Re: OT: For information only !
| From: | Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...> |
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| Date: | Friday, June 18, 2004, 20:34 |
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En réponse à Tristan Mc Leay :
>No... the Congress is a congress. There's two distinct systems: the
>Parliamentary system, which has parliaments, as used by Britain and most
>Commonwealth countries, and the Presedential system, which has
>congresses as used by America and various other countries... I think the
>difference is that the executive is kept separate from the legislature
>in one and mixed in with the other, but it could be that I'm focussing
>on the wrong distinction...
Well, as Joe said, France is a presidential system and has a parliament. My
understanding is that "congress" and "parliament" are just two different
words for the same thing: "a legislative body composed of two houses".
Unless someone can prove me that the American Congress is not composed of a
Senate and a House of Representatives (as I've been taught), I will
consider those two terms as referring to the same thing. It's not the first
time Americans feel the way to name things differently from other people :) .
_______________________________________________________________________
En réponse à Tristan Mc Leay :
>France is freaky. They have a Prime Minister and a President. I don't
>think the French planned on making sense in the first place.
Actually, the French system makes so much sense that it's far from the only
country having such a system. Like parliamentary systems like the British
one, France has separate heads of state and government. It just happens
that our head of state is a president, like in Germany and Italy for
instance. The only difference with Germany and Italy being that our head of
state is elected directly by the people rather than indirectly by the
parliament, and has actual executive powers (which go in line with being
elected directly. One wouldn't waste a direct election for a figurehead).
Note that before WW2, the French system was indistinguishable from the
German or Italian one.
It all makes a lot of sense: having two heads rather than one in the
executive prevents either head of becoming too powerful. Having a single
person being both head of state and government is not unlike electing a
dictator for a limited time. Having a powerless head of state being only a
figurehead is not a problem, as long as the system is strongly
parliamentary and the Prime Minister cannot take too much power in his
hands (see Italy for an example of how it can go wrong).
I'm not saying the French system is perfect, far from it. But it *does*
make sense and works pretty well.
Christophe Grandsire.
http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr
You need a straight mind to invent a twisted conlang.
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