John Oliver's Last Week Tonight

Imagine the yin and yang between Oh, Crap! and Shit Eating Grin the HBO Counsel must have felt.

...well, one cannot improve perfection, so I'll just say: "Eat Shit, Bob".

Man, I'm torn. Should I watch the segment now on youtube? Or should I wait till this episode comes out on HBO On Demand in my country?

What to do, what to do?

Just watch it on Youtube?

The segment on You Tube is the official channel, so it's not like you're depriving HBO of any views.

God damn that was a great episode and a great musical number.

Also: eat shit, Bob!

More on anti-SLAAP suits and details which didn't make it into the court summary.

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John Oliver: "If I ever die."

In all seriousness, why does it seem sometimes that everyone in the USA believes the government is out to get them?

Our country was literally founded on the idea that the government was messing with us too much. The sentiment evolved throughout the centuries and here we are.

In hindsight, it was perhaps not the best idea to found a country based on distrust of the very system running it.

That's hardly a uniform sentiment. You can look at it from a Hamiltonian vs. Jeffersonian viewpoint: the Founding Fathers were split roughly halfway between those wanting a decentralized, agrarian economy (Jefferson) where each citizen was sovereign and government was minimal; and those wanting a centralized, industrial economy (Hamilton) with a strong government acting as regulator. They shared a common distrust of monarchical government, where the King's word was law; thus we have our representative democracy where even the President is *cough* not above the law.

You can see this split in our politics to this very day. It's not that everyone wants government to butt out; it's that those who do wield influence disproportionate to their numbers.

For a good chunk of America, the American government really has been out to get them for its entire existence.

I read an article a while back that constitutional monarchies tend to be more democratic, because there the king is only a symbolic figurehead, and political decision are made entirely by the house and senate equivalents. Compare that to presidential systems, where the president has much more influence on the democratic process.

The presidents of many countries today have much more political power than a lot of kings in modern monarchies. Also, there are plenty of examples of democratic presidents declaring themselves president for life. A prime minister would be much less capable of doing that, and a king most likely wouldn't stand a chance to begin with.

Here is the article in question.

Edited by Redmess on Nov 18th 2019 at 6:39:05 PM

I'm not sure Queen Elizabeth is the best example, since she's been around for so long. She's been advising Prime Ministers for decades, making her an important (but subtle) part of the political process.

Which is a good thing. She's doing a great job, and her presence provides a nice, stable person for the government to at least theoretically revolve around, when most democratic governments feel too transitional. But are any other constitutional monarchies really in the same position? I know Japan, for example, doesn't pay attention to their Emperors much.

The Netherlands fits, too. We have a very nice and popular king, but he keeps out of politics, only serving as mediator for cabinet formations and such.

Having an executive with actual authority doesn't automatically make a system not democratic as long as they don't overstep the boundaries of their office or violate term limits or some shit.

Edited by M84 on Nov 18th 2019 at 11:35:04 PM

Sure. In fact, if the queen had some veto power (which could in turn be overridden with enough votes), some recent stupid things could have been shut down pretty quickly. But historically, monarchs have been a complete and utter crapshoot, so we as a society decided to not give them any real power any more.

If nothing else, the advantage of democracy is that there are ways to get rid of bad leaders. America has the impeachment process (which honestly is too difficult and has far too high a standard), and failing that basic term limits. In a monarchy (or any other form of dictatorship), the only way to get rid of them is to wait for them to die.

The primary problem with just about any sort of government system is that particular eras will be defined by the leadership, and that is something you simply cannot avoid. Societies tend to go in the direction of the values of their leadership. Monarchies, even constitutional monarchies, run the issue with dynasties, literally waiting for people to die before change can be enacted. The US presidency initially didn't have any term limits, but it became tradition for only two terms before it became written into law. As mentioned, that is the ultimate check against any corrupt leadership. Some people have proposed term limits for congress, but my thought there is that it would only accelerate corruption because politicians will be looking to advance their own status when they know for certain they will lose their position. That's the logic behind "appointed for life" judges and commissioners, their impartiality would be impacted with each election cycle. In addition, that would also impact the ability to maintain GOOD politicians, those who have a continuously positive impact.

There were ways to remove unpopular leaders before democracy too. It's just that said ways usually involved head chopping or something.

Democracy is different in that it allows for non-violent transfers of power.

Yep, that's definitely a key benefit of democracy. And the people in power often forget that. If you take away all the people's non-violent options, they will eventually go with the violent ones. You also see it in legislation against unions.

I think another problem with the American system is that it holds too rigidly to the 4 year term, even when there is political gridlock. In other countries (like the Netherlands), the coalition is allowed to fall, which triggers new elections. This gives the democratic process more flexibility, as well as allowing the public to weigh in through their vote.

Of course this can go badly as well when the public is too divided, making coalitions difficult to form. But I think on the whole it is the better system, because it allows an easier way to remove a bad PM or coalition without a need for an impeachment process.

I don't know; it's hard enough getting people to the polls when elections are held every four years like clockwork.

That's because your elections are in the workdays.

Set those to Sunday like we do and the problem will go from lack of voters to lack of paper ballots, I bet my nonexistent salary on that.

Edited by HailMuffins on Nov 19th 2019 at 11:21:03 AM