Queen Elizabeth 2 Sapphire Jubilee

[Simon_Jester]

I am also a Canadian (and American, but that's neither here nor their) who emphatically opposes any hereditary monarchy because it perpetuates the idea that some human beings are more important/valuable than others based on blood.

That said, I have considerable respect for Queen Elizabeth as an individual. Sort of the reverse of "If you don't respect the person, respect the office."

The events of 2016 have given me a certain grudging respect for the idea that someone in any given government, someone in a position to apply the foot to the brake pedal, should be an entirely unelected person who does not have to go on the campaign trail to get or to keep their job.

As I said, I respect Elizabeth, but overall, hereditary monarchy is something of a crapshoot. At least in an election, the people are theoretically making a choice based on whatever criteria they think qualifies someone for office. Whereas with the Monarchy, you're somewhat at the mercy of genetics and chance.

The problem is that there are three categories of decisions made by office-holding politicians.

The first boils down to "which policy do we pursue?"

The second boils down to "how do we restructure the system?"

The third boils down to "the system has reached an unforeseen failure state and has crashed to desktop, time to press the 'reset' button."

...

The first category of decision is rightfully made by elected officials answerable to the public.

The second category of decision is rightfully made by elected officials, though it's usually a good idea to make it harder to change the system than to use it to make a policy choice. Say, by requiring changes to the system to win supermajority support, instead of a simple majority.

The third category... Eeeeeeh. I'm going to be honest with you, I am no longer convinced that democratic institutions can reliably cope with a "crash to desktop" moment. In many cases, such moments in a democracy are entirely caused by the very fact that the politicians are elected, or the details of how they are elected. Which creates a perverse incentive system that results in politicians doing really, really stupid things. Or making promises they then fail to keep because there's an incentive to make the promise, but no incentive to carry it out.

I'm honestly starting to think that it might not be such a bad idea to have four 'branches of government:'

1) The legislature
2) The executive
3) The judiciary
4) The "you've been naughty stupid manchildren, now go to bed without your supper" branch responsible for shutting down (1) and (2) and ordering new elections held from scratch, if (1) and (2) go completely bughouse insane.

How to implement the fourth branch safely is of course a very exciting and difficult question, but "use the British monarchy" is far from the worst idea I can think of.

[Shroom Man 777]

If #4 is actually a paleofuckface (say the monarchy is as ridiculous as the church...) and if either the legislative or executive wants to establish a luberal progressive homobortionist pot and jizz emporium and the conservatives get branch #4 to weigh in...

Or if branch #4 is composed of a orgy-having manchild in a country where dissing the monarchy is punishable by the law...

I mean, even branch #3, when filled with judges like Antonin Scaly, can be a shitshow...

I think referendums and that stuff that Iceland has might be considered.

[Simon_Jester]

These are legitimate points.

The problem is that I'm talking about a "whoa whoa stop shut the fuck down and reconsider" button. The ideal way of handling that would be a referendum requiring, say, 55% of the population or something, a majority significantly larger than is required just to elect a new government.

The problem is that such a referendum is vulnerable to voter suppression and to exaggerated turnout among specific groups- which are already the factors that can lead to a democratic government spiralling out of control and ceasing to represent the interests of the people. Furthermore, there's the question of who gets to trigger such a referendum anyway. Elected politicians aren't going to want to.

So at the very least you need someone who has like ONE JOB and that job is to call the referendum. Preferably someone who has, say, 80% support from the legislature or something. And then you need attendance to the referendum to be mandatory.
_______________________

If you use a monarchy for a role like this, then you should have some extra constraint on the system like "cannot use this power more than once per decade." And all it would do is force a new round of elections or something. If everyone really wanted the outcome that led Number Four Person to push the button, then this will just result in everyone doing exactly what they would have done anyway, only six months later.

Maybe you can have a mechanism for a vote of no confidence in your Number Four person? Say, if 60% of the population want you out, or if 70% of the legislature want you out, or whatever, you get replaced?

It's just... we had problems in multiple English-speaking countries this year with very narrow election outcomes producing massive and potentially devastating upheaval, in cases where large fractions of the population of the country didn't even bother to show up and be counted. This is the kind of thing that makes me think that maybe, just maybe, the normal machinery of electoral politics needs an emergency stop button.

[Phantasee]

Iceland works because it's an island populated by cousins. It's hardly a system that can be exported to a population as diverse as say, Canada, or the Philippines.

[Shroom Man 777]

Other states do have referendum-thinggies though, not like Iceland's but nonetheless... didn't Greece recently have one?

[Simon_Jester]

A referendum to shut down and reboot the government isn't actually a bad idea. The problem is making sure everyone votes, that the ruling party can't pressure anyone... and that the referendum actually gets called at the correct time.

[Spice Runner]

I'm not sure we could replace that kind of thing without it inevitably becoming politicized and heavily abused... the USA more or less tried it by having a President, and well, let's just say I'm not particularly enthused with the prospect of one day having a US-style presidency.

One could argue whether or not reserve powers are necessary of course.

You could try what India does rather than having to choose an American style presidential system.

