Up late watching the UK results. I just thought I would pass this along:
Talk the politics of The Godfather with Robert Kagan. Take a staff ride to the Gettysburg battlefield to study military leadership, decision making, tactics, and strategy with AEI scholar Gary Schmitt.
And have evening discussion with Jonah Goldberg author of Liberal Fascism and National Review editor-at-large as well as former Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen. Other evenings will be spent with Charles Murray, Arthur C. Brooks, and Thomas Donnelly.
For the full schedule and application details, visit the AEI 2010 American Enterprise Summer Institute page here.
This is from the fascinating new blog ThinkTanked. If you want to get a good feel for why our political system is collapsing, you should add it to your RSS reader.
Cacti
What’s the title of Jonah’s seminar?
How to ride your Mommy to a career
TBogg
Where is a competent terrorist when you need one?
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
The only lesson to take from the battle of Gettysburg is that you don’t line soldiers in a straight line and march them into the enemy line of fire.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@TBogg: A competent terrorist would know that they best thing to do for their cause would be to not blow up the AEI.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
Just did. Looks like some fine grade concentrated wingnuttery.
Omnes Omnibus
Do.Not.Want.
slag
I thought our political system was collapsing because the US is composed of a bunch of feckless imbeciles. You’re saying that’s not true?
DougJ
@TBogg:
Spoken like a true liberal fascist.
Omnes Omnibus
@DougJ: That is central to his point.
Bill E Pilgrim
I would have thought that Hell had only one season.
Pretty much like Orange County.
“I wanted to say what it said, literally and in all the senses” Arthur Rimbaud, when asked by his mother what he meant to say with the book A Season in Hell.
Comrade Luke
It wrong for me to kinda wish we had a system where there were more than two parties in Congress, which meant that they had to barter with each other?
Omnes Omnibus
@Comrade Luke: With chickens? I thought those just work for medical care.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
You know, like a lot of guys– I’ve been told it’s a guy thing– I can extensively quote and discuss and bore my friends with my expertise on The Godfather, Caddyshack, The Blues Brothers, The Sopranos, The Simpsons, Seinfeld…. I could never delude myself enough to imagine anyone would want to listen to me pontificate for an hour on any of those subjects.
In a sick way, i would be curious to hear how The Godfather justifies the invasion of Iraq, and demonstrates the need for tax cuts.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Comrade Luke: It should be David Broder’s (that is, most of the “bipartisan”-obsessed Beltway pundies) ultimate fantasy, nothing but center.
In reality, he’d hate it. Because bipartisan to them, as we know, really means never having to say no to Republicans.
stinkfoot
Sh!t like this makes dropping out, cashing it all in and living a life of heavy (er, heavier) drug use pretty damn appealing.
I’m going antigalt!
fourlegsgood
@TBogg: Silly. They’re in Europe with a rent boy.
fourlegsgood
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’m sure they’re in love with the idea that they too, are tough guys.
You know what? the entire republican party is nothing more than a giant grifter scheme designed to part unsuspecting rubes from their dollars in order to feed the wingnut welfare state. It’s a hell of a scam they’ve got going on there.
aliasofwestgate
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Outside of conventions and the usual gatherings of wonks? I’d guess more than likely not. But i speak as an anime/manga geek who runs panels herself at Anime Cons. *grin* But that’s another realm entirely from political wonkery. The Godfather? Really? *tilts head* (Instant snorefest in my case)
Tonal Crow
I wanna vomit.
robertdsc
@Omnes Omnibus:
This. 100%
jl
So, which of the AEI summer seminars is Rimbaud doing?
Maybe something on international small arms trade, interesting to a certain kind of young professional.
I’ll sign up for that one, if it comes with good drugs.
Alex
Who needs waterboarding?
Tonal Crow
@Alex:
Likely everyone (but the moles) who attends that confab. And even if they don’t, strictly speaking, need it, they would benefit from it. We’ve got enough problems with al Qaeda spreading terror without the “conservative” fifth columnists goosing the public’s anxiety level.
