yeah let's elect TWO separate but equal legislatures to jerk each other off over what legislation to pass, great idea western man
no I'm not mad I just learned that Virginia would have had recreational marijuana sales in 2022 if it were up to their senate, BUT WOOPS
From what I remember, most nations in Europe had a bicameral system at their inception, since they were seen as a way to compromise between the aristocracy and the urban petty bougs / commoners. Honestly I think that the only thing keeping bicameral systems alive in the anglo-sphere is the fact that their constitutions are deliberately made almost impossible to amend. Not like the Danish one is particularly easy, but the american system seems unneccessarily bird-brained.
eh, I'd give it at most 15 years before another amendment is on the table. It's probably going to be Christo-fascist, but there will be changes to the document. Whether it will be that Christianity is the only religion permitted, or that atheism is outlawed, or that being gay is punishable by imprisonment/death, is up to the hogs.
They would never put something like that up through an even remotely democratic filter. That's the whole reason they launched a decades-long campaign to capture the federal judiciary; now they can rewrite huge swaths of the constitution from the bench.
A significant change to the US constitution has not been since the mid 1960s. There was a weird amendment in the late 80s that was I think about congressional pay but it was pretty inconsequential.
So that means for everyone on this site, we have not seen a significant change to the US constitution happen our and for a lot of us, there have been zero changes, big or small, in our lifetimes. And a lot of Americans see this as a good thing.
The Supreme Soviet of the USSR actually was bicameral. One chamber was directly elected according to population, and the other had 32 representatives for each nationality.
Checks and balances aren't a bad idea when they aren't rigged from the start to protect capital.
Zizek voice
Zhe Shoviet democratic procesh conshists of two phases: zhe one where I'm doing your mom, sniff and zhe one where I'm doing your dad.
Alcoholic Libertarian: How do we reconcile our belief in democratic representation with the fear of the mob that accompanies our economic position?
Syphilitic Libertarian: We will invent a state apparatus that allows the mob token representation while squirreling away all actually useful power for ourselves!
Both the US and UK legislatures - arguably the two primary examples of bicameral legislatures - were erected that way specifically to let the privileged classes have the final say in the laws and policies of the country. Power in the hands of the working class had to be avoided at all costs. I would say the UK system favors the landed aristocracy and the US favors the bourgeoisie but I'm not that familiar with the House of Lords to know if that's true or not.
in the us, madison was pretty mask-off about this, in what wikipedia calls "among the most highly regarded of all American political writings:"
A rage for paper money, for an abolition of debts, for an equal division of property, or for any other improper or wicked project, will be less apt to pervade the whole body of the Union than a particular member of it...
the literal stated purpose of the senate is to be a roadblock to protect the status quo from the "passions" of the masses
Lol in high school we were taught its to protect to uwu smol bean states from the 😳 big strong muscle daddy states, and that never made any sense to me
That was probably a fair part of it, but that was 250 years ago, too. Now, the balance has shifted in favor of small states to a comical degree, and the inherent differences in state policies matter less than ever.
They haven't mattered since the articles of confederation, and even then not really
It was pretty explicitly to protect the slave states from the free states.
Turns out the masses are pretty pasionate about not starving to death or getting maimed in an industrial accident at work.
If you need more convincing, they bestow the honorary title of Admiral, despite being a land locked state:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebraska_Admiral
