LGBT News I officially hate the US govenment....

The U.S government runs opposite of many other countries.

They are basically Unified States(that you could consider their own countries) that are all just under a free-trade,immigration,and currency agreement. That is to say New York is independent from California.

More so than say Ontario in Canada is independent from British Columbia.

The U.S actually is kinda cool for giving so much power to individual states, and less power to the central government. Again the majority of countries give more power to the CENTRAL government(i.e Federal) than say Provincial, or State governments.

This allows every state to be truly unique in their own way, since they can govern themselves differently.

It also gives you as an American citizen so many more options of different environments to live in.

You can choose to live in a State that taxes heavily and provides plenty of social services, or one that doesn't tax and has more commercial liberties.

There is just so much variety in the U.S between all the states.

Now this State pride and individuality makes it very hard for the Federal government to get involved in state laws. This also means that maybe passing a bill that is good for all Americans is a lot harder to do.

It also leaves a lot more responsibility up to the state to govern their own
people.

If Canada were like the U.S I am SURE that gay marriage would be legal everywhere, but it wouldn't have all been done at once. It would've been Quebec, and Ontario with B.C first. Then maybe the maritimes and manitoba. Then Alberta and Saskatchewan last.

As well, if you look at Colorado for instance, a state that legalized Marijuana. This is something that would be harder to be done in Canada for an individual province. The FEDERAL government would've stepped in and stopped it from happening. The only political entity in Canada that can do what they want like an American state is Quebec.

But ye, overall, the U.S is more like individual countries unified, like the European Union, or the United Kingdom. Actually they almost modeled themselves like Ancient Greece. Individual states unified together through military and economics.


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This is also why Americans are usually a lot more proud or vocal about where in the U.S they are from; I.e which State they're from.

In Canada, if someone asks you where you're from you'll say Canada. Same with most European countries; you'd say France...etc.

But American's tend to say what state they're from. This is just another example about how each state acts like their own country. Citizens of other countries don't feel as obligated to state what "state" or "province" they're from.

So ye, since each State has more governing power, and the Fed has less governing power, it's much harder to make laws that affect the entire country.


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Also a weird thing about the U.S is that State Law can override Federal Law, but Federal Law can override State Law, so the FBI can arrest a State Trooper, but a State Trooper can arrest an FBI agent. .... and it goes on.

This doesn't happen often, but it's a weird flaw in the U.S system.

 

The Government!
I'd prefer a non-interventionist government to what we have now.
Anyways, I think that we should stop marriage from being a government thing.

 

The things with the US is that most of the states are ex-colonies so it was easier to get them unified under a federal government.

Some people fear that is what the EU is trying, but Europe is too diverse and culturally different for any of it to work, hence why the EU is kinda ineffective.

 

Oh yeah, I forgot about that. I think it became a federal law ever since it's banned in the Australian constitution.

 

There are always advantages and disadvantages to dividing power between the state and federal levels... at least the process is progressing, if a bit sluggishly.

 

Same-sex marriage isn't exactly banned in our constitution, it's just that the constitution says marriage is a federal issue so individual states/territories cannot make their own Bill. (Like the ACT did, which caused the HCA ruling) So if federal parliament wanted to, they could legalise same-sex marriage and still be constitutional.

 

As much as I agree with you, Obama has little power to deal with individual state powers-if I can remember. And America is a republic hence the pledge of Alegience, which means it acts slow to make laws passed. In some circumstances this is good.

 

It is impossible, with our current federal government, to legalize gay marriage at the federal level. One of the founding principles of our federalist system of government is to limit the ability of Congress to usurp power from the states.

I highly recommend you watch this video, and if you're interested the entire course (though the content is related to copyright law, it's impossible to have a discussion of that without talking about the federalist system in general, which is what that first video does, and does a very good job of)