By Bill Bonner
Unknown (sort of) Head of State
BUENOS AIRES – Type Swiss President “Doris Leuthard” into Google. You will get about 450,000 results. Do the same with Donald Trump, and the number is closer to 396 million. That’s 87,900% more references. The world’s press is as fascinated by President Trump as it is indifferent to President Leuthard.
Doris Leuthard, President and energy minister of Switzerland. She has won her second presidential term this year. It basically doesn’t matter… she is primus inter pares, as the Swiss Federation is actually administered by a body of seven people (the Federal Council), modeled after the ancient Athenian polis system. The president does not enjoy greater political power than her colleagues – there is no single “boss”. We have written about the unique Swiss political system in greater detail here.
Photo credit: Jacques Demarthon / AFP
What will Ms. Leuthard do next? What outrageous new tweet will she send out? Whom will she attack? No one seems to care…
And yet, though we have never met either one of them, we have a suspicion. Ms. Leuthard is probably decent, earnest, and wholesome. She has never killed anyone, and it would take her a while to even get used to insulting people.
Mr. Trump, on the other hand, is in another category. Impervious to ridicule as to the fires of hell, he is especially well suited for the role he has been given. Mr. Trump accused “conservatives” of blocking his health care reform.
The conservatives say they want real change, not fake reform. That was the day before yesterday. Yesterday, he told them to “obey or else,” according to The Washington Post. And who knows – he may join with Democrats to override the Freedom Caucus veto.
Grand Chutzpah
In Switzerland, the president barely ever sells a newspaper and rarely chases the child molesters and fallen sports heroes from the headlines. When Ms. Leuthard appears on the TV, people go out for a drink. They don’t know and don’t care who she is. Because it doesn’t matter.
Switzerland has no troops stationed in foreign countries. It does not seek to slay dragons on the sands of Syria or Iraq. The Swiss president doesn’t presume to restrict travel, threaten to cut off funds to cities, or propose more money for crony industries.
Political power in Switzerland is local. It is constrained by local assemblies, local voters, and local customs. Much like the U.S. before the War Between the States, Switzerland’s states, called cantons, still have power of their own.
Swiss cantons – Switzerland is a small country, but even so, it is extremely decentralized. The cantons have their own tax policies and a great many political decisions are made locally. The cantons are in regulatory and tax competition with each other, which is the optimal state of affairs for the citizenry, promising the greatest possible extent of individual liberty. Political questions deemed to be of great nationwide importance are routinely decided by referendum. Incidentally, what is wrong with the insufferable “centralizers and harmonizers” of the …read more
Source:: Acting Man
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