as the man said, you are woefully ignorant on this topic, so much so that you lack the vocabulary to even phrase it properly, and are "not even wrong."
if 20 people perform the same experiment/observation, and 19 of them get the same results/conclusion, the 1 left out is not automatically equally valid. that is a de facto consensus.
we're not talking about an opinion poll among scientists. we are talking about groups of people who have come to the same conclusions independently.
using geocentrism as your talking point further reveals your own ignorance on the topic. geocentrism did originate as a scientific concept, but as a religious one. the consensus you speak of was religious in nature, not scientific. science didn't have the ability to prove or disprove it until the invention of the telescope, and once it did it quickly fell out of favor.
Constitutional Republic refers to who the head of state IS, and that specifically it is not king or queen, not how they are selected. therefore the two terms are not mutually exclusive. they are in fact orthogonal.
What happened to civics classes?
Dunno, but you're a poster child for why they need to come back.
1. The framers created the electoral college to protect small states.
The delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention had a variety of reasons for settling on the electoral college format, but protecting smaller states was not among them. Some delegates feared direct democracy, but that was only one factor in the debate.
Remember what the country looked like in 1787: The important division was between states that relied on slavery and those that didn’t, not between large and small states. A direct election for president did not sit well with most delegates from the slave states, which had large populations but far fewer eligible voters. They gravitated toward the electoral college as a compromise because it was based on population. The convention had agreed to count each slave as three-fifths of a person for the purpose of calculating each state’s allotment of seats in Congress. For Virginia, which had the largest population among the original 13 states, that meant more clout in choosing the president.
The electoral college distorts the political process by providing a huge incentive to visit competitive states, especially large ones with hefty numbers of electoral votes. That’s why Obama and Romney have spent so much time this year in states like Ohio and Florida. In the 2008 general election, Obama and John McCain personally campaigned in only five of the 29 smallest states.
The framers protected the interests of smaller states by creating the Senate, which gives each state two votes regardless of population. There is no need for additional protection. Do we really want a presidency responsive to parochial interests in a system already prone to gridlock? The framers didn’t.
2. The electoral college ensures that the winner has broad support.
Supporters argue that the electoral college format prevents candidates from targeting specific groups and regions, instead forcing them to seek votes across the country. But that’s not the way it has worked in recent presidential contests. Generally, Republicans have tried to stitch together an electoral college majority from the South, Southwest and Rocky Mountain states, while Democrats have relied on the large states on both coasts and the Midwest, leaving certain swing states (hello, Florida!) as perennial battlegrounds.
Any system of electing the president requires some version of broad support, but the electoral college does little to promote that goal. In 2000, George W. Bush lost the popular vote to Al Gore but won in the electoral college. His victory came largely from his support among white men. He did not win majorities among women, blacks, Latinos, urbanites, the young, the old or those with less-than-average income. In short, Bush claimed the White House with the backing of one dominant group, not with broad support.
3. The electoral college preserves stability in our political system by discouraging third parties.
The electoral college offers no guarantee of such “stability” — in fact, history suggests otherwise. The Republican Party was born as a third (or even fourth) party, and it quickly established itself as a major force in the 1856 and 1860 elections. In 1912, Teddy Roosevelt ran as a third-party nominee, and though he didn’t win, he easily bested his former party’s candidate, the Republican incumbent, William Howard Taft.
The electoral college system gives a third-party candidate more opportunities to create mischief than a direct election does. Think about what could happen in a neck-and-neck contest: If a third-party nominee won enough states to prevent either major-party candidate from winning the 270 electoral votes needed for a majority, the House of Representatives would decide the outcome. Each state delegation would have one vote; Vermont and Wyoming would count the same as Texas and New York. That’s hardly a recipe for stability.
this kind of thinking assumes that states or localities are monolithic political blocks. reality calling: they are not. California is still ~45% conservative voters. even the reddest of red states Oklahoma, who never had a single country go for Obama, is ~30% liberals. don't all those people deserve to have their votes matter?
