It at least shows a healthy separation of powers which is key in a democracy.
Yes, because that’s never happened in the United States. Go read a history book or even a current newspaper.
And what exactly are these triumphs of democracy I shall learn about as I affix my monocle and peruse my local broadsheet, my good sir?
Tim isn’t from the United States, so your attacks on him are missing the mark.
Anyway, my first thought was that you are right, we do have extremist groups such as the KKK here in the US. My second thought was that although they once had a fair amount of power, I think particularly at the state-level they do not anymore. There is no chance that the KKK would have control over a congressional committee. It seems clear that in Israel however, extremist groups are much more mainstream.
All it shows that is that Israel’s democracy is more representative than the US’s. In the US, if 3% of the populace are members of the KKK, the winner-take-all system means that they don’t get a seat in Congress. Israel has a system based on vote percentages, so 3% of the vote would get you a couple of seats in the Knesset.
This system allows all sorts of fringe groups to get seats that in other countries would never make it.
So 3% of the vote gives you enough seats to control a committee which determines who gets to vote? I’m not a huge fan of the two-party system, but that seems a bit whacky.
A neo-nazi skinhead in Congress? That would be interesting. I’m sure the Jewish Americans would love that.
There’s no need to convince me that Israel has a strong democracy. I already know that. But trying to spin the fact that Arab parties were banned as evidence of this, just because the ban was overturned, is more than a little odd.
America is a strong democracy in spite of its past record with minorities, not because of it.
It wasn’t directed at Tim, it was for the guy ‘standing tough under the stars and stripes’ who apparently isn’t aware of the number of times the unelected US Supreme Court has overruled decisions of elected officials.
Extremism appears to be alive and well in Israel on both sides, no one has claimed otherwise. As for the KKK, while Rep. Duke (who now, in a Dirt like manner, claims the Jews control Obama) may not represent the pinnacle of power, the fact that he got elected says that we still have a way to go.
Edit: Tim, I wasn’t trying to spin anything. I stated numerous times in this thread that I disagreed with the initial banning and thought it was abusive. The fact the Court overruled it shows that Democracy survives despite attempts at subverting it.
Exactly.
I’ve got 11 Carrier Strike Groups that say US > Israel. ;)
David Duke was a state representative, not a congressman. He served one term in the state house twenty years ago, and still calls himself “Representative Duke” on his website. Being elected a state representative isn’t that difficult; most run unopposed.
When Duke tried to run for the Senate in 1990, he attracted national attention when he won the Republican primary. The national party promptly disowned him and endorsed his opponent, who won handily.
This is why proportional representation has big problems as well. A two party system tends to reward pluralities with winner take all. Hence, the major parties win almost all the elections and we have a bi-party structure.
A proportional representation system rewards the fringe disproportionately. How? Well, often times the plurality party doesn’t have a majority. Hence they must come hat in hand to the fringe parties and ask what they want to support the plurality party to make a majority/partitioned government.
It’s not that unusual for a country that has two major parties roughly equal to see fringe parties throw around a ton of weight. Greens, nationalists etc are often single issue parties that can topple a government.
In the US, we went away from a real 2 party system to proportional representation you’d probably see a strong Green party and a very strong pro-life Christian party.
I like the bipartisan structure b/c of its moderating influence.
Well, no. 3% would get you a couple of committee seats, mainly in the less important committees, and if you really had a ton of political capital to work with to extort the governing coalition you might get a committee chairmanship thrown in as well or a more influential committee to work with.
You should not ever be able to control a committee with a 3% mandate.
This motion was passed in committee by a large majority and though I don’t know the exact representation it’s reasonable to assume that the committee is proportionally representative to the parliament.
I believe I am more aware of them than you are, as I can actually list a few: school desegregation, school busing, Roe v Wade, etc., etc. While all of these decisions may be triumphs for minority rights, they are not triumphs of democracy.
When judging the constitutionality of laws, Supreme Courts act as fail safes. They are the net under the high wire of democracy, the safety on the AK-47 of representative government. Having to consistently rely on your Supreme Court to prevent elected officials from doing patently illegal things, is like relying on the safety to prevent you from shooting yourself in the foot. It doesn’t show that your gun handling skills are “alive and well.” It shows that YOU NEED TO STOP POINTING THE DAMN GUN AT YOUR FUCKING FOOT!
Edit:
I guess we agree then. Sorry about the above, and carry on.
I love how you, by association, called me an anti-Semite without actually calling me an anti-Semite. The action is predictable.
Israel’s democratic framework is already strong, so this isn’t really going to make much of a difference to the real issue, and I think you know this. The problem for Israel’s democracy is that most Jewish people believe in Israel as a Jewish state, and most Arabs do not, and the Arab demographic is inevitably going to increase to a point where they can challenge this. The issue is whether Jewish Israelis believe strongly enough in democracy to allow this.
Dirt, frankly to call you an anti-semite would be to insult run-of-the-mill anti-semites everywhere. You are more of a anti-reason guy. Whenever I see your posts on any subject, in 90% case it is amazingly wrong and/or amazingly stupid. The remaining 10% are likely attributed to statistical inevitability.
It is also clear that the vast majority of Q3 posters share similar opinion of you, based upon their replies to your posts. (when they do bother to reply)
Frankly the only remotely surprising thing about you is why do spend so much time hanging around in the place where most people consider you a silly troll (at best). :) You either have no life whatsoever, or you are an addicted glutton for punishment. I suspect both but in that I can not be 100% sure (not that I care)
Not really, at least not in the short-medium term. The only way arab population will become close to majority in Israel during that timeframe would be if arabs who currently live outside Israel will get right to return and receive Israel citizenship. Which Israel will never allow to happen, since it would be the end of the Israel as it was founded in 1948.
It is true that israeli arab population has higher birthrate then jewish secular population. However ortodox jews also have very high birthrate, and there is also a factor of the jewish population increase through emigration. Basically if you look at the numbers it is pretty clear that although the percentage of israel arab population will likely to increase, it will not become a majority in the short/medium future.
It’s more than just the birth rate. With Israel being a democracy, it doesn’t require an Arab majority to form a government. It also doesn’t require an Arab majority to change fundamental laws that prevent an Arab majority happening much sooner than a glance at the birth rate my suggest.
For example, the laws that disallow citizenship for Arabs marrying Israeli citizens could be overturned relatively easily with a few more Arab voters. That would start to increase the population significantly. Then they could start on other laws, like the ones promoting Jewish immigration. Finally they might get enough voters to pressure the government to accept Palestinian right of return.
Plus there are hundreds of thousands of Arabs in East Jerusalem who might take up citizenship and vote if they felt the Arab voice was becoming empowered.
In theory - yes. In practice - no. Considering active anti-jewish state position of arab parties, the other parties will never join coalition with them. And since Israel is a democracy we go back to the birthrates, as I’ve pointed out in my post.