The broad points I'm making here is that the electoral college needs reformation.
The Electoral College has already been reformed: effectively, it has changed from a deliberative, representative body to a winner-take-all system based on state votes. That's a reasonable system and it doesn't need reforming.
with the EC whilst simultaneously implying it would be illegal or unfair the system for electors to change their votes
About half the states already have laws against faithless electors. As for the remaining electors, they were selected by their parties for a ceremonial function and made a commitment to vote for the party candidate; that is, they are people with extra time on their hands, not necessarily any insight into politics. If anybody had anticipated an actual deliberative and decision making function for them, an entirely different group of people would have been chosen.
I don't think it would be "unfair" for them to start deliberating and altering the outcome of the election (the presidency isn't a prize, reward, or birthright, much as Clinton supporters don't seem to understand that), it would simply be foolishness.
Well, are you in favor of an elector revolt or aren't you?
No, for many reasons: the EC represents a reasonable distribution of political power across the states; electors weren't selected to deliberate or make decisions; an "elector revolt" would cause utter chaos; and, from a practical point of view, I think Clinton would be an even worse president than Trump.
In any case, all of this is academic. There isn't going to be an elector revolt. Mostly, this whole brouhaha shows again how out of touch Clinton supporters are, and how much disdain Clinton supporters have for the will of the people and our democracy.
The historic mistake is for the Republican Party to nominate Donald Trump who is not a Republican, not a conservative and who has zero experience in public office.
By "the party", I'm referring to "the party" as an organization with a leadership, not the set of people who voted in the primaries.
Donald Trump was nominated against the express wishes of the Republican party. Hillary Clinton was successfully nominated by the Democratic party.
Meanwhile, I see all these people when I get on the bus in Silicon Valley and the only white people I know are out of state coworkers. Which one of us is "normal" in today's America?
Well, your obsession with race and status, and your snobbery and arrogance, are certainly typical for Silicon Valley. Fortunately, they haven't infected the rest of the country quite as much yet, as this election shows.
And those cities generate most of America's wealth.
So you are saying that we should get rid of the electoral college because it would help the wealthy and privileged in a few astronomically expensive cities make even more money.
And you wonder why voters don't fall for the Democratic bullshit about "equality".
In fact, without its massive illegal population, California would be losing several congressional seats (which is why Californian politicians love illegals so much).
I still say the argument needs to be made to call out the hypocrites who with vigorous handwaving try to imply the current electoral college system is fine and dandy as it is
I don't see anything "hypocritical" about believing that the electoral college system is "fine and dandy as it is". As far as I'm concerned, I have always strongly opposed majoritarianism.
I would like to see the feet of these folks held to the fire for a bit...
It's people who favor majoritarianism and simultaneously call themselves "liberals" that are hypocritical, because the two ideas cannot be reconciled.
I would like to see your feet held to the fire for a bit, because the political views your comments imply are reprehensible.
When is a good time to change the Electoral College if not now?
You can change it any time you want. But the way to start is by working towards a Constitutional amendment, not by changing the rules after the election.
They no longer associate with me since I'm a moderate conservative, I live in Silicon Valley and I have no problem getting on a bus people from all over the world speaking different languages.
Heck, I am from all over the world and speak several different languages, and I wouldn't be anywhere near you. Maybe the problem is with you rather than with your relatives?
Maybe the reason it spread so quickly was that CNN initially confirmed it before then denying it?
CNN first told the DailyMail.com the cable operator 'aired inappropriate content for 30 minutes on CNN last night' Said in a follow-up statement: 'RCN assures us that there was no interruption of CNN's programming in the Boston area last night'
Also, given how unimportant the story is, people simply don't spend much time veryfing it.
It's an established fact that Facebook and Google, as well as their owners, are strong supporters of the Democrats, and I'm pointing out that these "notices" are consistent with their political biases and economic self-interest. I'm also pointing out that it should be clear that Google has no objective basis on which to determine whether a hack is perpetrated by a "state actor" or not.
I leave it to you to verify the facts that I refer to yourself, it's easy enough to do. You're welcome to use "logic and reason" to attack my argument; so far, you haven't.
People like Pence, Giuliani, Priebus, and formerly Christie... these are the ones with real political power and they have a track record of doing things that hurt the very people they're expected now to work for under the veil of Trumpism.
That's the Democratic and progressive party line, and if you disagree with it, progressives will treat you as a pariah and insult you. But there is actually little reason that the positions these people take on gay rights, abortion, religion, etc. matter much, and to the limited degree that they do, progressives arguably get it wrong.
I am forced to admit, however, that when it comes to division for the sake of securing political power, both parties are guilty.
