It's Always Israel and Italy

Have you ever noticed how every screed against proportional representation always invokes Israel and Italy as examples of how PR breeds unstable political systems? Take this editorial in the National Post. It uses all of the most predictable arguments against PR, which I've already addressed elsewhere. Among these arguments is the usual "Israel and Italy" stuff. But why always Israel and Italy?

Because those are the only two countries using PR which have particularly unstable political systems. So in fact, these two countries actually put the lie to the anti-PR argument that PR breeds instability; Israel and Italy are exceptions, not the norm. There is every possibility (and high probability) that Canada would remain as stable as ever... perhaps even more so, since most systems of PR would discourage regional parties and encourage national ones; so of all the major parties, the Bloc Quebecois would suffer the most; the same system in Quebec would mean that the Parti Quebecois could never have formed a majority government. How exactly does that lead to instability? Quite the opposite, I'd say.