You only listed 11, rather than thousands (if you can list thousands and prove they are making close to slave wages then I'll retract my statement).
Well... There are two things you'd like me to prove: that there are thousands of workers involved in the production of a keyboard, and that they are all making a slave wage.
The first is the easiest. There are tens of thousands, if not millions of people involved in the production of any industrial good. These sweat-shop workers are only an insignificant fraction of the total supply chain. There are all the people who produce the raw materials (miners, oil-well workers, refiners, smelters). There are the people who make the tools used in the production of those raw materials; and the people who make the tools which the tool makers use. There are the truck drivers, ship crews, and rail shippers who bring those raw materials and tools to the factories, and the workers who produced that transportation (and the workers who made the tools that the transportation producers used). There are the construction workers who built the factories, and the people who made their tools. There are the workers at the power plants to provide all of them with power (and the workers who made those tools and built the plant).
The bottom line: there are countless thousands, if not millions, of workers whose work directly contributes to the manufacture of the keyboard. That much is undeniable.
Now, as to whether all of them make a slave wage. I can't honestly answer that; there simply isn't enough data. But, when you consider that China's per capita GDP is $6,100, which translates to $2.93 per hour (if you assume a 40 hour work week), almost no one in China is making anywhere close to $7 per hour. That means that an overwhelming majority of the people listed above are not making much more than "slave wages".
The real costs of increasing every one of those workers' pay to at least $7 per hour would be much, much greater than a $2.50 increase in the cost of a keyboard.
You could easily pay the same workers $7 per hour and the labor cost per keyboard would only go up by about 20.4 cents a unit.
That's fine, if you're only giving a raise to the assembler. But there's the guy who makes the keys, the guy who makes the frame, the guy who runs the machine printing the letters on the keys, the guy who attaches the cord, the guy who attaches the USB connector to the cord, the guy who puts the keyboard into the box, the guy who takes the box and puts in on a pallet, the guy who runs the forklift to move the pallet, the guy who drives the truck, the crane operator who loads the ship, and the thousands of others farther up the supply chain who manufacture the raw materials to make the keyboard.
When you pay all of them at least $7 per hour, that's where the order of magnitude price increases will come from. Look at the big picture and see how unrealistic that is.
Legal terms often have different meanings in general parlance. Lawyers really need to come to terms with the fact that most people's lives do not, and should not, revolve around the law.
Agreed. But the original poster was trying to make a constitutional argument regarding copyright extensions. It's impossible to make a legal argument without using legal terminology; "common usage" is simply too vague.
The DMCA was a horrid idea, just like the eternal "copyright extensions" (which should have been unconstitutional as ex post facto law changes anyways) the content cartels have been buying constantly.
"Ex post facto" has a specific legal meaning, which is completely different than whatever you think it means. Copyright extensions do suck, but they don't have anything to do with "ex post facto".
If the Union would have stopped fighting, the Confederacy probably would have too. The rebels had no desire to conquer the North, and would have been satisfied with a "two-state" solution.
If the Confederates would have unilaterally stopped fighting, the Union wouldn't have stopped until they had forced the rebel states back into the Union.
The Confederacy was fighting for its existence. The Union was fighting a war of conquest. I think that's a pretty big difference.
I mean, that is "their say". How can you say that their "say" getting effected results in very "little say"? It makes no sense. You make no sense. You can't have it both ways.
Because the people of Iowa, through the Iowa state legislature, can change this law whenever they feel like it, even after the November election, right up until the Electoral votes are cast. There is a very real possibility that a majority of Iowans will have cast their ballots for the popular vote loser. That majority may be pissed off enough to pressure the legislature into changing the law, resulting in some kind of unprecedented electoral confusion.
At least with the current system, the majority of the people in a state have no incentive to change the way their EC votes are cast.
You're right. I guess I am missing the forest for the trees. I'll admit that I am an EC defender. But if you want to get rid of it, the proper way should be with a constitutional amendment. I get that it's politically infeasible in the current political climate. But this ad hoc solution is very fragile.
