Re: The joy of Democracy

On 4 Oct 2024 19:22:50 GMT, rbowman wrote:

Like campaign finance reform, term limits, and pay raises you can hardly
expect the class receiving the benefits to vote against them. Democracy
in action.

Here in NZ, there is a lot of scrutiny of the perks that politicians get.
(One of the benefits of having a free press.) We just managed to shame our
own Prime Minister out of collecting a sizeable accommodation allowance
for living in a property in the capital that he owns.

And we had strict controls on campaign finance spending right from the
early days. And there have been occasional prosecutions, just to keep
everyone in line.

As for term limits, that doesn’t seem to be a common thing in
Parliamentary systems. Look at Germany, where past Chancellors like Helmut
Kohl and Angela Merkel served (nearly) four terms, and nobody felt that a
special law needed to be passed to bring them to heel: the democratic
system managed that itself.