Thai analysis: German-style electoral system spurs interest

[micmichd]

The Red Shirts as USPD, or what?

[micmichd]

And anyway, the political system of say 1925 was not that bad in Germany.

[NCFC]

A bad workman blames his tools.

[Saradoc1972]

Posts #6 and #23 sum things up for all practical purposes, but the German system is actually one of "personalized proportional representation".

Meaning: everbody has two votes, the first for the candidate smiling the nicest on those billboards and the second for the party purportedly the least mendacious. Let's call it "complicated", because the system determining the actual seats in Parliament combining both systems really is (it's called "Überhangmandate", don't even ask me for a translation).

The federal system also makes some sense, just Germany has 16 Länder (counties or states, whatever), and it's gotten somewhat impractical after re-unification. Make it 6 or 8 at most, which is what is being proposed over here (not that it's going to happen in my lifetime). And don't extend it to education. That was implemented in Germany after WW2 by the allied forces for good reasons, but it's obsolete now and totally impractical.

But the real backbone of whatever voting system is used is the constitution (German: "Grundgesetz", sometimes referred to as "basic law"), which effectively curbs a government's executive rights regarding civil rights and checks and balances, overridden and amended by EU-law and the ECHR, and needing a 2/3 majority in both Houses to change (with some basic provisions nobody at all can change).

Without that AND a working court system in all three subdivisions (civil law, penal law, administrative law), the voting system is more or less insubstantial.

[micmichd]

The voting system in Germany is even more complicated.

The first vote counts for a regional representative, and hee it comes to "the winner (in a specific region) takes it all".

The second vote is for parties (provided they get more than 5 pct of the total electorate) You never vote for a chancellor really, instead you vote for a party that is then hopefully reoresented in the assembly (Bundestag) There you leave your party alone, and then the parties start negotiating - the result is open end.

Practically you should never bet you get what you voted for.

Result: nobody really trusts politicians anymore, and the government is widely disgusted.

Then the German political and administrative system is based on 'positive law' meaning all applicable laws might be changed anytime. Sorry to say, but Adolf Hitler came into power legally by positive law.

Today they use computers for executive decisions and administrative law-making (welfare and tax laws) with the result that nobody really knows what is applicable law.

People in Germany call it arbitrary, some call it technocratic.

The German Constitution is for legitimation of it all.

Theoretically everyone can claim his or her human rights at Bundesverfassungsgericht. Practiically you do not only need time and money for the procedure but a skin like an elephant because many of the people that try to claim their very private human rights are labeled as 'querulants' - but some of them win their cases against administrative power, and occasionally a legal procedure is declared illegitimate.

[BSJ]

Go the Swiss system. It's really good system!

[aussieinthailand]

So it seems the little trip too Scotland and other European counties was for naught,,, Ooop's no it was just cause we wanted a holiday with our family's and wanted it all expenses paid for FREE,,, errr well tax payer funded almost the same thing yeah.

Pack of lying thieves.

[rametindallas]

Guys you got it all wrong!!

They are studying the German model pre 1945!!

Oh dear. One faction forming an armed militia to intimidate and kill political opponents, and the promotion of a charismatic megalomaniac criminal as a semi-deity were certainly pre-1945, and worthy of study.

The coup has stopped movement in that direction, hopefully on a permanent basis.

I'm rereading 'The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich' by William L. Shirer and the parallels with Thaksin are astounding and lead me to believe he used those methods as a template for his on Mein Kampf (My Struggle). I got my current copy on-line, in .pdf format, for free. I have my original book somewhere but too lazy to dig it out.

[rametindallas]

And anyway, the political system of say 1925 was not that bad in Germany.

Germany, by the mid-twenties had pretty much recovered from the Great World War and its factory output was higher than before the war. There were plenty of easy loans from wealthy America and the government was successful. The Weimar Republic was doing a good job. It was the Great Depression that dried up loans, cut factory production in half, that brought 25% unemployment and opened the door to the National Socialists Party.

[micmichd]

So, Big Money came in.

And when they tried to eat it or make something out of it, they finally used it to fire their ovens.