Martin
So, which one of these guys will be hyperactively jumping around the outside of the institute in a funny suit with question marks all over it offering to sell you his 180 page guide to getting your own wingnut welfare?
Bill E Pilgrim
@jl:
Rentboy.com
.
“Relationships have all been bad, mine have been like Verlaine and Rimbaud”
de stijl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Consider me cynical, but somehow I think that liberals will play the role of Fredo in Kagan’s version.
Brachiator
@Comrade Luke:
Yeah, it is. Would you want a system that forced you to give some responsiblities to the racist BNP party in order to form a working coalition government? Would you want a system that forced you to give Sarah Palin or one of her acolytes a position like Secretary of State in order to let Obama be president?
There ain’t no perfect system, but one of the central weaknesses of a parliamentary system is that parties which stubbornly cling to stoopid beliefs can sometimes get a seat at the table of power, often to the detriment of the nation as a whole.
@TBogg:
Wow. Just wow. Are you serious?
Quiddity
You can watch a live feed of the BBC reporting the UK elections here.
Check out the volume control on the streaming video app.
mcd410x
Interesting: looks like Scotland voted Labour and England Tory.
FREEEEEEE-DOM
burnspbesq
Holy shit. Somebody leaked a whole bunch of stuff from the Copenhagen climate change summit – including audio – to Spiegel.
spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,692861,00.html
Bill E Pilgrim
@Brachiator: You’ve clearly never read TBogg if you’re asking that question.
Martin
@Brachiator: Yes, TBogg is ALWAYS serious.
Violet
@Quiddity:
That is awesome. Win.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Brachiator:
Meh.
Looking at both kinds of systems from up close and personal, I fail to see a great superiority in either one right now. Both have drawbacks, pretty evenly spread if you ask me.
You describe some of the negatives of a parliamentary system, but the problem with ours can be summed up by what happened over the past eight years. The White House had far too much power, which was painfully apparent since there happened to be a a gang of criminal sociopaths running it.
I even think we could benefit from the French two-round voting system, just to that point, it may have saved us having Bush elected entirely. Once enough people saw that he was actually going to win, enough could have shifted to put Gore over, just as it works in France sometimes. We have primaries, but it’s not the same thing.
Both have advantages, I wouldn’t place ours as superior at this point by a long shot.
Calouste
Points to the BBC tonight, on their player that shows the election coverage, the volume goes up to 11.
(Edit: Missed a previous post)
Brachiator
@Bill E Pilgrim:
I never said that one system was superior to the other. However, I noted in another thread, and will also note here, that some Americans foolishly yearn for a parliamentary system or proportional representation because they think that it will let otherwise marginal progressive candidates have a chance at winning an election. But they never consider that this might also give reactionary wingnuts a chance as well.
Brits are clearly not relishing the possibility of a hung Parliament. Do you think that the stasis that occurred when Newt and the GOP goobers tried to bring the Clinton Administration to a halt was a good thing?
If he is serious, then it is unlikely that I ever would read him.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Brachiator: No, I also didn’t say one was superior. The mess in Britain right now is going to be entertaining to watch, but it’s definitely a mess.
Your comment that the other poster was wrong to “wish we had more than one party” was what I was responding to, it sounded like calling our system superior to me. If not, good, and we agree.
TBogg is most assuredly not serious, was my point. Wasn’t just being snarky, I realized that you may not have read him. A fairly well-known satirist, you can just click his name or Google it. He’s very, very funny.
Calouste
@Brachiator:
So a system where one party that clings to stoopid beliefs gets the whole table of power is preferable?
