Our Constitution: Deliberately Conducive to Empire
Although the growing wealth and power of the military-industrial complex has resulted in major attacks on representative government and civil liberties (under the Patriot Act, for example, which repealed habeas corpus and legalized government spying on law-abiding citizens), there are also clear structural flaws in the US system of government that make it less responsive to voters than governments of other industrialized countries. These "flaws" mostly relate to what the Constitutional framers referred to as "separation of powers."
American students learn in school that these "checks and balances" were intended to make the federal government more democratic. However it's clear from the writings of Hamilton, Madison and other members of the colonial aristocracy who wrote the Constitution that their real intent was to minimize the risk of a direct popular vote harming the interests of wealthy landowners and merchants or interfering with their plans for military expansion. In fact the founding fathers made no secret of their imperialistic ambitions (their plans to declare war on the Native Americans and Mexicans who possessed the lands west of the 13 original colonies), which were extremely unpopular among a mainly farming population who experienced enormous personal and economic privations during the Revolutionary War. Military expansion didn't end when the Southwest and Pacific coast became US possessions. In 1895, the US declared war on Spain to expand our empire to include Cuba, Puerto Rico, Hawaii, the Philippines and other Pacific islands.
Parliamentary Democracy=One Man One Vote
Unlike the majority of industrialized countries, the US doesn't employ a "one-man-one-vote" system of representational democracy. The only hope our Constitutional framers had of enacting their pro-business, pro-military agenda was to establish two branches of government that weren't chosen by popular vote ((the Senate and Presidency), in order to block populist legislation enacted by the democratically elected House of Representatives
After 8 1/2 years experience with New Zealand's, parliamentary democracy, I have absolutely no doubt that it's far more democratic than the US system. Under a parliamentary system, the head of the party which controls the majority of legislative seats automatically becomes chief of state. This places their government under constant pressure to continuously pass reform legislation demanded by the voters who elect them. The moment the prime minister loses the majority he/she needs to pass legislation, the government collapses and a new election is called. This is in marked contrast to the US Congress, which has been struggling for 30 years to reform education and health care -- while American schools and the US health care system virtually disintegrate in front of our eyes.
Another important advantage of a parliamentary democracy is the establishment of an official opposition party, which is expected to attack and embarrass the party in power. The result is vigorous and often raucous parliamentary debate, characterized by booing, cheering and outright heckling (called barracking) by members of the opposing party. Even though both New Zealand's major parties are increasingly pro-business, bipartisan consensus on a specific issue is extremely rare. Open "bipartisan consensus," which is so heavily promoted by the US media, Obama, the Clintons, and pro-corporate would be extremely unpopular in New Zealand. The majority of Kiwi voters retain a strong working class consciousness and are extremely dismissive of politicians with open ties to the corporate and business lobby.
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