[flaja]

Originally Posted by DanaC

I can and do venture opinions in my job. I was referring purely to occasions when I have to sit on a quasi-judicial planning committee. Once inside that meeting any member can express an opinion. Prior to the meeting, a member must not reach a conclusion nor be seen to do so. This kind of committee is a very small part of my job.

This doesn’t sound like anything that I am familiar with in the U.S. It sounds like you are given a narrow time frame in which to form an opinion on something. I don’t know of any comparable situation in the U.S. Even courtroom judges are expected to have opinions about things that they must consider in their courtrooms even before the things come up in a courtroom setting. And the only way a ventured opinion can hurt a judge is when it keeps them from being appointed to a higher court.

But at any rate, a judicial setting isn’t necessarily a political setting. Legislators and executives have to consider issues that a judge may never have to consider.

And if the patient is unconscious? If the next of kin cannot be located? If a decision has to be made fast, if the risk has to be weighed up and a decision reached in time to stand a chance of saving the patient? Are you saying you can see no hypothetical situation that might lead a doctor to make his decision based on the risk litigation?

Getting the consent of the patient or the next-of-kind is always the first choice. But when consent cannot be obtained, doctors in the U.S. still have a legal obligation to use their best judgment to give treatment. As litigious as American society is, failing to treat a patient will just as likely get a doctor sued as giving the wrong treatment or botching the right treatment will. And remember that a malpractice suit between patient and doctor is not the same as a libel/slander suit between politicians. So you still haven’t explained how a politician would be overly cautious in debate due to a fear of lawsuits.

Well, okay, so you successfully legislate to ensure that your politicans can be sued for libel if they are personally insulted. Have you considered the various possible ramifications of that legislation? Have you considered the opportunities to take the political fight and have it out in lengthy court cases with frivolous actions brought at sensitive times (such as six months before an election)?

I don’t expect there to be many court fights because the fear of being sued would insure that politicians keep a civil tongue in their mouths.

Yes, it may make people more cautious about insulting someone, but it also may make people less willing to take a risk in attempting to expose someone. It won't only be those you seek to curb who feel themselves curtailed.

People that don’t sit in Congress aren’t protected against slander and libel suits under federal law- and people that do sit in Congress can be sued if they libel or slander someone when they are not in the Capitol building in D.C.

My U.S. Representative can stand in the House of Representatives and call her election opponent a crook without being sued. If she does it on the Capitol steps she can be sued. But if the constitutional immunity were removed no member of Congress would risk slandering someone without having supporting evidence. Being in the habit of not being sued because they can lash out at their opponent from the halls of Congress with immunity encourages members of Congress to lash out everywhere else. Since political challengers seldom have enough money to wage even a halfway effective campaign against incumbents they certainly cannot afford to launch a libel suit. But if members of Congress were to start suing each other, them maybe they’d learn to fear lawsuits from the rest of us.

Except, as you have already pointed out you believe most of your politicans do not put the public good ahead of their personal or political differences. Do you think a rule that allows litigation for libel is going to transform your politicians? Return to them, somehow, their moral compass?

What else would you propose? Litigation would be a start, but I think you would also need things like term limits and unhindered ballot access.

Democracy is a blunt instrument. See what happens when you trust the proles to vote?

The U.S. is not a democracy, but rather a republic. The Constitution was intentionally designed to temper the majority lest it make rash decisions at the ballot box or demand that politicians make decisions that are detrimental to the public good. Sadly some of these constitutional provisions have been unwisely altered while the quality of the people who are willing to be politicians has greatly deteriorated.

The point remains, you are basing your judgement of a very large number of people on the media coverage of a minority of them.

It is true that America’s news media does not (and physically cannot) give an equal amount of coverage to every U.S. politician. But from the extensive coverage that the most prominent politicians share, you can easily get a good understanding of the character of our prominent politicians. And birds of a feather acting the way they do, you can easily (and likely accurately) extrapolate the character of politicians in general.

I don't see how that in any way counters the point I was making. In fact it seems to have little relevance to what we were discussing.

I was pointing out how much easier it is for Britons to interact with their politicians. A single voter in Britain carries far more weight than a single American voter does in national elections.

I guess that would depend on your definition of politician. I was using the term to mean those who have been elected to serve in public office. The vast majority of elected politicians in my country are not well known. Those that are in the public eye, are the ones who have either succeeded to the front benches or are well-known rebels.

Can you give me some idea about how many people seek election to any single seat in the Commons in an election? In the U.S. most 3rd parties don’t make it to the ballot and seldom does an incumbent face a challenger for re-nomination and if the other party does manage to nominate a challenger for the general election that challenger is often nominated without opposition from within his party. You seldom have more than 2 people seeking the same seat in Congress. The power of incumbency in the U.S. (at virtually every level of government and every office) is so strong that few other people ever bother to run for office. In comparison to the number of elected offices that exist in this country, the number of politicians this country has is very small. The odds of defeating an incumbent are so great and politicking is so contentious that few decent people are willing to be candidates.

Here also, the most admired and well-known politicians are often those who have rebelled against their party or crossed the floor.

Which begs the question: If so many voters admire people who are not party politicians, why do so many voters return party politicians to office?

That's unfortunate; however, the republican and democratic parties encompass a hell of a lot of people there is no reason to say their representatives cannot be pleasant and polite. There is equally no reason to think that members of smaller parties will not be bullish and unpleasant.

Likely true, but as long as American voters don’t have a 3rd party option, we will never know for certain.

It wouldn't stop the bombs it would merely change the nature of the munitions. Politicians would still throw bombs but they would consist of libel cases.

I don’t think so. It would cost too much to wage, let alone lose, a lawsuit for politicians to risk having very many of them.