition politics are the norm, parties basically have to declare who they intend to partner up with, it becomes part of the campaign platform.

[Matt]

Actually it should be about the majority working together from the major parties since they represent the majority of voters.

 

Also some of the Conservatives are somewhat moderate being that some of them were from the P.C. party and the P.C. party and the Liberals were very similar towards the end.

[Bizud]

Also some of the Conservatives are somewhat moderate being that some of them were from the P.C. party and the P.C. party and the Liberals were very similar towards the end.

 

How many members of the current Conservative caucus were once Progressive Conservatives? I forget the exact number, but I think it was four. I could be wrong.

[Circum]

Im sorry you can't argue with the Bizud. He knows exactly what he's talking about.

 

I've given up arguing with him about anything political. He will destroy you. He's a machine.