Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> On 11/29/2011 7:00, Warp wrote:
> >    I think your president should make a public statement strongly condemning
> > police brutality

> That would be great. But as long as he keeps locking up people without 
> accusing them of crimes, supporting torture, etc, it's not going to have 
> much affect what he says.

  I thought it was Bush who was doing that. Is Obama continuing the
tradition, then?

> The problem is that the president, 
> supposedly, can only do what congress says to do, more or less. The 
> president can't pass laws, can't fund spending, can't change taxes, etc. 

  I don't really understand how presidency works in the US, as it seems
that he has a lot of power to influence the politics of the country. If
the president wants to, for example, reform healthcare, he has a lot of
power to at the very least put it in motion. I don't really know how it
works there.

  Here the president has very little political power. (I think in the past
the president had a lot more power, but it has been reduced significantly
in the last couple of decades or so.) The president is more or less the
representative of the country in international contexts. (Technically
speaking the president is also the commander-in-chief of the military
forces, but in peacetime that has little significance, AFAIK.) Sure, the
president could address the parliament and make suggestions, but I don't
remember any significant laws or projects being put into motion in this
way (although I'm certain that at least some such things have happened.)

  I think legally speaking the president has significant power over the
parliament (such as being able to order the holding of premature
parliamentary election), but I don't know if any such powers have been
used in the last 20 years or so.

  One interesting aspect of the presidency in Finland is that the president
must, by custom (although probably not by law), renounce any party
affiliation, so that he or she may be seen as neutral in regard to party
politics.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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