Hard News: Don't bother voting
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The GOP don't need piles of visible cash to pull this off, it is entrenched (there's that word again) in the mindset of republican supporters, they really believe that the country belongs to them, the Civil war never ended for them.
Steve: You're talking the piss, aren't you? I'd disrespectfully suggest that if I came here with such a reductive -- and frankly obnoxious -- blanket statement about Labour or Green supporters (or West Coasters or Aucklanders), I'd be not so politely told to go perform a physically impossible sex act.
Here's a totally insane suggestion -- the week after next, the overwhelming majority of Americans and New Zealanders, of whatever political persuasion, will wake up to the results of their elections. They may be pleased with the outcome. Or not. But they will accept it, and just get on with their lives -- because there's more than enough bullshit you've just got to deal with on any given day, without making some more.
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Tom, sure can explain. It's pretty simple - the differences between Labour and National are a lot smaller in many cases than their differences to the other parties. If a coalition must happen, and it usually must, there's nothing contradictory about the idea of a large one instead of 'bare majority' one. Nothing at all. Decisions would need to negotiated between the parties.
It could make sense from both parties point of view, depending on the extremity of the minor parties.
If National can't get the numbers and need, say, the Maori party to support them, then it's quite possible that what Labour would demand would be closer to National's tastes than the Maori party. To even flirt with the idea would probably force the minor parties to the center.
Labour could also prefer to wield minor partner status than be stuck in opposition. They could demand a lot of portfolios, and if National wasn't playing ball from the bigger portfolios (I'd assume the bigger party would demand at least the PM and Finance portfolios), then they could blow the partnership apart. So it would be on the bigger party to forge consensus, and in their interests to do so.
I'm not sure if I answered your question now - you're suggesting that having principles and believing in compromise are mutually exclusive? I don't think so. It's one of the fundamental tensions in all human group decision making. Power without principle can tend to evil, but principle without power is useless. Reality is in between. That is how voters swing between Labour and National - they're not mad, they just find both parties have some things to offer that they agree with.
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Tom, sure can explain. It's pretty simple - the differences between Labour and National are a lot smaller in many cases than their differences to the other parties.
Like Tom said, there are philosophical differences. While the practicalities between the two parties might be relatively close to each other, in philosophy and how they perceive themselves, they're not that close at all.
Also there's a political problem. Labour are on the left of the bell curve, National are on the right. The reality of NZ laws and policies largely lies in between them.
Labour in the most part wants to pull that reality to the left, National in the most part wants to pull it to the right.
A government of the two parties would be pulling in both directions. A national minister would come to cabinet proposing something, and all the Labour ministers would vote against it. You couldn't successfully negotiate a coalition agreement between the two. It would fall over within minutes. The only potential for it to work would be in a time of national crisis - war or major economic meltdown, where one or both parties agree to drop their oppositional status and work together.
Coalitions, at present anyway, in NZ will only work if they are largely on the left of the spectrum, or the right of the spectrum.
Until we develop a large centrist party, which we don't have, that's the way it's going to be.
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The only potential for it to work would be in a time of national crisis - war or major economic meltdown, where one or both parties agree to drop their oppositional status and work together.
In the case of Germany that's clearly totally untrue since they were not facing any particularly severe crisis when they formed their grand coalition using MMP. But even if it were true, we are actually in an economic meltdown right now. If ever, now would be the time for such a coalition.
Can parties from the left and right (whatever the hell that means and why ever the hell most of us would care) cooperate? Hell yes. That is EXACTLY what our government looks like ALL of the time. It is exactly what the parties look like internally, and they don't fall apart under the strain. Ideas are proposed by some elements, opposed by others, modified, resubmitted, and eventually approved or abandoned. Most likely the coalition agreement would outline what kind of support was guaranteed, probably confidence and supply much like our current coalition. It would only fall apart if either party went too far.
