Should the US Switch to a Parliamentary System? (This Question Hasn't Been Asked Since Jimmy Carter)

In Canada and the U.K. they have the retained the right of secession. In this way their central Parliament are held in some level of basic check against too much oppression against a regional minority.

After all if A prime-minster like Obama tried to implement all his policy’s which oppressing political & economic interest of rural and southern States, then the same states may just withdraw their consent to be governed.(secede)

In that way politicians like Obama are forced to govern in ways more agreeable to all regions at least.

Yes, let us hold a Constitutional Convention to debate this question. But before we reach that agenda item, let us debate the wisdom and impact on liberty of allowing the government to print air-backed money and place all citizens in debt-serfdom. Let us debate the impact on liberty of allowing government to continually expand the welfare and commerce clauses, so that a man, growing his own corn to feed to his own hogs can be put under federal law because he is somehow engaged in interstate commerce.

Let us then debate the impact on liberty of saying that since an old topographical map shows a dashed blue line running through a field, that intermittent drainage is actually a “navigable waterway” and is to be put under such control of the Army Corps of Engineers and the EPA that a farmer cannot rectify erosion damage without getting a permit that costs $10,000 in environmental studies.

Yes indeed, there is a whole host of crimes and misdemeanors that the federal government commits upon its citizens since it has burst the chains of the 13 enumerated powers in the Constitution that lovers of big and Bigger government have managed to exile over the last 100 years or so.

A modest reform to better tie the President to the Congress is to adopt the Maine-Nebraska Method. (1 Elector to the winner of each Congressional District, and 2 to the winner of the state.)

We can do this incrementally, state by state, without changing the Constitution. And, see if it works. Only if a consensus develops that this was a good reform, should we then change the Constitution.

People forget that Parliaments are essentially monarchistic. They concentrate power in the prime minister and cabinet and the only limits on them are political.

I agree.

nope,’screw’that.

in order to establish a government that can actually get things done.

Last thing I want is a government that "gets things done" in the legislative sense.-

They already screw up more than enough already, by messing with things that ought not be messed with.

I believe this question was eloquently investigated by Jean Jacques Rousseau in THE SOCIAL CONTRACT. He concluded that the English Parliament was a flawed system plagued by the very same problems associated with our legislative branch of government. I do firmly believe we need to replace our current system with one that is better suited to equal representation for all citizens. The state of degradation that has befallen our federal government is all part of an historical cycle that has destroyed states throughout recorded history. As a state grows and prospers, it’s citizens, the body politic, become more interested in the arts than what the government representatives are doing.

We have almost reached a point where we will be unable to rescue our nation from ruin - almost. We are already on the downside slope that leads to the abyss that swallows up states but if we act quickly, there is still an opportunity to not only halt our downward slide but rise up and over the precipice. The best way to do this is by physically re-locating our federal government to a rural community far away from the Washington, D.C. area. The logistics of this may seem intimidating but when necessary, we have risen to the occasion and accomplished more daunting tasks. There is sound reasoning behind my suggestion but in all honesty, I do not believe there would be enough support to initiate this fix.

We began our journey through history as a republic and have become a democracy. There is a marked difference between the two: A republic places control in the hands of the common citizens and a democracy finds a small group of wealthy and powerful individuals clutching that power in their despotic hands.

I am hopeful that the citizens who have become complacent will wake up and become active, preferring to spend their weekends studying government instead of football scores. There is nothing more painful to witness than apathy; knowing that this pleases those who rule over us.

Perhaps it would be a good idea to lessen our educational focus upon math and science and balance it with a focus upon sociology, history, philosophy and government. The Humanities have all but but been dismissed from the curriculum in the lower grades and what better time could there be to begin preparing our young citizens for active participation in their future?

Would fit right in with what we have. Obama could then be King, Moochelle, Queen, kids Princesses...nothing to do but party and bling all day and night, and let someone else run the government. We have that now, I guess that would just admit it better.

No thanks. Our Constitutional system if just fine. We just need a better educated population (which is why we need a school choice bill and an alternative media).

What we have is a 1 − 1/2 party system. We have journalism - which was politics, back in the founding era, is politics now, and will be politics in the future. Before the middle of the Nineteenth Century, journalism - newspapers, back then - were primarily about the opinions of their printers. Pretty much like the Rush Limbaugh show. With the added function of the propagation of news, although in a real sense that was secondary. But the Post Office systematically subsidized the transmission of newspapers among the various printers around the country. Back then, newspapers were notorious for not agreeing about much of anything, but the promotion of communication among newspapers, ironically, violates a clear-cut recommendation by Adam Smith:
People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty and justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary. Wealth of Nations (Book I, Ch 10)
According to that, even the mailing of newspapers among printers might have tended to unify them into “a conspiracy against the public.” But then we really go into trouble. The telegraph came into existence, and with it the Associated Press. From that time to this, the members of the Associated Press have been in a continual virtual “meeting.” And, as Smith predicted, journalism has over the past century and a half morphed into little else but a conspiracy against the public. The culture of journalism is about, not the public interest, but about interesting - and impressing - the public. The culture of journalism is subversive of the long - term interest of the public, for the simple reason that journalism denigrates the people and institutions the public depends on, systematically and for journalism’s own self interest.

We have a 1 − 1/2 party system for the simple reason that all of journalism is a singular entity and, journalism being politics, we have a journalism party and an anti-journalism party. Naturally the anti journalism party is permanently on the defensive, while the journalism party is dominant, arrogant, and intrusive on the rights of the people.