--- Garret <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I would like to know something about the Federal
> Government- what is it? How
> does it work? How does, for example, a mayor and a
> governor fit in there.
> And what is the role of the FBI etc? I think that
> this knowledge would
> further my understanding of the relief effort
> currently being discussed by
> the Mayor of NY on television.
Here's a Canadian butting in. I'm not that familiar
with how American politics work either, and, like you,
I'm pretty apolitical (even though I ALWAYS vote) but
I think I get some of it - I can only do this by
comparing it to our system, which is kind of like the
British one, but I'm not sure how this works in
Ireland (I believe you have MPs too - members of
parliament?)
Where the = sign doesn't really mean "equals" but more
like "comes close to being equal"... They're not
really equal because, although much of our political
system is similar to the U.S. one, there's also a lot
that is different. I think there are some political
scientists on the list who could probably do a good
job of explaining this. Let's hope there's a
quick-and-dirty (American politics for idiots)
explanation for those of us who only want the
"executive summary."
US President = Canadian Prime Minister (elected head
of federal gov't)
US Governor = Canadian Premier (sometimes also called
Prime Minister, but is the elected head of a
provincial government)
U.S. state = Canadian province (I'm not sure how this
works in England or Ireland, where I believe you have
counties, but they may be more like states or
provinces than what we call counties. We have
counties too, which are kind of a larger political
thing than cities, but smaller than a province (or
state). To confuse matters, some of the larger urban
areas (in Ontario, the province where I live anyway)
are now called "Regional Municipalities", rather than
counties.
U.S. Mayor = Canadian Mayor (elected head of a city -
in a case like a city as large and powerful as New
York, the mayor is a major political player).
There's more, but after this, I get confused too. In
Canada we have senators, as they do in the U.S., but
in the U.S. their senators are elected, whereas ours
are appointed by the government in power at the time
(hence, they tend to support the gov't in power and
this is a source of great controversy here, where
people are always talking about either abolishing the
Senate or making it work the way the U.S. system does,
as elected by the people. If a bill is voted into a
law, it must be approved by the Senate. In Canada, it
is highly unlikely that the Senate would veto any law
that had passed through parliament, mostly because
they are appointed by the gov't in power - however, it
could happen if the previous gov't had appointed a
whole bunch of *their* people just before an election
that resulted in a different party coming into power -
our senators are appointed *for life* which is another
thing many Canadians aren't too crazy about. In the
U.S. senators are elected, so they have to change
every few years and you could, and often do, have
Democrats in one house but Republicans in the other
(senate). Also, in the U.S. the president is elected
separately from the local representatives, so yuo
could have a Democractic president, but the majority
of the representatives are Republicans. In Canada,
it's the head of the political party that wins the
most seats in parliament that becomes Prime Minister,
so if there's a Liberal majority (which there is now),
then the head of the gov't is likewise a Liberal.)
And then again, the U.S. is a republic, as is Ireland,
but Canada is not. We are a democracy but we are
still part of the British Commonwealth, whatever that
means, and so we have a Governor General, who is
appointed, but who is supposed to be the Queen's
representative. He or she signs any act passed into
Parliament as a representative of the Queen (Royal
Assent). A bill becomes law here only when it has had
Royal Assent. I'm not aware of any case of a governor
general refusing to sign a bill that had passed
through parliament and I suppose it's highly unlikely
- a Gov General is more or less a figurehead who
attends special events with much pomp and
circumstance, but has no political clout that I'm
aware of at all. This is another Canadian/British
thing that seems kind of quaint and cute - the GG
arrives at special occasions or tea with the royals
when they visit us colonials, in a horse-drawn
carriage and so on, but doesn't IMO have much
practical value whatsoever and is most likely not a
very good use of the taxpayers dollar, although I
believe they are supposed to be sort of a "neutral"
presence, without any noticeable political leanings.
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