Imagine an election, after enough states have passed a version of this law, where the "Popular Vote" states will all be casting their EC votes for the popular winner. Let's say that winner is a Democrat. But, let's further suppose, Iowa voted solidly Republican, and Iowa has enough EC votes to swing the election. But they have agreed to give all their EC votes to the Democrat. All it would take is one vote by the, presumably Republican, Iowa legislature to give the entire election to the winner of that state, the Republican.
It just smells like a Constitutional crisis waiting to happen. I just don't see this law lasting more than one election.
So the states can choose anyway to assign its electors, except for this?
No, I don't care how they assign electors. I just don't think it's very democratic for the people of Iowa to have very, very, very little say as to how theirs are selected.
If we just went by national popular vote the 2000 election would have been less of a mess, not more. The day after the election we would have already known Gore was president.
Ha ha ha... There was a one-half of one percent difference between Gore and Bush. That's enough to automatically trigger a recount in almost every state. Look at the Minnesota Senate race, and multiply by fifty.
Even if it did though I would support it, I don't think the EC has anything at all to do with the relative peacefulness of American politics.
I'm not sure it has much effect either. But I don't want to muck around with a perfectly serviceable system, just to eliminate the possibility of a very rare edge case.
This thing is NOT a compact BETWEEN states. It is a decision made by Iowa itself, as itself, under its authority to govern its own elections, which is an authority guaranteed to it in the Constitution.
I wasn't saying that its decision to select Electors based on the popular vote violated the Constitution. The part about waiting until enough states had passed the same law, however, does violate the Constitution. I would think that coordinated arrangement could be construed as an "Agreement or Compact with another State".
But, the final say will come from the Supreme Court. And I would bet you all the money I have that, if this takes effect, there will be a suit.
Seems fair to me that if the vote for the electors is split 50/50, or 60/40, or whatever, that the state's electors should be split the same way between the candidates.
You're falling into the trap of thinking that you're directly voting for the President. You're not.
Let's say you live in Wyoming, which has 3 electoral votes. Wyoming needs to fill its three seats in the EC. So, each party nominates 3 EC candidates, one for each seat. And, instead of checking a box for President, there are 3 boxes, one for each EC seat. So the ballot would look something like this:
EC Seat #1: __ Alice(R) __ Bob(D)
EC Seat #2: __ Chuck(R) __ Dave(D)
EC Seat #3: __ Eddie(R) __ Frank(D)
So, each seat is its own election. Now, I would guess 99% of the voters will vote all Republican or all Democrat (or all Libertarian, etc.).
The results of an election like this would be winner-take-all at the state level, just like it is now. How is this setup--which is identical to the current winner-take-all arrangement--unfair or undemocratic?
The whole original point of EC is irrelevant now and so what we have is basically just a broken popular vote where citizens of different states count differently.
Just because the EC doesn't serve its original purpose, doesn't mean it serves no purpose.
Firstly, the President is elected by the states, not the people. If you want to change that--and I'm not saying that we shouldn't--we need a Constitutional amendment, not this. The only reason the EC functions as a loose approximation of the popular vote is because that's how the states have decided to select their electors. Nothing in the Constitution requires this to be true. If a state wanted to assign its electors based on a coin toss, it could.
Secondly, the Electoral College prevents messy, nation-wide recounts. Think about the 2000 election mess. Now, imagine the entire country having to recount, not just Florida. We wouldn't have had a President-Elect until after Inauguration Day.
Lastly, the EC has proven itself robust over the last 200+ years. I'm not saying it's perfect, not by a long shot. But I give the benefit of the doubt to an institution which has helped facilitate more peaceful transitions of power, than any other system in history. I want any change to be careful and well thought-out.
The result of the election is *exactly* the same as if people voted directly for the president.
Yes, the result is the same. But, the people of Iowa will have given up essentially all control over how their electors are chosen. Currently, the people of Iowa have complete control over the selection of their electors, through a vote. The new system takes that away. I don't think its ever very democratic to have no say over the people who represent you.