it also vastly underestimates how many people live in "the hinterlands". reality calling: about half and half. Metropolitan Statistical Areas include a rather large portion of the surrounding rural countryside that is factored into that metro economy, even though the population of those outlying areas is "rural" rather than "suburban". As a result using MSA's to factor population leads to an overcount. Likewise though, using just city cores leads to an undercount. neither method is ideal.
but even if we accepted MSAs as the way to go, that still assumes monolithic thinking. but city dwellers in Dallas aren't going to value the same things that ranchers 50 miles outside the nearest suburb, but still part of the MSA, value. again: doesn't everyone deserve to have their votes count?
so yes, in fact, the rest of the nation would still matter.
plus, your theory has an underlying assumption: that the EC somehow forces politicians to focus on the rest of the country and not just Cali, NY, etc. but that also is demonstrably false. the use of the Ec, and having states EC votes be awarded by "winner take all" is what actually causes states to be seen as monolithic entitites, and has the effect that instead of focusing on the entire nation most of the effort occurs in a handful of "battleground" states. the EC is what allows a Trump to ignore all of California, even though it has the most conservative votes of any state, or a Hillary to ignore the sum totals of more liberal votes in rural states.
so in conclusion: -the EC actually allows politicians to ignore more of the country than popular vote does. -using popular vote, every vote in every state matters, as states cannot be ignored as "a (insert party) lock". -popular vote is the superior system*
(*First Past the Post system still needs to go though, and be replaced by Ranked Choice or similar)
I do know a fair number of people however who would be totally fine saying "I'm gonna shoot me some commie libtards", cause they don't consider any one who holds opposing views to actually BE American.
you should probably take the time to learn precisely what the US has done throughout history to the Latin American countries and their peoples before you speak again. Che, Castro, Chavez, and the other revolutionaries were a natural result of our imperialism and interventions to protect American corporate interests.
Also, read the book 100 Years of Solitude. it is a fantastic piece of literature, though it may take a read through or two to make complete sense. its a surreal book, but that surrealism itself reflects life in Latin America. the climax of the book is a massacre of striking banana workers, essentially a retelling of the actual Banana Massacre.
Che, like most things people like to take radically simplified black/white views of, was complicated.
you would do well to learn a little bit of history. not just the part that justifies your simplistic view of the men, but all of the history. (in that way you are just like the t-shirt wearing fanboys, you just ignore the opposite parts of history than they do)
Che and Castro both became who they were because of the rampant oppression of Latin American peoples, oppression that stemmed in large part from the protection of US interests or US-based business interests. specifically the Banana Wars (hint: there's a reason they're called "banana republics"), that didn't end until FDR instituted the Good Neighbor Policy in regards to Latin America. Batista was a brutal dictator, propped up by the US. The US Occupation of Nicaragua lasted from 1912 to 1932, only ending when the Great Depression forced the withdrawal of our troops.
There was also: Spanish–American War, Santo Domingo Affair, Second Occupation of Cuba, Border War, Negro Rebellion (actual name), Occupation of Nicaragua, Occupation of Haiti, Occupation of the Dominican Republic, and the Sugar Intervention.
Remember the Panama Canal? Well Panama wasn't a sovereign nation, but a part of Columbia. And we REALLY wanted to build a canal across the isthmus...but Columbia was not being very helpful in the plan, and even opposed it. So we backed the Panamanian Revolution in the Thousand Days War, and then dealt with the new country. Note that construction had already begun at the time of the conflict.
Also note that the occupation of Nicaragua was related, in that it stemmed from our efforts to prevent any other country from constructing a similar canal across Nicaragua, a place we also almost constructed a canal before going with Panama.
The point is there is a long and rich history here. It involves US imperialism, corrupt oligarchic governments (both opposed by the US and supported), and constant suffering of the people.
So is it any wonder that Che, or Castro, or any of the other revolutionaries reacted with animus towards the US, towards the powerful, or rich, or corrupt, or sought independence of their own?
We can talk all day long about whether they themselves fell under the corrupting influence of Power, about how they became supported by Communist Russia ("enemy of my enemy"), and whether or not they failed*, but first you need to correct your lack of education about their origins, about what made them change the paths of their lives (Che began as a medical student, was going to be a doctor) and become the men they did.