I don't think the right/left divide is as mutually exclusive as you make out. It's mostly a bankrupt term used to find some pathetic distinction anyway. There are multiple (potentially infinite) dimensions to measure a party along, and left/rightness is only one. It's only survived from it's inception (describing where various nobles stood in a King's court) because it changes definition continually. Hundreds of thousands of voters swing from one position to the other every election.
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In the case of Germany that's clearly totally untrue since they were not facing any particularly severe crisis when they formed their grand coalition using MMP. But even if it were true, we are actually in an economic meltdown right now. If ever, now would be the time for such a coalition.
Which would be great if you were talking about Germany, but you weren't, you were talking about NZ. Germany was turned upside down and broken up as a result of WWII, it's political system was reconstructed.
We just changed the way we vote, most of our system is still very Westminster 2-party oppositional, and shows no signs of changing any time soon.
And the current economic meltdown is bad, but a little perspective on history should be kept. Millions of people died during World War Two, and whole economies and labour markets were nationalised and retooled for war.
Doesn't really compare to financial markets and banks falling over, and governments throwing billions of dollars at them to stop the boat rocking.
Indeed, the depression in the 1930s was a fundamentally political time, which we still feel in these times. First election of the Labour government, creation of many elements of the welfare state, a little thing called the New Deal. These were strongly contested ideas at the time, there was no consensus about how to deal with the crisis.
I don't think the right/left divide is as mutually exclusive as you make out. It's mostly a bankrupt term used to find some pathetic distinction anyway. There are multiple (potentially infinite) dimensions to measure a party along, and left/rightness is only one. It's only survived from it's inception (describing where various nobles stood in a King's court) because it changes definition continually.
Speaking as a person of the left, that's a bunch of crap. The distinctions between left wing parties (the Alliance, Greens) and right wing parties (Act, Libertarians) are pretty fundamental, both in practicalities and philosophies.
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the overwhelming majority of Americans and New Zealanders, of whatever political persuasion, will wake up to the results of their elections. They may be pleased with the outcome. Or not. But they will accept it, and just get on with their lives -- because there's more than enough bullshit you've just got to deal with on any given day, without making some more.
I'm not so sure. I've read a reasonable amount of analysis that suggests one of the reasons Clinton was hounded so relentlessly over his indiscretions was because a lot of powerful neocon republicans simply could not accept a Dem in the oval office.
Cetainly, there will be a majority of supporters who will shrug and get on with it. but am I the only one hoping the the US secret service is frantically polishing their A-game as we speak? There's a lot of disaffected nutters out there.
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Steve: You're talking the piss, aren't you?
No,and I don't think these guys are either.
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I'm not so sure. I've read a reasonable amount of analysis that suggests one of the reasons Clinton was hounded so relentlessly over his indiscretions was because a lot of powerful neocon republicans simply could not accept a Dem in the oval office.
Just as there are far too many Democrats who think the only thing between Hillary Clinton and the White House is her womb. I wouldn't make any swinging generalisations about any group of people.
but am I the only one hoping the the US secret service is frantically polishing their A-game as we speak? There's a lot of disaffected nutters out there.
Polishing? For pretty obvious reasons, the Secret Service don't post every death threat the President receives on the White House website, but I don't think they spend a lot of time sitting on their arses because there's a honky or a Republican in the job. Remember five of the forty three Presidents of the US were assassinated, and a number of others were the object of serious attempts.
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Speaking as a person of the left, that's a bunch of crap. The distinctions between left wing parties (the Alliance, Greens) and right wing parties (Act, Libertarians) are pretty fundamental, both in practicalities and philosophies.
We aren't talking about the minor parties. They would not be in a grand coalition. Nor would they be in coalition with each other. They disagree on most issues. But Labour and National do not. They disagree on a small number of issues, to a small degree.
Your critique of my comparison to the German system seems to focus on a time 40 years before I was born rather than the time when they formed a grand coalition using MMP I'm referring to, which is their current government. I really don't think it requires WW3 to enable the idea that 2 parties could form a coalition despite historical opposition.