Maybe it's only an advisory vote, but my ballot had the names of candidates for the presidency, and not the names of electors.
Very true. But it doesn't change the fact that you're not voting for the Presidential candidate. You're voting for a slate of Electors who have promised to vote for that candidate in the Electoral College.
Yes, but we could do away with the electors, and make it so you're actually voting for the president. That's what the Iowa bill would do, once other states join in.
No, that's not what it does at all. It's merely changing the way Iowa picks its electors. It gives the people of Iowa less say over who there electors will be. Currently, the people of Iowa vote for their electors. When this law takes effect, everyone in the country gets to vote for Iowa's electors. You can't change that fact unless you actually get rid of the Electoral College.
It is just that it is up to each state to decide how it might happen, and that how Iowa is proposing to make a change here is "legal" even if it seems a bit unusual.
Well, the legality of this measure is in some doubt. Article I, Section 10 of the Constitution prohibits the creation of interstate compacts or agreements without the authorization of Congress. Whether this agreement, between the states which pass a version of this law, rises to the level of a "compact" or "agreement", is far from a settled issue.
The goal of the states is to express the will of their citizens, and a 50.1% winner receiving every vote based on the total number of citizens in the state instead of just who voted for him is unreasonable.
Only if you--mistakenly--believe that you're actually voting for the President. You're not. You're voting for electors. Any system other than winner-take-all is undemocratic, as the state wouldn't be selecting the electors who had received the majority of the votes.
If I live in a state that goes 49% for party X, and 51% for party Y, you can't even argue that giving 100% of our states votes to party Y makes the least bit of sense.
It does make some sense. When you vote for President, you're not actually voting for the President. You're voting for a slate of Electors. Whichever slate gets the most votes, is the one that represents the state in the Electoral College.
You just have to remember that the President isn't elected by the people, but by the Electors. And most states let the people directly vote for the Electors.
What amendment changed "government of the people, by the people, for the people" to "government of the politicians, by the politicians, for the corporations.?"
Which amendment put "government of the people, by the people, for the people" into the Constitution, in the first place?
I personally do see a difference between a teenager pirating XYZ's latest pop album that sucks and an umpteen million year company pirating their core business software.
I understand why there is a legal difference between the two. Larger disincentives for for-profit copyright infringement make sense. But, why is there a moral difference? If copying something without the copyright-holder's permission is wrong, isn't it always wrong?
I think Obama is just the next phase in a larger agenda; to pick up where Bush left (as he was the first president to not try and be re-elected) and divert the general public attention (hope, change, etc).
I'm not sure where you're getting your information. Bush was constitutionally prohibited from seeking a third term. Apart from that, many Presidents have decided not to pursue reelection. LBJ didn't seek a second full term.
True, otoh why was it HUAC then? House Unamerican Activities Committee. Maybe he wasn't on that committee, but I know it was HUAC and not SUAC.
McCarthy didn't have anything really to do with HUAC. McCarthy was more focused on communists in the government of the US. They are really only related insofar as they were both operating at the same time, and they were both focused on anti-communism.
I'm from Wisconsin. We get a lot of shit for him. Much of it is deserved, but the claim that he was a part of HUAC is false.
His House committee attempted to change the meaning of "American" from "supporting the Constitution" to "opposing Communism, even at the expense of the Constitution".
I'm pretty sure it wasn't "His House committee", being that the person you're talking about was Senator McCarthy.
it's no accident that if 76% of the congress agreed to it, they'd have the legal authority to abolish both the presidency and the supreme court and install cowboy neal as dictator for life.
Actually, they'd only need 2/3 of both houses of congress. But, they'd also need 3/4 of the state legislatures to agree. Its a bit harder than you made it out to be.
Slashdot Mirror
You only listed 11, rather than thousands (if you can list thousands and prove they are making close to slave wages then I'll retract my statement).