. . . .
(*note that we may think they failed by our metrics, based on how we view our citizen's lot in life compared to say Cuba's citizens......but then consider the mantra among many conservatives in our own country who, even knowing that socialized medicine is cheaper and more effective, that social safety net programs work (re: Europe), but even knowing all that, adopt the mantra of "I'd rather fail on my own terms than succeed by someone else's", and thus eschew ALL social programs or national healthcare etc......and consider how similar that worldview is to the view of revolutionary Cubans, Venuzleans, Hondurans, Nicaraguans, or others, who would rather fail without capitalism than succeed with it, even though it means a rougher outcome for themselves?)
maybe those smaller states should be marginalized.
all the "red state" experiments like kansas and oklahoma are slowly imploding. meanwhile california is the 6th largest economy in the world, on its own, with higher wages, better benefits, higher life expediencies, etc.
trump is actively engaging in corruption as we speak because somehow, someone forgot to make the conflict of interest law apply to POTUS. there's a repbulican majority in congress, and all they need to do to make him sign something is suck his dick a little bit. all he cares about is his himself. and agian with the union bullshit
you do realize that the GOP in congress has been waging war on NOAA's scientists for quite some time, no? and that NOAA and NASA work in concert to accomplish the research?
NASA isn't just space exploration. they are the primary researcher for earth sciences where space based observation and data (which a HUGE CHUNK OF CLIMATE SCIENCE) is relevant.
Slashdot Mirror
as if that ever stopped any autocrat.
as the man said, you are woefully ignorant on this topic, so much so that you lack the vocabulary to even phrase it properly, and are "not even wrong."
if 20 people perform the same experiment/observation, and 19 of them get the same results/conclusion, the 1 left out is not automatically equally valid.
that is a de facto consensus.
we're not talking about an opinion poll among scientists.
we are talking about groups of people who have come to the same conclusions independently.
using geocentrism as your talking point further reveals your own ignorance on the topic.
geocentrism did originate as a scientific concept, but as a religious one .
the consensus you speak of was religious in nature, not scientific.
science didn't have the ability to prove or disprove it until the invention of the telescope, and once it did it quickly fell out of favor.
Cripes, has nobody here had even the very basics of how science works explained to them?
Yes, and we are trying to explain it to you, because it's obvious you haven't yet.
I'm totally sick of the hyperbolic propaganda. Stop lying.
then why do you keep posting it?
wow, you are an idiot.
Since when is America a democracy?
Since the beginning.
It's a Constitutional Republic. Not a democracy.
Constitutional Republic refers to who the head of state IS , and that specifically it is not king or queen, not how they are selected.
therefore the two terms are not mutually exclusive.
they are in fact orthogonal.
What happened to civics classes?
Dunno, but you're a poster child for why they need to come back.
1. The framers created the electoral college to protect small states.
The delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention had a variety of reasons for settling on the electoral college format, but protecting smaller states was not among them. Some delegates feared direct democracy, but that was only one factor in the debate.
Remember what the country looked like in 1787: The important division was between states that relied on slavery and those that didn’t, not between large and small states. A direct election for president did not sit well with most delegates from the slave states, which had large populations but far fewer eligible voters. They gravitated toward the electoral college as a compromise because it was based on population. The convention had agreed to count each slave as three-fifths of a person for the purpose of calculating each state’s allotment of seats in Congress. For Virginia, which had the largest population among the original 13 states, that meant more clout in choosing the president.
The electoral college distorts the political process by providing a huge incentive to visit competitive states, especially large ones with hefty numbers of electoral votes. That’s why Obama and Romney have spent so much time this year in states like Ohio and Florida. In the 2008 general election, Obama and John McCain personally campaigned in only five of the 29 smallest states.
The framers protected the interests of smaller states by creating the Senate, which gives each state two votes regardless of population. There is no need for additional protection. Do we really want a presidency responsive to parochial interests in a system already prone to gridlock? The framers didn’t.
