Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/01/26/belgian-parliament-if-we-shut.html
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exactly my pronunciation when I’m drunk
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well actually…
we have solved the problem ! henceforward, belgian parlementarians will have to PAY for their wine or beer in the parliament “coffee room”. that will teach 'em.
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Well then don’t shut off the free beer. Problem solved.
Belgium has a bicameral legislature, like the US. Except it isn’t mostly old white men, and there’s more than one party. I’ve met my rep. She’s a cool lady, and she likes the same kind of beer I do. Young and very, very smart. She’s a little bit more liberal than I am, but that’s okay.
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Would voting in bars be a solution?
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They’d have to build one, and why bother? It’s a fairly big parliament, and bars in .be tend to be kind of small.
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Booze does make the World go round.
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[quote=“doctorow, post:1, topic:93689”]the alternative is going back to having to drag elected officials out of the local bars when it’s time to vote[/quote]Seems to me the alternative would be to just leave them in the bars if that’s where they are when it’s time to vote. And then subsequently elect lawmakers who don’t go to bars when it’s time to vote.
No, that would be silly.
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Uh, no, unless the problem with the “incident” is simply that said racism was revealed I’d say that the “major cause” of this particular one was “racism.” Seriously, we should get to see all of our representatives drunk at least once. It actually tells you a lot about a person.
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which they speculated might increase the quality of debates
Greetings from America. Whatever the merits of sobriety in legislative proceedings, high-quality debate is not among them.
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It is also their general practice to deliberate upon affairs of weight when they are drunk; and then on the morrow, when they are sober, the decision to which they came the night before is put before them by the master of the house in which it was made; and if it is then approved of, they act on it; if not, they set it aside. Sometimes, however, they are sober at their first deliberation, but in this case they always reconsider the matter under the influence of wine.
-Herodotus on the Persians
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At least the Belgian lawmakers have a ready excuse for their behavior.
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If you don’t have a quorum, you don’t have a legislature.
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this … depends.
all parliaments in Germany (both on state and federal level) have the 50% quorum in the rules but this is ignored all the time, by parliaments, media and general public.
I can remember only one loud and wide public out-cry: when in 2012, shortly before 9 pm, while the national soccer team was playing in some semi-final, 2 dozen (of some 600) representatives decided in less than 1 minute that a law cutting down civil rights is A-OK.
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Over here in Austria, we at least have beer in cinemas. Which makes a lot of movies more acceptable.
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That is quite a brilliant idea (to my simplistic layman’s mind), in vino veritas etc. Thanks also to @AlexG55 for the interesting reply.
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There are some theaters in the US that serve beer and wine. Not the corporate conglomerate megaplexes, but the old downtown theaters.
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Never go to the cinema without one:
What, people actually drink those extra large cokes without whisky?? That’s just disgusting.
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I’ve watched my parliament function. Maybe everyone should be required to have a glass of wine before speaking up.
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You got a problem with rum, pal? If so, you have a problem with me!
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