Extremist parties don’t have a lot of power in parliamentary systems because other parties refuse to work with them. When the former communist party in Germany got a lot of votes in 2003, the Social Democrats didn’t do a deal with them, but formed a coalition with the Christian Democrats instead. When Le Pen in France made it to the second round of the presidential elections in 2001, he got 19% compared to the 18% he got in the first round
Bill E Pilgrim
@Calouste: And an important figure to add is that Chirac got virtually all the rest, more than 80%, in the second round. Whereas he had only gotten what was it, 20% or something, in the first round.
French voters use the first vote to vote strategically, to make statements, i.e. to vote for people with no chance in hell of actually winning. The vote is fragmented all over the place.
The second round, they vote for real. It’s an interesting process, but it leads to false impressions from some outside of France that “Le Pen almost won!” which is utterly false. It’s the “he came in second” part that’s misleading. Yes, he did. No, it didn’t mean the same as that would in the US, not even remotely.
Pigs & Spiders
Are you visiting from another planet?
No, we don’t have a parliament, but we do have a system that forces you to work with and give power to loonies and racists. It’s called not having a supermajority in congress.
Brachiator
@Calouste:
As others have understood, pointing out the weaknesses of one system is not the same thing as an assertion that the American system is superior.
I noted elsewhere that the Founders thought that they were insulating the American system against “factions,” but as soon as Washington was sworn in, Jefferson, Hamilton, Adams and Madison were at one another’s throats.
Yeah, right. I suggest that you take a look at Israel, and the deals that have to be done in order to get a working government.
And Britain has not had a hung Parliament in a long while. I don’t see any UK media stories, whether from the right or the left, that is saying anything like “hey, no big thang.” And here the parties are not hugely out of step with one another on a number of areas. Yeah, the extreme parties are not in the game, but that they have any representation at all is not a good thing.
Martin
@Brachiator: You really should read TBogg. It’s pure distilled awesome.
Yutsano
@Martin: Plus there will be puppehs. Lots and lots of puppehs.
JGabriel
Yeah, that never happens in America.
.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Yutsano: Plus there’s always a sort of cognitive dissonance involved because Bassets seem to look like 120-year-old men from the moment they’re born. At least to the non-connoisseur, I realize that their owners probably disagree. Though one of TBogg’s ditties had something about “another day older and four stumpy legs” so I gather that he wouldn’t be shocked at the idea.
Brachiator
@Martin:
I see what you mean. Thanks for the tip.
@Pigs & Spiders:
Not quite the same thing. When it looked like Clegg had a chance of pulling some serious numbers, there was speculation that he might be in a position to get some of his people into executive offices in exchange for agreeing to let the Tories or Labour form a government. This would be equivalent to tea baggers forcing Obama to accept Sarah Palin as Secretary of the Treasury in order to form a government.
OriGuy
At the moment, the BNP hasn’t won any seats. I’m disappointed that the Silly Party aren’t listed in the results.
Am I right that the four Sinn Fein members won’t be seated because they refuse to swear allegiance to the Queen?
Quiddity
@Calouste: screenshot of 11 here
JGabriel
Or, as Gordon Brown put it, “My God, Clegg is forcing that bigot from Wales on us, Cymwllycnmllwyccyffydd.”
.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Brachiator: We used to have a system closer to this in some ways by the way. Jefferson became President only after a protracted tie between him and Aaron Burr, who almost won. Then when Jefferson went over the top, he was obligated to make Burr the Vice President, in what amounted to power sharing.
Before the inevitable clichés about Burr start, anyone tempted to do so should first read this book, which fairly convincingly reverses everything you thought you knew about him, showing that for one thing a lot of it is sheer myth. In any case it’s a good read, excellent work.
Mnemosyne
@Quiddity:
I was going to make fun of them for letting a foreigner influence even their news shows, and then I remembered that Christopher Guest is in the House of Lords and then my brain fritzes out.
On another note, I fucking lost my fucking ATM card tonight, the night before I leave for my trip. At least I lost it after I filled my gas tank and realized it was gone before I was 90 miles away from home trying to get a Sonic burger. Still. Fuck.