It was the fake label 'socialist' in the NSDAP for the unemployed and the national paranoia of the declining middle-class that brought Hitler into power, and probably a vacuum in national conscience due to lack of revolutionary experience.

Hitler filled the vacuum with what he called 'Völkisch', but I wouldn't put the blame on the Weimar Republic or Friedrich Ebert from HD.

[ThaiUser]

Post 32#

The political system of 1925 was the same as the political system of 1919 or of 1933; the economical situations were different. Looking at writers of contemporary art in literature or reading documents in achives that contain information about this period, it looks a bit different from the picture you try to paint. Yes, in Berlin there was party time and the wealthy and rich had no problems showing of the new gained wealth they obtained after the war, but the people in the provinces had a different life and a different outlook. The causes for the downfall of the Weimar Republic were already fermenting below the surface and the 1929 world economic crisis ensured that Germany was an easy target for extremists like Hitler and his NSDAP or the communist party and their splinter groups. The stabilisation of the Weimar Republic during 1925 to 1929 is a relative observation regarding foreign policy and economic stabilisation as far as her payments for war reparations go but certainly don't reflect the lifestyle of the majority of people.

[ThaiUser]

Guys you got it all wrong!!

They are studying the German model pre 1945!!

Oh dear. One faction forming an armed militia to intimidate and kill political opponents, and the promotion of a charismatic megalomaniac criminal as a semi-deity were certainly pre-1945, and worthy of study.

The coup has stopped movement in that direction, hopefully on a permanent basis.

I'm rereading 'The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich' by William L. Shirer and the parallels with Thaksin are astounding and lead me to believe he used those methods as a template for his on Mein Kampf (My Struggle). I got my current copy on-line, in .pdf format, for free. I have my original book somewhere but too lazy to dig it out.

With an interest in history I have read 'The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich' and Hitlers 'Mein Kampf' but fail to see the parallels you imply they would have. Hitler in his book from the start maintains that he was out to destroy the old order (form of Government we call democracy) and replace it with a system he thought was fit for the German people. He also was very clear of what would be ahead of the German people and that the German question could only be solved by the swort and the flow of blood.

Nothing in Thaksin speeches or writings would remind me of that and before you might start to argue the point, I am not a supporter of Thaksin and haven't voted for him.

[micmichd]

Go the Swiss system. It's really good system!

As long as you don't beat up your wife for voting in public: Yes.

[rametindallas]

Guys you got it all wrong!!

They are studying the German model pre 1945!!

Oh dear. One faction forming an armed militia to intimidate and kill political opponents, and the promotion of a charismatic megalomaniac criminal as a semi-deity were certainly pre-1945, and worthy of study.

The coup has stopped movement in that direction, hopefully on a permanent basis.

I'm rereading 'The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich' by William L. Shirer and the parallels with Thaksin are astounding and lead me to believe he used those methods as a template for his on Mein Kampf (My Struggle). I got my current copy on-line, in .pdf format, for free. I have my original book somewhere but too lazy to dig it out.

With an interest in history I have read 'The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich' and Hitlers 'Mein Kampf' but fail to see the parallels you imply they would have. Hitler in his book from the start maintains that he was out to destroy the old order (form of Government we call democracy) and replace it with a system he thought was fit for the German people. He also was very clear of what would be ahead of the German people and that the German question could only be solved by the swort and the flow of blood.

Nothing in Thaksin speeches or writings would remind me of that and before you might start to argue the point, I am not a supporter of Thaksin and haven't voted for him.

I would love to discuss this with you but there are too many parallels that touch on things that cannot be brought into a political discussion on this forum and without which, no comprehensive comparisons can be made. I tried to write a brief explanation but kept hitting that wall. I first read the book forty years ago and I'm getting an entirely new perspective now.

[micmichd]

So, shouldn't we agree to disagree?

[micmichd]

Proposal:

1. Thailand is not Germany.

2. Thaksin is not Adolf Hitler.

3. All democracies have problems with their elites.

4. Anarchists are part of the people, too.

Agree?

[micmichd]

And incrementalism is not a tank.

A tank is a tank is a tank.

Have a nice day in sunny paradise.