Re:Republicans' new Web site not exactly what they hoped it ...
by hugh3 on Wednesday May 26, 2010 @08:09PM
(#1382220)
Oh, I think there are other important similarities. You've got to remember that the UK was (basically) a representative democracy at a time when the number of representative democracies in the world was... what, three-ish? Important similarities include:
1. A bicameral legislature (commons + lords vs house + senate)
2. The idea that representatives should represent individual districts
3. Most importantly, the whole "common law" thing
I think it's important to point out that there is, in fact, very few similarities between the U.K. government, especially at the time, and the U.S. government.
The U.K. uses a parliamentary system of government without a written constitution. There is a single, essentially all-powerful, legislative body with no separate executive. They can literal change the structure of government by passing a law due to the lack of a constitution. The government is structured as it is due to tradition.
The only real similarity is that they also use the "Winner Takes All" voting system, in which the person that receives the most votes wins, as opposed to a proportional system used in other countries.
Other than that similarity, they're basically entirely different.