Calouste
@Brachiator:
The Brits make a big deal of the hung parliament because they haven’t had it in a while and because coalition governments are so European. It’s a downward slope from coalition governments to eating frogs’ legs, driving on the right side of the road and giving up cricket.
BDeevDad
Off topic question: My neighbor has been railing on facebook about the sports figures/teams against the AZ bill. Today he got upset that they had the gall to say the pledge of allegiance in Spanish in his kids schools.
He finds this stuff repeatedly appauling. So, do I point out that he spells like a Teabagger?
Calouste
@Mnemosyne:
Christopher Guest isn’t in the Lords anymore. He didn’t get a seat when the number of hereditary peers got cut to 92 in 1999.
Brachiator
@Bill E Pilgrim:
Well, not quite. Because the founders incorrectly thought that they had eliminated the power of factions, the electoral system in place meant that Burr would become vice-president. However, Jefferson shut Burr out of any meaningful responsibilities. There was no power sharing. But Burr was not an entirely bad VP.
I might check this book out. Thanks for the tip. However, I’ve studied a fair amount on this period, and it would take a lot to get me to change my overall opinion of Burr.
Bill E Pilgrim
@BDeevDad: Paul supporter maybe?
Fax Paladin
@OriGuy: No Silly Party, but there is an Official Monster Raving Loony Party…
BDeevDad
@Bill E Pilgrim: I wish. He is finally upset with Sarah Palin because she’s supporting Carly Fiorina.
Josh
BDeevDad, Maybe he means that it reminds him of The Nature of the Chemical Bond.
Brachiator
The UK Daily Mail has an interesting article about possible backroom deals to deal with the issue of a hung Parliament. For some reason, the link doesn’t hold, but here is one scenario. Other scenarios are even crazier. Imagine a parliamentary system in the US in 2008, the Democrats failing to win a clear majority, and the Republicans working a deal to let Mitt Romney become president in order to keep the GOP in power.
Brown goes, Labour clings to power
If the sitting Prime Minister becomes ‘permanently unavailable’ for any reason, the Cabinet has the power to appoint a temporary successor – most likely Jack Straw, Alan Johnson, David Miliband or even Harriet Harman.
This ‘interim prime minister’ could lead for several weeks until a permanent replacement is elected by the party alone.
Britain would have yet another PM unelected by the voters, ruling in coalition with the LibDems.
Alex
Has everyone made an acceptable number of silly/sensible/monster raving loony jokes by now?
Not directed at anyone in particular, but it just ain’t as funny the 20th time.
Mike Kay
@Brachiator:
This.
Let me just go godwin on you, and remind everyone, Hitler came to power through a coalition government. he never came close to a majority.
Quiddity
@Mnemosyne: I did not know Christopher Guest was in (then out) of the House of Lords.
Things sure are strange in this world.
Sorry to hear about you losing your ATM card, especially just before a trip.
jl
Arguments about what legislative system is best are moot now.
I am graciously offering my services to run everything all by myself.
You are all welcome.
Cole has roundly chewed me out twice on this blog and I am One With TunchThought. What better recommendations can anyone have?
I’ll send out my first diktats when I have some spare time over the weekend.
Except my first ruling will probably be that Cole is to give Tunch all the food the cat desires, but not in a way that makes him any fatter.
Mark S.
I don’t think it’s parliamentary systems per se that give rise to multi-party systems but rather having a system besides first past the post. Some guy even got a law named after him for figuring this out.
Another fun fact I learned:
That’s nice and all, but in civilized countries, you make sure some Senators represent a couple dozen moose and other Senators represent thirty million people.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Brachiator: Well, her thesis is that what even historians have written about him was largely based on rumor and bullshit, the common wisdom of the time. So even if one has read history, she contends, it’s giving a false look by lazy thinkers. Worth a read in any case, definitely.
I so hate the way DC disperses and wallows in utterly false common wisdom, in Noonanesque lockstep, that I have a lot of sympathy for this proposal.
