news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3692855.stm
Once again there is a fight in the Legislature.
Most of us find it entertaining to watch. We might even take bets with drinking buddies when we see them. But don’t these outbreaks erode Taiwan status as a “democracy” in the international stage.
After this event they wanted lawmakers to take a breathalyzer test prior to starting meeting.
Should lawmakers try to cease these embarrassing situation in ROC government.
[quote]
Most of us find it entertaining to watch. We might even take bets with drinking buddies when we see them. But don’t these outbreaks erode Taiwan status as a “democracy” in the international stage.[/quote]
No, they don’t. It’s normal that people disagree. Decorum and democracy are not related.
Well yes. But what can you do, with the habit of violence and gangsterism preserved and fostered all those years by the authoritarian KMT?
Vorkosigan
They play the fights on the CBC as well. Kinda funny, and a little childish as well. But what can you do? They were elected, afterall.
Fights and other grandstanding/spectacles in the legislature are a habit aquired from the days of one-party rule. At the time discussion in the legislature was irrelevant. Major policy decisions were made in tightly controlled KMT party caucuses. The only way independent, or maverick KMT, legislators could have any show of trying to affect policy was by making a fuss on the legislative floor (which ahs been at least partlially televised for a long time).
Brian
Fights are just a feature of legislatures in young democracies where people tend to be more passionate about their hobby horses than respectful of decorum and convention. The Japanese Diet, the very name of which seems synonymous these days with narcolepsy used to have fist fights in the 50s. And there is a very practical reason why the government and opposition benches in Britain’s House of Commons are two swords’ lengths apart.
Nevertheless, as Brian points out, there was a time when radical antics in the legislature was the only way that opposition legislators could eve get their points into the news – the days when Ju Gaocheng earned his appellation `Rambo’ – which dates things, huh? I do wonder if there is not a “reap what you sow” effect here though. The DPP delegitimized the legislature, injecting instability, grandstanding, boycotting and violence into it, for what were the best of reasons – how else could reform have been forced and the “old thieves” dismissed otherwise – but the legislature as an institution has never managed to shake off these elements, much to its detriment these days. In that respect I cannot but help think that the blues’ attempts to delegitimize almost the entire constitutional democratic framework with their absurd claims about the election might, if it isn’t ended by the recount, have the same negative long-term consequences. Teach people to despise the system and not accept the way it works and this comes back to haunt you when you are trying to run things using that system yourself.
Lol,
Well you can only blame the DPP for bringing this type of behavior into Taiwan political culture.
Which in the long run will cause undermines its desire for international recognition. There is only so much you can blame for being a “new” democracy.
ac_dropout, you obviously have no idea what you are talking about. This sort fo thing happened in the legislature before the DPP was even formed.
Brian
I don’t like to talk politics. Because I always get into an argument. Some people never agree with anyone about anything. Do you think the government is doing a good job or not? That’s a difficult question to answer,right?Can you foresee what will happen in the future?I felt confident in the future.[/b]