2. The electoral college ensures that the winner has broad support.
Supporters argue that the electoral college format prevents candidates from targeting specific groups and regions, instead forcing them to seek votes across the country. But that’s not the way it has worked in recent presidential contests. Generally, Republicans have tried to stitch together an electoral college majority from the South, Southwest and Rocky Mountain states, while Democrats have relied on the large states on both coasts and the Midwest, leaving certain swing states (hello, Florida!) as perennial battlegrounds.
Any system of electing the president requires some version of broad support, but the electoral college does little to promote that goal. In 2000, George W. Bush lost the popular vote to Al Gore but won in the electoral college. His victory came largely from his support among white men. He did not win majorities among women, blacks, Latinos, urbanites, the young, the old or those with less-than-average income. In short, Bush claimed the White House with the backing of one dominant group, not with broad support.
3. The electoral college preserves stability in our political system by discouraging third parties.
The electoral college offers no guarantee of such “stability” — in fact, history suggests otherwise. The Republican Party was born as a third (or even fourth) party, and it quickly established itself as a major force in the 1856 and 1860 elections. In 1912, Teddy Roosevelt ran as a third-party nominee, and though he didn’t win, he easily bested his former party’s candidate, the Republican incumbent, William Howard Taft.
The electoral college system gives a third-party candidate more opportunities to create mischief than a direct election does. Think about what could happen in a neck-and-neck contest: If a third-party nominee won enough states to prevent either major-party candidate from winning the 270 electoral votes needed for a majority, the House of Representatives would decide the outcome. Each state delegation would have one vote; Vermont and Wyoming would count the same as Texas and New York. That’s hardly a recipe for stability.
In addition, under the electoral
this kind of thinking assumes that states or localities are monolithic political blocks.
reality calling: they are not.
California is still ~45% conservative voters.
even the reddest of red states Oklahoma, who never had a single country go for Obama, is ~30% liberals.
don't all those people deserve to have their votes matter?
it also vastly underestimates how many people live in "the hinterlands".
reality calling: about half and half.
Metropolitan Statistical Areas include a rather large portion of the surrounding rural countryside that is factored into that metro economy, even though the population of those outlying areas is "rural" rather than "suburban". As a result using MSA's to factor population leads to an overcount. Likewise though, using just city cores leads to an undercount. neither method is ideal.
but even if we accepted MSAs as the way to go, that still assumes monolithic thinking.
but city dwellers in Dallas aren't going to value the same things that ranchers 50 miles outside the nearest suburb, but still part of the MSA, value.
again: doesn't everyone deserve to have their votes count?
so yes, in fact, the rest of the nation would still matter.
plus, your theory has an underlying assumption: that the EC somehow forces politicians to focus on the rest of the country and not just Cali, NY, etc. but that also is demonstrably false. the use of the Ec, and having states EC votes be awarded by "winner take all" is what actually causes states to be seen as monolithic entitites , and has the effect that instead of focusing on the entire nation most of the effort occurs in a handful of "battleground" states. the EC is what allows a Trump to ignore all of California, even though it has the most conservative votes of any state, or a Hillary to ignore the sum totals of more liberal votes in rural states.
so in conclusion:
-the EC actually allows politicians to ignore more of the country than popular vote does.
-using popular vote, every vote in every state matters, as states cannot be ignored as "a (insert party) lock".
-popular vote is the superior system*
(*First Past the Post system still needs to go though, and be replaced by Ranked Choice or similar)
I do know a fair number of people however who would be totally fine saying "I'm gonna shoot me some commie libtards", cause they don't consider any one who holds opposing views to actually BE American.
you should probably take the time to learn precisely what the US has done throughout history to the Latin American countries and their peoples before you speak again. Che, Castro, Chavez, and the other revolutionaries were a natural result of our imperialism and interventions to protect American corporate interests.
this shows a marked lack of knowledge of Cuba, Castro, the background history of both, and Reagan.
Also, read the book 100 Years of Solitude. it is a fantastic piece of literature, though it may take a read through or two to make complete sense. its a surreal book, but that surrealism itself reflects life in Latin America. the climax of the book is a massacre of striking banana workers, essentially a retelling of the actual Banana Massacre.
also...you should probably learn what a serial killer actually is.
