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To: Olog-hai

Interesting how the House of Lords is taking action in just this way that the Brits are demanding be done.


2 posted on 03/24/2014 10:46:59 PM PDT by CorporateStepsister (I am NOT going to force a man to make my dreams come true)
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To: CorporateStepsister

It’s an advantage in having a non elected chamber - it doesn’t have to care much about the next election and can take a longer view.

I have a friend who used to sit in the Lords before they got rid of most of the hereditary peers - he’s an Earl. He didn’t actually agree too much with the idea of hereditary privileges, as it happened, but he said the one thing it did in Britain was mean that laws were reviewed by people who were thinking of the impact they would have on their sons and grandsons and great-grandsons, and who also thought about the idea that if they made a mistake they would be disappointing their fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers - “The Commons plan for the next five years. The Lords plan for the next five centuries. If an idea meets both tests, it’s probably a good idea.”

It’s not a system anybody would design from scratch nowadays, and there are obviously problems with it as well, but it had its strength. And while the Life Peers of today, don’t have quite the same long term view as the old House, even if they are just planning for five decades, there’s still a lot of truth in it.


3 posted on 03/25/2014 12:24:43 AM PDT by naturalman1975 ("America was under attack. Australia was immediately there to help." - John Winston Howard)
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