Think of it as the claim that “Al Gore claimed he invented the Internet” being repeated as if Gospel two hundred years from now. In fact I can pretty much assume it will be.
Quiddity
Re BBC embed player volume control:
The Wikipedia entry for up to 11 mentions that “The BBC iPlayer has a volume slide control that goes up to eleven.”
Looking at the history for that page, the earliest version with that statement is 1 April 2010.
So maybe this feature is reasonably new.
It is a very stable app. No glitches or crashes on my somewhat stressed PC. Not a mega-bandwidth hog either (about 0.3 mbps and reasonable video quality – if somewhat on a small screen; that’s how to do it)
bago
With respect to the recent Arizona Madness, I have a rather Swiftian proposal.
Deploy this argument to all of the facebook friends and commenters who insist that there is nothing racist about the Arizona measure. Tell them to forward it to their local tea-party groups. If they’re for American jobs in this tough economy, if they’re for enforcing the law and cracking down on illegals, if they’re against them “takin our jerbs!”, or getting free healthcare, they have nothing to argue with.
If anything the wildly incoherent justifications for supporting the AZ law but opposing this will be endlessly amusing.
Lolcat Liberation Front
Hi everyone, long-time lurker, first-time commenter here. Currently residing in Australia, partnered to an Australian/UK dual citizen.
@Brachiator: I’d take the Daily Mail position with a grain of salt. They tend to pretty much toe the Conservative Party line. At time of writing, the Tories have about 36% of the overall vote, Labour have 29%, and the Liberal Democrats are on 23%. If Labour and the Lib Dems formed a coalition, they could rightly claim to have between them the support of a majority of voters.
@Mark S.: Don’t worry. The Australian Senate voting system is proportional in name only. A recent Prime Minister famously described the Senate as “unrepresentative swill”.
steve
do you really have to put ‘good news for conservatives’ on every post? can’t you think of something interesting to say instead?
steve
DougJ has 6 posts up on the front page, and all 6 of them are tagged ‘good news for conservatives’.
real useful tag you got there. Or you’re a repetitive moron. One of the two.
stuckinred
@steve: What’s your problem, someone forcing you to read this blog? Your repetitiveness is annoying.
asiangrrlMN
@stuckinred: There seems to be a certain type of commenter who HAS to comment exclusively to point out why he disdains the post/author so much. I never got it, but to each his own, I guess.
I skimmed the first entry at ThinkTanked. That’s enough for me, thankyewverymuch. I’ll let y’all report on in so I don’t have to read it.
stuckinred
@asiangrrlMN: I think they are called shitheads.
asiangrrlMN
@stuckinred: Me likey!
grass
@Quiddity: BBC media players have had volume going to 11 for as long as I can remember. Every time some one links to something from the BBC somebody points out the “volume goes to 11!” Pretty clever of them, because who doesn’t love Spinal Tap?
On parliamentary systems, Britain is a first past the post electoral system so power should balance out between two parties. This doesn’t happen because the two main parties have geographical regions of power (Labour in the and in urban areas North, Tories in the south and rural areas). The Lib Dems compete with both parties everywhere and so have a large chunk of the vote, but come second in general. Smaller nationalist parties exist in Scotland and Wales, and Northern Ireland are just doing their own thing. First past the post is why hung parliaments are rare, why seats in parliament don’t appear to represent the votes cast and why one party gets to do pretty much whatever it wants regardless of what the other parties do or say for 5 years at a time despite only have a third of the vote. Hopefully that might change. I’m pretty sick of my vote being a complete waste of time, here’s John Cleese explaining: youtube.com/watch?v=NSUKMa1cYHk&playnext_from=TL&videos=M3ileYYD1JQ
America would get a similar congress if the Republicans became a solely Southern party (which is sort of happening), and a new centre right party arose to compete with the Democrats everywhere else.
stuckinred
@asiangrrlMN: You in Minneapolis?
asiangrrlMN
@grass: Thanks for the quick primer in British politics. I find it fascinating.
