Recently, I've been watching the parliamentary proceedings in Australia, New Zealand, and Canada over the internet.

I see a very stark difference in the way people talk and promote policy changes in the various countries. Overall, I see very little difference between the main left and right wing parties in any given country. However, there is a very big difference between legislators in one country, as compared to the next. So what does it mean to have a perceived competition between left and right wing parties? Well... it seems to me that the minority party in the legislature tends to champion the cause of dissidents in the society. How do we see this in the Usa? Here, the democrats were the ones to offer a venue for dissent about the war over the last eight years. And the republicans today are the ones to offer a venue for dissent about financial imprudence. In both cases in the States, these gestures seem to not be undertaken honestly by the legislators. They are merely "pandering to their base" - trying to leverage support for the next election. However, there is slow progress over time, as the public themselves start weeding out those in the party who support the old policies, and replacing them with those that support the new policies. A presidential election in the Usa gives folks the chance to make a lot of headway all at once, because the one person, if elected to the office, will tend to mold the character of the party into the future.

Now, there seems to be a social disease in many legislatures where folks from various parties don't feel that they can be fair-minded about discussions regarding laws that are proposed. It seems as if they believe that the imperative is to get that majority vote on behalf of the law. And this imperative means that they steel themselves in the competition.

One country seems to have achieved a different social dynamic. New Zealand instituted Mixed Member Proportional Representation 12 years ago, and that means that there are more voices in parliament. Imagine if we in the Usa had a significant number of seats given to a "Native American" party, and another number of seats given to a "Green Party," and a Libertarian party. Once you have that multipolar environment, it seems as if the imperative becomes cooperation rather than competition. You can't get anything done without the cooperation of legislators from all the different interest groups.

Each of these countries has a parliamentary proceedings internet stream that can be viewed with windows media player.

You can watch the Australian parliament in Canberra here:

http://webcast.aph.gov.au/livebroadcasting/asx1/hms1v_100K.asx

You can watch the New Zealand parliament in Wellington here:

http://www1.streaming.net.nz/meta/parlserv-house384.asx

You can watch a 24 hour station which is very much like a Canadian version of CSPAN, in covering events in Ottawa:

http://www.cpac.ca/asx/cpac1eh.asx

And of course, you can watch CSPAN's coverage of Washington DC, here:

http://play.rbn.com/play.asx?url=cspan/cspan/wmlive/cspan1v.asf&proto=mms?mswmext=.asx