Comment by hef19898 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by hef19898 | Hacker News Reader

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As a fellow European I have to disagree. Hiostorically speaking, pernal freedoms have been alot higher in Europe than the US (since the time something like personal freedom became athing), slavery was abolished by Great Britain and France way before the War of Independance for example. Also, where exactly is the US democracy more successfull overall? We do have free election in Europe, don't we? And we don't have such things like aelectoral college, not even in Germany where we don't elect the Chancellor directly (that the separation of legislative, executive and judicative powers works better in the US than in Germany with regards to the first two the excepotion proofing the rule).

Cesnrship was used extensivle by every European nation during WW1 and WW2, France convicted journalists of treason during wWW1 and Britain was very restrictive as well during WW2. Both places still exist.

Again, no one is stripping me of my voice in Europe. With the notable exception of redicals within their respective bubbles, there freedom of speech is treated as a direct threat. The existence of these bubbles and the hate speech coming from them has to be freedom speech on the other hand. But hey, extremist always want it both ways. Logic thinking isn't theirs strength, self dilusion is much more comfortable, isn't it?

I disagree with most of that.

You can pick and choose freedoms that you value or don't, and say Europe has more freedom. I can go the other way. Here is one: In much of Europe, you have nothing resembling the protection that Americans have under the 2nd amendment.

You have "free election" of approved parties. The other ones are subject to arrest for their political expression. Right now in the UK, Britain First is facing trial for what would be protected political speech in the USA. LePen got charged in France, also for what would be protected political speech in the USA. Geert Wilders, a member of the House of Representatives of the Netherlands, was likewise put on trial.

If you have a parliament that chooses a prime minister, then you have an electoral college. The members happen to be the same as those of congress; that is what a parliament is. It's actually worse, because you don't have a solid understanding of who they might choose.

In your last paragraph you admit that you don't really have free speech, but you don't care because your own views happen to be in favor with the current government. It's all fine to censor people you dislike, and to label them as radicals speaking hate speech. You're in a rather privileged position there, quite lucky to not be under a government that labels YOU in that way.

Just one thing, is the electoral college part of Congress and / or the Senate? If not, the systems are not comparable. And I have the impression that you seriously missunderstood my last paragraph which referred to radical elements thoroughly within their communities. Which, obviously, has nothing to do with constitutional free speech.

In the end, we agree that we don't agree. And for the sake of the discussion it is better than we stop now and don't go towards the 2nd.

The electoral college (EC) is a state system connected neither to Congress nor the Senate. Rather the EC is apportioned representatives based on the total number of Congressmen and Senators a state has. These representatives are chosen by (and vote at the behest of) the individual states according to how those states choose. All but two states require their EC representatives to vote for the Presidential candidate who won their state vote.

Thanks for the answer. I knew that, and yes the German syatem has a tendency to blur the lines between legslative and executive branches.

My comment was in reply to a comment that equated a parliament electing a chancellor / prime minister with an electoral college. Despite all the downsides of not electing the head of government directly they still are different things.

It's just a unification of some government functions. The functionality is the same.

parliament == electoral_college + congress

Specifically for Germany and the USA:

Bundestag == electoral_college + house_of_representatives

Bundesrat == senate

So you effectively do have a congress and an electoral college. In your system, they are merged and thus have the same members.

There are six typical roles:

1. lower legislative body

2. upper legislative body

3. electoral college

4. supreme court

5. head of state

6. executive

You have the 1==3 and 5==6 mergers. The USA has only the 5==6 merger. The UK has the 1==3 merger and prior to 2009 had the 2==4 merger.

You have to seprete the function frok the body, this is a very relevant separation. e.g. the head of state in Germany has close to zero actual power while France has a very powerfull presidential system. The only thing comming close to electoral college in Germany is electing the Head of State. Both, candidate and electors are caeefully selected by both chambers of parliament. Personnaly I'm not happy with that, parties tend to have way to much power in the German system.

All the Bundesrat has in common with thr Senate is being a second chamber. It is not elected directly as a body. Instead the prime ministers of ech state are making it up. So it is voted for indirectly during state elections. Votes in the Bundesrat are than based population, more or less (if someone knows the details that'll be cool). coalition governments different to the one on the federal level usually abstain (e.g. parties A and B govern federal, C and D being the opposition while parties B and D govern a certain state that state will note vote on certain issues).

In a democracy, these details do actually matter a lot. Otherwise you won't be able to ditinguish democracies on paper from real ones.

go try to listen to a death in june album or play manhunt or voice any opinion the state considers dangerous and tell me how free you are.

Just listening to Death in June on Google Play Music, thanks for the music tip, it's always nice to listen to non-mainstream stuff, radio in Germany can otherwise become a little bit repetetive.

Not that a game like Manhunt is actually my taste, Borderlands is more my cup of cake, but since I checked I have question: Is it true that, despite being available in the US, it is really hard to actually get? With Wal-Mart not wanting to sell it for a time and Sony as well as Nintendo having had an issue with the un-cut version of it?

Please excuse me that I don't try to voice state-threatening opinions which aren't mine just for fun. But maybe you have experience with that?

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