On 3/21/07, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
I have long suspected that Brits implicitly get the governance model here better than Americans do. I think we Americans tend to want an a priori constitution which defines everything, and we pretend that "convention" in the British sense doesn't play a role in our government (though it does).
Heh. I'm Australian - we're theoretically governed by a monarch from another country! So I'm certainly comfortable with a mostly symbolic figurehead who nevertheless wields a very big stick. But let's just be clear on how big the stick is, and how much we need to pheer it. I think this conversation has done much to clarify the answer to that question.
Steve