When I studied political science in college nearly 60 years ago, we were taught to contrast the sensible, pragmatic American and British political cultures with the ideological, gridlocked French and Italians.
In France and Italy in the 1950s, governments fell and new governmental coalitions had to be formed every few months, or so it seemed, and the diverse political parties could never agree on policies to address their nations problems.
But I never heard of any French or Italian political party that tried to stop their governments from carrying out their lawful functions or paying their lawful bills, as happened during the past couple of weeks here in the United States. Today it is we Americans who set an example of ideological, gridlocked government.
Our Constitution sets up a legislative process that says enactment of a law requires agreement among a President elected by the nation, a House of Representatives elected by districts on a population basis and a Senate elected by states on a state sovereignty basis. That is a more complicated and difficult process than in most democratic governments. But now agreement among these three bodies is required merely to allow the government to carry out responsibilities mandated by law.
Tags: Constitution, Debt ceiling, Democracy, Dysfunctional Democracy, Government, Government Shutdown, U.S. Democracy
Phil Ebersole's Blog 
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