Well... There are two things you'd like me to prove: that there are thousands of workers involved in the production of a keyboard, and that they are all making a slave wage.
The first is the easiest. There are tens of thousands, if not millions of people involved in the production of any industrial good. These sweat-shop workers are only an insignificant fraction of the total supply chain. There are all the people who produce the raw materials (miners, oil-well workers, refiners, smelters). There are the people who make the tools used in the production of those raw materials; and the people who make the tools which the tool makers use. There are the truck drivers, ship crews, and rail shippers who bring those raw materials and tools to the factories, and the workers who produced that transportation (and the workers who made the tools that the transportation producers used). There are the construction workers who built the factories, and the people who made their tools. There are the workers at the power plants to provide all of them with power (and the workers who made those tools and built the plant).
The bottom line: there are countless thousands, if not millions, of workers whose work directly contributes to the manufacture of the keyboard. That much is undeniable.
Now, as to whether all of them make a slave wage. I can't honestly answer that; there simply isn't enough data. But, when you consider that China's per capita GDP is $6,100, which translates to $2.93 per hour (if you assume a 40 hour work week), almost no one in China is making anywhere close to $7 per hour. That means that an overwhelming majority of the people listed above are not making much more than "slave wages".
The real costs of increasing every one of those workers' pay to at least $7 per hour would be much, much greater than a $2.50 increase in the cost of a keyboard.
You could easily pay the same workers $7 per hour and the labor cost per keyboard would only go up by about 20.4 cents a unit.
That's fine, if you're only giving a raise to the assembler. But there's the guy who makes the keys, the guy who makes the frame, the guy who runs the machine printing the letters on the keys, the guy who attaches the cord, the guy who attaches the USB connector to the cord, the guy who puts the keyboard into the box, the guy who takes the box and puts in on a pallet, the guy who runs the forklift to move the pallet, the guy who drives the truck, the crane operator who loads the ship, and the thousands of others farther up the supply chain who manufacture the raw materials to make the keyboard.
When you pay all of them at least $7 per hour, that's where the order of magnitude price increases will come from. Look at the big picture and see how unrealistic that is.
Legal terms often have different meanings in general parlance. Lawyers really need to come to terms with the fact that most people's lives do not, and should not, revolve around the law.
Agreed. But the original poster was trying to make a constitutional argument regarding copyright extensions. It's impossible to make a legal argument without using legal terminology; "common usage" is simply too vague.
The DMCA was a horrid idea, just like the eternal "copyright extensions" (which should have been unconstitutional as ex post facto law changes anyways) the content cartels have been buying constantly.
"Ex post facto" has a specific legal meaning, which is completely different than whatever you think it means. Copyright extensions do suck, but they don't have anything to do with "ex post facto".
So did Davis. What's your point?
Just to play devil's advocate...
If the Union would have stopped fighting, the Confederacy probably would have too. The rebels had no desire to conquer the North, and would have been satisfied with a "two-state" solution.
If the Confederates would have unilaterally stopped fighting, the Union wouldn't have stopped until they had forced the rebel states back into the Union.
The Confederacy was fighting for its existence. The Union was fighting a war of conquest. I think that's a pretty big difference.
I mean, that is "their say". How can you say that their "say" getting effected results in very "little say"? It makes no sense. You make no sense. You can't have it both ways.
Because the people of Iowa, through the Iowa state legislature, can change this law whenever they feel like it, even after the November election, right up until the Electoral votes are cast. There is a very real possibility that a majority of Iowans will have cast their ballots for the popular vote loser. That majority may be pissed off enough to pressure the legislature into changing the law, resulting in some kind of unprecedented electoral confusion.
At least with the current system, the majority of the people in a state have no incentive to change the way their EC votes are cast.
Getting rid of (effectively) the EC is the goal.
You're right. I guess I am missing the forest for the trees. I'll admit that I am an EC defender. But if you want to get rid of it, the proper way should be with a constitutional amendment. I get that it's politically infeasible in the current political climate. But this ad hoc solution is very fragile.