@stuckinred: Near it. You?
stuckinred
@asiangrrlMN: Athens, GA. From Urbana, Il but been here 25 years.
slightly_peeved
@Brachiator:
It takes some big balls to for an American to criticize the British political system because they might end up being run by someone who wasn’t elected to lead them.
Have people forgotten Bush vs. Gore?
kommrade reproductive vigor
Fxd.
But I still must add that the thought of those cowardly fat assholes getting war woodies in Gburg makes me want to puke.
asiangrrlMN
@kommrade reproductive vigor: Agreed, and I like your fix. And sushi (in response to your comment on an earlier thread).
frankdawg
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Plus you just know that Senator in GFII is a DemocRAT.
Annie
AEI summer schedule:
“Enjoy a night of drinks and waterboarding with Marc Thiessen.”
Remember November
Jonah Goldberg, still a doucheknuckle. When is someone going to write a book called Conservative Nazism? I mean really, its the Reeses Peanut Butter cup recipe! You got Nazism in my Conservitivism!
/sarcasm.
Randy P
Well, Gettysburg is worth visiting. I spent an entire day once on a little lump of dirt called Little Round Top with a guide book some guy had written describing what happened at every little marker on the hill, some of them long buried in undergrowth. I tried to imagine standing on that little lump of dirt while thousands of fellow Americans with guns are trying to climb it to kill me. I go through the same exercise at other battlefields and I still can’t quite imagine it.
It’s also a good place to meet Civil War fanatics. On top of the hill, trying to imagine what some of the major events actually looked like, I asked one of the people there if he knew where Pickett’s charge was exactly. EVERY SINGLE PERSON on the hill at the time started pointing out barns, trees and other landmarks to help out my imagination.
I wouldn’t want to visit it with a gasbag however.
By total accident, the day I decided out of the blue to take a two hour drive to Gettysburg was the day of the Gettysburg Address, so i got to see Abe Lincoln too.
Gregory
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
If only they’d learned that lesson in the 50 years before WWI.
Bulworth
That line-up reminds me of the nightmare I had last night.
frankdawg
@Gregory:
Actually they had learned it. many military historians credit the US Civil War as the first modern action. Fought with rifles instead of muskets, rifled cannons with longer range, landmines. And machine guns had been exhibited (Lincoln thought they were a great idea his generals felt they would ‘waste bullets’).
And what the generals, world-wide, learned from own little spat was to dig trenches! That’s what made WWI all the fun it could be. Things like poison gas, tanks and aerial bombardment were dreamed up to take away the advantage of a trench. The goal was to break the advantage & THEN send long lines of men into the teeth of the guns.
Eventually they got the idea to use the speed of planes & tanks to go around things & that lead to WWII being as much fun a generals have ever had since Julius Caesar. Lots of little toys to push around big maps!
klem
Odd that the AEI would have them tour Gettysburg, a Union victory. I’d have thought they would tour a glorious Confederate victory like Chancellorsville or Fredricksburg.
Brachiator
@Bill E Pilgrim:
Sounds like a book I will check out from the library, as opposed to one that I would buy. I’ve read other books from the period that liberally use the correspondence of the time, which may have their own bias but which is not simply the received wisdom of historians. So I’m not sure that I buy the attempt to rehabilitate Burr. But it does sound like an interesting read.
By the way, I would recommend The Age of Federalism by Elkins and McKitrick as a judicious look at the period and some of the major characters, including Burr.
@slightly_peeved:
How is this a good thing, either in the US or the UK?
DonkeyKong
Throw in Victor Davis Hanson oiling himself up on the poop deck and you’ve got a more sclerotic cast of “300”.
Bill Murray
@steve: don’t you realize that everything is good news for conservatives. Please catch up on your media conventions
Comrade Bukharin
@OriGuy:
Mr. Hilter of the National Bocialists has taken North Minehead.
Soon, baby!