India has a Westminster style parliamentary system without having a figurehead monarch. The prime minister is the head of government and we have a president who is mostly a figurehead.

[Elheru Aran]

A referendum to shut down and reboot the government isn't actually a bad idea. The problem is making sure everyone votes, that the ruling party can't pressure anyone... and that the referendum actually gets called at the correct time.

Hence why it's convenient to have someone in a position where they can 'shut down and reboot' as needed. Elections have a tendency to be placed at some future date, by which point the offending party will either carry on business as usual and get ejected, or work frantically to make the other side look worse somehow. Having an individual with the power to tell everybody "STFU, get out, let's do over" avoids that neatly by making the consequences of legislative or executive fuckery to be immediate.

Random, related question: how is the country run while Parliament or whatever is recalled?

[Tribble]

Random, related question: how is the country run while Parliament or whatever is recalled?

In Canada the Prime Minister and Cabinet remain in office until they are replaced the governor general / Queen. This usually happens after an election so that the government can continue to function (it just can't pass new legislation).

Is usually goes like this:

Prime Minister goes to Governor General and asks for an election --> Governor General dissolves parliament and calls election --> election --> if the current Prime Minister's party loses, he/she resigns --> new Prime Minister chosen by Governor General (almost always the winner of the election).

There was a constitutional crisis in 1926 (King-Byng affair) when a Prime Minister (Mackenzie King) refused to step down even though the Liberals lost the election and Conservatives won more seats (not enough to form a majority though). Tradition held that the Prime Minister would resign and the leader of the party with the most seats was offered to form government first, but this was not an actual requirement. The Governor General (Byng) okayed this so long as if King lost a vote of confidence, he would resign rather than seek another election (other parties were fine with that too incidentally) and the Governor General would offer the Conservatives the chance to govern. King was eventually on the verge of losing a confidence vote due to a corruption / bribe scandal in his party... and immediately requested parliament gets dissolved and election called to avoid it (surprise?). The Governor General said no, and King then demanded that he consult Britain. The Governor General said no to that, believing that the matter was best dealt with in Canada (and that it was rather hypocritical for King to ask such as King was a strong believer of independence). King resigned, and the Conservatives were allowed to form a minority government. Then the Liberals went apeshit, joined forces with other opposition parties to bring a motion of confidence, then forced the Conservative government to request a dissolution and ask for an elections anyways (which the Governor General granted).

The Liberals then used the Governor General's "interference" as a rallying call in his campaign and ended up winning the most seats (though not enough for a majority). Bonus points for winning the most seats despite losing the popular vote, (the worst was in Manitoba were the Conservatives had double the popular vote of the other parties yet failed to gain a single seat!) yet another example of FPTP's shortcomings.

After winning King had the Governor General replaced, and went to Britain to help kick off the Statue of Westminster, 1931, which stated that the British government would no longer legislate or interfere with the colonies, using the Governor General's actions as one example. Even though the Governor General had specifically refused to get the British Government involved, and the statute didn't actually change the Governor General's duties. But you know, it had to look like the PM was doing something, damnit!

Oh and as for the corruption / bribe scandal? Naturally that faded into the sunset and was soon forgotten, so mission accomplished!

[Simon_Jester]

A referendum to shut down and reboot the government isn't actually a bad idea. The problem is making sure everyone votes, that the ruling party can't pressure anyone... and that the referendum actually gets called at the correct time.

Hence why it's convenient to have someone in a position where they can 'shut down and reboot' as needed. Elections have a tendency to be placed at some future date, by which point the offending party will either carry on business as usual and get ejected, or work frantically to make the other side look worse somehow. Having an individual with the power to tell everybody "STFU, get out, let's do over" avoids that neatly by making the consequences of legislative or executive fuckery to be immediate.

Random, related question: how is the country run while Parliament or whatever is recalled?

The civil service is still there. It's only a problem if you either:

1) Take waay too long holding new elections, or

2) Have a government that is structured so that it takes constant active intervention by the legislature to keep the bureaucracy from falling apart (e.g. the US system with its endless squabbles over debt caps and so on).

[Coop D'etat]

A referendum to shut down and reboot the government isn't actually a bad idea. The problem is making sure everyone votes, that the ruling party can't pressure anyone... and that the referendum actually gets called at the correct time.

Hence why it's convenient to have someone in a position where they can 'shut down and reboot' as needed. Elections have a tendency to be placed at some future date, by which point the offending party will either carry on business as usual and get ejected, or work frantically to make the other side look worse somehow. Having an individual with the power to tell everybody "STFU, get out, let's do over" avoids that neatly by making the consequences of legislative or executive fuckery to be immediate.

Random, related question: how is the country run while Parliament or whatever is recalled?

The minister of government remain in power, but the state itself switches to an autopilot mode where no major or difficult to change decisions or new significant money is spent. The state itself can function without political imput for a good deal of time because only the heads of the ministry are political, everyone beneath them are apolitical professonals of the permanent civil service.

The ministers are still entitled to use their powers if an emergency situation crops up, but by convention they are expected to be discrete enough to only use them to the extend necessary. That kind of convention is taken very seriously.