Che, like most things people like to take radically simplified black/white views of, was complicated.
you would do well to learn a little bit of history.
not just the part that justifies your simplistic view of the men, but all of the history.
(in that way you are just like the t-shirt wearing fanboys, you just ignore the opposite parts of history than they do)
Che and Castro both became who they were because of the rampant oppression of Latin American peoples, oppression that stemmed in large part from the protection of US interests or US-based business interests. specifically the Banana Wars (hint: there's a reason they're called "banana republics"), that didn't end until FDR instituted the Good Neighbor Policy in regards to Latin America. Batista was a brutal dictator, propped up by the US. The US Occupation of Nicaragua lasted from 1912 to 1932, only ending when the Great Depression forced the withdrawal of our troops.
There was also: Spanish–American War, Santo Domingo Affair, Second Occupation of Cuba, Border War, Negro Rebellion (actual name), Occupation of Nicaragua, Occupation of Haiti, Occupation of the Dominican Republic, and the Sugar Intervention.
Remember the Panama Canal? Well Panama wasn't a sovereign nation, but a part of Columbia. And we REALLY wanted to build a canal across the isthmus...but Columbia was not being very helpful in the plan, and even opposed it. So we backed the Panamanian Revolution in the Thousand Days War, and then dealt with the new country. Note that construction had already begun at the time of the conflict.
Also note that the occupation of Nicaragua was related, in that it stemmed from our efforts to prevent any other country from constructing a similar canal across Nicaragua, a place we also almost constructed a canal before going with Panama.
The point is there is a long and rich history here. It involves US imperialism, corrupt oligarchic governments (both opposed by the US and supported), and constant suffering of the people.
So is it any wonder that Che, or Castro, or any of the other revolutionaries reacted with animus towards the US, towards the powerful, or rich, or corrupt, or sought independence of their own?
We can talk all day long about whether they themselves fell under the corrupting influence of Power, about how they became supported by Communist Russia ("enemy of my enemy"), and whether or not they failed*, but first you need to correct your lack of education about their origins, about what made them change the paths of their lives (Che began as a medical student, was going to be a doctor) and become the men they did.
.
.
.
.
(*note that we may think they failed by our metrics, based on how we view our citizen's lot in life compared to say Cuba's citizens... ...but then consider the mantra among many conservatives in our own country who, even knowing that socialized medicine is cheaper and more effective, that social safety net programs work (re: Europe), but even knowing all that, adopt the mantra of "I'd rather fail on my own terms than succeed by someone else's", and thus eschew ALL social programs or national healthcare etc... ...and consider how similar that worldview is to the view of revolutionary Cubans, Venuzleans, Hondurans, Nicaraguans, or others, who would rather fail without capitalism than succeed with it, even though it means a rougher outcome for themselves?)
its cute that you think air gaps matter.
"unauthorized (explicitly forbidden) private internet connection at the pentagon"
what part of that fails to classify under tech news for nerds?
you're half right.
they didn't come out of no where.
they came out of misinformation rooted in bigotry.
maybe those smaller states should be marginalized.
all the "red state" experiments like kansas and oklahoma are slowly imploding.
meanwhile california is the 6th largest economy in the world, on its own, with higher wages, better benefits, higher life expediencies, etc.
trump didnt consciously do any of those things.
because impeaching someone for actual crimes is a scandal ....
and you call him delusional?
trump is actively engaging in corruption as we speak because somehow, someone forgot to make the conflict of interest law apply to POTUS.
there's a repbulican majority in congress, and all they need to do to make him sign something is suck his dick a little bit.
all he cares about is his himself.
and agian with the union bullshit
as if that determines whether or not anything they say is true.
you are free to prove them wrong.
the fact you sockpuppetted your self up means nothing.
and ted cruz was just as big an idiot when he said it.
you do realize that the GOP in congress has been waging war on NOAA's scientists for quite some time, no?
and that NOAA and NASA work in concert to accomplish the research?
NASA isn't just space exploration.
they are the primary researcher for earth sciences where space based observation and data (which a HUGE CHUNK OF CLIMATE SCIENCE) is relevant.