Imagine an election, after enough states have passed a version of this law, where the "Popular Vote" states will all be casting their EC votes for the popular winner. Let's say that winner is a Democrat. But, let's further suppose, Iowa voted solidly Republican, and Iowa has enough EC votes to swing the election. But they have agreed to give all their EC votes to the Democrat. All it would take is one vote by the, presumably Republican, Iowa legislature to give the entire election to the winner of that state, the Republican.
It just smells like a Constitutional crisis waiting to happen. I just don't see this law lasting more than one election.
So the states can choose anyway to assign its electors, except for this?
No, I don't care how they assign electors. I just don't think it's very democratic for the people of Iowa to have very, very, very little say as to how theirs are selected.
If we just went by national popular vote the 2000 election would have been less of a mess, not more. The day after the election we would have already known Gore was president.
Ha ha ha... There was a one-half of one percent difference between Gore and Bush. That's enough to automatically trigger a recount in almost every state. Look at the Minnesota Senate race, and multiply by fifty.
Even if it did though I would support it, I don't think the EC has anything at all to do with the relative peacefulness of American politics.
I'm not sure it has much effect either. But I don't want to muck around with a perfectly serviceable system, just to eliminate the possibility of a very rare edge case.
This thing is NOT a compact BETWEEN states. It is a decision made by Iowa itself, as itself, under its authority to govern its own elections, which is an authority guaranteed to it in the Constitution.
I wasn't saying that its decision to select Electors based on the popular vote violated the Constitution. The part about waiting until enough states had passed the same law, however, does violate the Constitution. I would think that coordinated arrangement could be construed as an "Agreement or Compact with another State".
But, the final say will come from the Supreme Court. And I would bet you all the money I have that, if this takes effect, there will be a suit.
Seems fair to me that if the vote for the electors is split 50/50, or 60/40, or whatever, that the state's electors should be split the same way between the candidates.
You're falling into the trap of thinking that you're directly voting for the President. You're not.
Let's say you live in Wyoming, which has 3 electoral votes. Wyoming needs to fill its three seats in the EC. So, each party nominates 3 EC candidates, one for each seat. And, instead of checking a box for President, there are 3 boxes, one for each EC seat. So the ballot would look something like this:
EC Seat #1:
__ Alice(R) __ Bob(D)
EC Seat #2:
__ Chuck(R) __ Dave(D)
EC Seat #3:
__ Eddie(R) __ Frank(D)
So, each seat is its own election. Now, I would guess 99% of the voters will vote all Republican or all Democrat (or all Libertarian, etc.).
The results of an election like this would be winner-take-all at the state level, just like it is now. How is this setup--which is identical to the current winner-take-all arrangement--unfair or undemocratic?
The whole original point of EC is irrelevant now and so what we have is basically just a broken popular vote where citizens of different states count differently.
Just because the EC doesn't serve its original purpose, doesn't mean it serves no purpose.
Firstly, the President is elected by the states, not the people. If you want to change that--and I'm not saying that we shouldn't--we need a Constitutional amendment, not this. The only reason the EC functions as a loose approximation of the popular vote is because that's how the states have decided to select their electors. Nothing in the Constitution requires this to be true. If a state wanted to assign its electors based on a coin toss, it could.
Secondly, the Electoral College prevents messy, nation-wide recounts. Think about the 2000 election mess. Now, imagine the entire country having to recount, not just Florida. We wouldn't have had a President-Elect until after Inauguration Day.
Lastly, the EC has proven itself robust over the last 200+ years. I'm not saying it's perfect, not by a long shot. But I give the benefit of the doubt to an institution which has helped facilitate more peaceful transitions of power, than any other system in history. I want any change to be careful and well thought-out.
The result of the election is *exactly* the same as if people voted directly for the president.
Yes, the result is the same. But, the people of Iowa will have given up essentially all control over how their electors are chosen. Currently, the people of Iowa have complete control over the selection of their electors, through a vote. The new system takes that away. I don't think its ever very democratic to have no say over the people who represent you.