Now I'll give you it's not likely. But the reasons are not because of ideological differences between the parties. They're simply because the idea of loyal opposition is deeply entrenched in our psyche - we see the opposition itself as more important than what the opposition is actually about (which is fair enough since it's often very little). Like people who simply can't agree, because that would involve losing face rather than because it would imply any particularly unpalatable course of action.
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For pretty obvious reasons, the Secret Service don't post every death threat the President receives on the White House website, but I don't think they spend a lot of time sitting on their arses because there's a honky or a Republican in the job. Remember five of the forty three Presidents of the US were assassinated, and a number of others were the object of serious attempts.
Not trying to suggest they do. 'Polishing' was probably not the best choice of wording.
My point is this: The secret service will (if pushed) admit that it's a numbers game. They simply cannot offer 100% infallible protection every simgle moment of every single day - it is an impossibility unless the president sits in a concrete room for four years and never comes out.
There are going to be times when there are gaps in the cover they provide. Being an extremely professional bunch of men and women, they make sure those gaps/windows of opportunity are minimised - the aim being to ensure that the gaps never overlap with the times when a lone gunman just happens to be strolling around on the grassy knoll. But sooner or later those two things can (and as you have pointed out will) come together.
My feeling (and I freely admit that is all it is) is that the level of feral anger we are seeing at the moment in the US is creating a higher concentration of nutjobs than in, say, the last 16-odd years (last four presidential terms, and yes, I did pull that out of a hat). A higher concetration of nutjobs means more opportunity for them to overlap with the holes in the protection.
I'm doing nothing more than expressing a fervent hope.
Oh, and my original post could just have easily read onto a McCain presidency. Lots of disillusioned/disenfranchised dems out there if McCain gets in.
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It's only survived from it's inception (describing where various nobles stood in a King's court) because it changes definition continually.
Firstly, `left' and `right' (droit and gauche) derive from the French Revolutionary Assembly -- you know, the one that cut the King's head off?
I'm also pretty sure that the French left can trace a reasonably consistent genealogy back to the Jacobins, and even further back if you want to get picky. The French Right is a bit harder, because lots of them rejected the Republic, but the British Tories are pretty consistent back to the Civil War or so. The British left is a bit complicated 'cause of the Labour Party, but look at someone like Bertrand Russell, or the dissenters.
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Keir, I guess calling it a 'king's court' is a bit rich when cutting off his head was on the agenda, but the place was still a constitutional monarchy at the time of the coinage of the word. It's evolved a lot, of course, since the American right is not full of royalists, and Labour doesn't look much like the Montagnards. I think our Queen's head is relatively safe. The first Left were believers in laissez-faire capitalism - so I guess it's come a long way since then. I don't think either Labour or National would have felt comfortable in bed with either the Left or the Right in revolutionary France.
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LOL so now Fran O'Sullivan is looking at the Grand Coalition option http://www.nzherald.co.nz/wall-st-meltdown/news/article.cfm?c_id=1502755&objectid=10539824
Not sure if I'm that happy to be in agreement with a die-hard Nat like her, but it makes me curious. I guess she also fears another weak coalition at this time.
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LOL so now Fran O'Sullivan is looking at the Grand Coalition option
Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Fran have a template of this column save on her laptop and she changes the names and shuffles a few paragraphs every three years? A Grand Coalition is a charming thought experiment, but I just don't see it happening.
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And of course, no matter how the next government shakes down there's nothing to prevent National and Labour voting together on uncontentious legislation, or co-operating on matters of common interest. It happens more often than most people think.
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Yup, I agree on both points - it's unlikely, and a formal arrangement is probably unnecessary. We'll see how much the little guys demand first, though.
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the Civil war never ended for them
<muttering madly under my breath once again about the red state/blue state thing being a bunch of reductive hooey>
Also, you people always end up having interesting conversations while I'm on holiday! Sort it out please.
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Very easy to sort out.... either you stop taking holidays or we stop having interesting conversations. Which would you prefer? :)
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Or take us on holiday with you.. :)
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