RE: [OT] Free CalTex Interplanetary Federation in the making

Hi,

>>Makes me pine for a monarchy (of course I would be in the peerage)
>
>Not sure if you guys are aware of this but this week the UK government
>announced the abolishment of hereditary peers taking seats in the house
of
>lords. Unfortunately from now on members of house of lords will be
appointed
>by the government rather than voted for (like a senate) by the people
(as
>some of us over here had hoped for).
>
>I don't suppose anyone's got a green card going spare they could lend
me?
>

Heh.  Welcome to our world...  

The Senate here (in Canada) which has the same general function
(providing
a "sober second thought" for parliament) as the House of Lords, works
exactly like that, and has IIRC since it was created.

And as you might imagine, what happens is that the sitting government
sends
their own partisan friends to the Senate as patronage appointments
througout their term(s) of office, doing their best to stack things
their
way.  And Senate appointments are basically for life (there is an age
limit, but it isn't a young one...), which is what I imagine the House
of
Lords rules will be.  So the Senate is basically a rubberstamp most of
the
time.

Lots of people here have been agitating for Senate reform for decades,
but
it is a plum patronage tool and it seems the sitting governments (of all
parties) don't like to rock the boat...

Welcome to a vigorous and vibrant democracy ;-)

-Adrian

***************************************

Adrian Johnson
adrian@stargrunt.ca
http://www.stargrunt.ca

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