Maybe it's only an advisory vote, but my ballot had the names of candidates for the presidency, and not the names of electors.
Very true. But it doesn't change the fact that you're not voting for the Presidential candidate. You're voting for a slate of Electors who have promised to vote for that candidate in the Electoral College.
Yes, but we could do away with the electors, and make it so you're actually voting for the president. That's what the Iowa bill would do, once other states join in.
No, that's not what it does at all. It's merely changing the way Iowa picks its electors. It gives the people of Iowa less say over who there electors will be. Currently, the people of Iowa vote for their electors. When this law takes effect, everyone in the country gets to vote for Iowa's electors. You can't change that fact unless you actually get rid of the Electoral College.
It is just that it is up to each state to decide how it might happen, and that how Iowa is proposing to make a change here is "legal" even if it seems a bit unusual.
Well, the legality of this measure is in some doubt. Article I, Section 10 of the Constitution prohibits the creation of interstate compacts or agreements without the authorization of Congress. Whether this agreement, between the states which pass a version of this law, rises to the level of a "compact" or "agreement", is far from a settled issue.
The goal of the states is to express the will of their citizens, and a 50.1% winner receiving every vote based on the total number of citizens in the state instead of just who voted for him is unreasonable.
Only if you--mistakenly--believe that you're actually voting for the President. You're not. You're voting for electors. Any system other than winner-take-all is undemocratic, as the state wouldn't be selecting the electors who had received the majority of the votes.
If I live in a state that goes 49% for party X, and 51% for party Y, you can't even argue that giving 100% of our states votes to party Y makes the least bit of sense.
It does make some sense. When you vote for President, you're not actually voting for the President. You're voting for a slate of Electors. Whichever slate gets the most votes, is the one that represents the state in the Electoral College.
You just have to remember that the President isn't elected by the people, but by the Electors. And most states let the people directly vote for the Electors.
On what grounds?
Article I, Section 10 of the Constitution. Any interstate compact needs congressional approval.
What amendment changed "government of the people, by the people, for the people" to "government of the politicians, by the politicians, for the corporations.?"
Which amendment put "government of the people, by the people, for the people" into the Constitution, in the first place?
I personally do see a difference between a teenager pirating XYZ's latest pop album that sucks and an umpteen million year company pirating their core business software.
I understand why there is a legal difference between the two. Larger disincentives for for-profit copyright infringement make sense. But, why is there a moral difference? If copying something without the copyright-holder's permission is wrong, isn't it always wrong?
I think Obama is just the next phase in a larger agenda; to pick up where Bush left (as he was the first president to not try and be re-elected) and divert the general public attention (hope, change, etc).
I'm not sure where you're getting your information. Bush was constitutionally prohibited from seeking a third term. Apart from that, many Presidents have decided not to pursue reelection. LBJ didn't seek a second full term.
Even if there was a good reason, they still couldn't do it without a constitutional amendment.
Or you need five justices to tell us that the Constitution already says it's okay. It's really much easier that way.
True, otoh why was it HUAC then? House Unamerican Activities Committee. Maybe he wasn't on that committee, but I know it was HUAC and not SUAC.
McCarthy didn't have anything really to do with HUAC. McCarthy was more focused on communists in the government of the US. They are really only related insofar as they were both operating at the same time, and they were both focused on anti-communism.
I'm from Wisconsin. We get a lot of shit for him. Much of it is deserved, but the claim that he was a part of HUAC is false.
His House committee attempted to change the meaning of "American" from "supporting the Constitution" to "opposing Communism, even at the expense of the Constitution".
I'm pretty sure it wasn't "His House committee", being that the person you're talking about was Senator McCarthy.
it's no accident that if 76% of the congress agreed to it, they'd have the legal authority to abolish both the presidency and the supreme court and install cowboy neal as dictator for life.
Actually, they'd only need 2/3 of both houses of congress. But, they'd also need 3/4 of the state legislatures to agree. Its a bit harder than you made it out to be.