I love the way the word “exclusive” is used these days. Apparently Obama is not giving interviews to anyone else.

You wouldn’t say you have an “exclusive” relationship with a woman if she gets to date other men at different times.

The majority respecting fundamental rights is orthogonal to the system you just described, and is I suspect orthogonal to any system. You seem to be under the same misconception that Bush and Co with their democracy spreading enterprise labor under: that is the structure that gives rise to peoples’ behaviors, as opposed to the peoples’ morals determining how a given system functions.

In India, the constitution has been amended hundreds of times, how can any “system” safeguard against that? It seems like feudalism cannot be destroyed by a wave of the structures wand innit?

HyperTree:

i guess the thinking is that in a parliamentary system the executive always has a majority. of course, you can say that the US winner take all system leads to less gridlock than proportional representation of parties, but the founders generally tried to discourage radicalism or factions and selfish groups that had no interest in the common good, so they built a system where a party had to get real influence before being represented.

you can see the US constitutional democracy as an elaborate machine designed to contain factions w/o suppressing them, create a majority that believes in the fundamental rights, with safeguards installed to prevent that majority from over-turning those rights. i think this helps explain US stability, as anti-democratic fanaticism has been defanged w/o being outlawed.

And why do you think Bloomberg is a nanny statist? Gun control and anti-smoking?

yep. trans-fat ban too. even smoking in outdoor cafes. but its a long leap from major to president, although his $$ conveys him some stature, as americans respect self-made billionares.

BleedingDil, it is because of BleedingDils like you. The people to sort out the mess can only come from a good tertiary education system. The people with said education can only do so if they are provided the infrastructure like electricity. Guess who controls both education and electricity — govt. And guess who keeps insisting on more power to said govts — BleedingDil statists. You guys scare me.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/20/AR2007062002535.html

Why doesn’t education, modernization and technological sophistication help us legistlate or teach our way out of this pernicious nonsense?

Manju: is it not that a parliamentary system results in a greater gridlock? The executive is weakened, more than two electoral parties, requires more consensus to get anything done. India should be a gridlockists’s wet dream.

And why do you think Bloomberg is a nanny statist? Gun control and anti-smoking?

Why does the silicon valley worship him?

most inveterate India haters like Barbara Crosette

Whats her problem? She doesnt like spicy food?