I disagree. Progressives and democrats have been particularly guilty of hijacking the political discussion with issues most people simply don't care much about: income inequality, government funding of abortions, gay marriage, gay wedding cakes, climate change, financial regulation, gender pay gap, etc. What people actually care about hasn't changed much: economic growth and national security.
To understand where I'm coming from, start by ignoring Trump, Milo, and even Bannon. Ignore the weirdos that are there just to look appealing to free wheeling Millennials. Look at the people Trump hires or surrounds himself with. People like Pence, Giuliani, Priebus, and formerly Christie... these are the ones with real political power and they have a track record of doing things that hurt the very people they're expected now to work for under the veil of Trumpism.
We're talking the statement: "You can objectively come to this conclusion by deviating from their idea of normal. The left will tolerate you. The right will punish you." That statement has nothing to do with whether Pence, Giuliani, or Priebus advocate policies that are useful or harmful to this or that group; it has to do with whether ordinary progressives, social democrats, libertarians, or conservatives will "tolerate" or "punish" you in response to being different, like whether they'll scream at you or disinvite you for Christmas or unfriend you on Facebook.
You seem to think that any business which takes advantage of government incentives involves cronyism.
No, not at all. What crony capitalism requires is mutual support of businesses that depend on government handouts and the politicians that are inclined to provide such handouts, like the relationship between Musk and Clinton, and the benefits he would have reaped from Clinton's policies. In his space business, he was running into other established players, but muscling his way into that market doesn't really make him a champion of free markets either.
I think it is legitimate to call Musk a crony capitalist and criticize him for it. If he wants to shed that image, he needs to change his politics and the way he deals with politicians.
Call me old-fashioned, but I think elections should be:
(1) held using pen and paper only (no electronic voting, no mail voting) (2) on a Sunday (no conflict with work) (3) require a photo ID (4) stain people's right thumb to indicate that they have voted
Two other reforms:
(a) only citizens should count in the allocation of seats and electors (b) congressional districts should be created algorithmically and have an upper limit on the ratio of the square of the boundary size of the district to the area of the district
...or Trump's, since he runs a visa mill and uses foreign sweatshop labor.
Oh, Trump's crony capitlalism goes much deeper than that: as someone in the restaurant and gambling business, he's needed good political connections and favorable regulation. In that regard, he's pretty much the same as Musk. All I was saying that it is perfectly legitimate to call Musk a crony capitalist and to call into question the value and contributions of his business empire to society.
Having said that, there is one big difference: Trump has pretty much said "I had to get into bed with government to run my business, I think that's wrong, and I want to change it". I have yet to hear Musk say anything like that.
Sorry. That is not even remotely comparable to the main stream media, regardless of the fact that they have a diversity of opinions or that some of them may be (gasp) feminists.
BuzzFeed started this "fake news" meme. They are defining "fake news" as "false or misleading news", then identify a whole bunch of conservative news sites as "fake" by that definition and create a scare about it. So, by their own definition, much of the news published by mainstream media is "fake", not necessarily because it is completely false, but because it is misleading. (To be sure, a significant fraction of even mainstream media stories are entirely false; it's simply that journalists don't make them up themselves, they just uncritically repeat other people's fictional stories if they fit their own political agenda.)
My point is not that there are other sources you should read, my point is that the "mainstream media" have deteriorated to the point where they are no more trustworthy than a random blog off the Internet. If you want to know what's going on, feel free to read the NYT and NPR, but also read Breitbart and NRO, and then do a little background research yourself to determine which of those gets the story right. Anybody who was surprised that Trump got elected shouldn't blame other people's ignorance, they should blame their own ignorance; if you had strayed outside the "mainstream media", it would have become clear that Trump was, in fact, quite "mainstream".
It is laughable to compare mainstream media reporting from angles you'd rather ignore with fake news sites making up stories out of whole cloth.
If you don't recognize that a large percentage of stories on the NYT, CNN, WP, Quartz, or HuffPo meet all the criteria of being fake, and that they are pushing this "fake news" meme out of simple self interest, you really are out of touch with reality. Heck, the "fake news list" that has been at the center of the discussion was created by a feminist professor and includes several mainstream conservative news outlets.
Of course, even his claim of "he tried selling the same BS to the left but they weren't buying" is something you uncritically accept; in fact, if he had written stories about "I'm a feminist and I'm getting death threats" or "I'm transgender and Trump supporters are drawing Swastikas on my car", those stories do get eaten up.
Scientists have managed to coax living cells into making carbon-silicon bonds, demonstrating for the first time that nature can incorporate silicon -- one of the most abundant elements on Earth -- into the building blocks of life
Silicon has long been known known to be an essential element for animals, and it is widely deposited by plants and animals (e.g., silica). So, there must be plenty of silicon biochemistry.
Why doesn't biology utilize it more? Probably because for most needs, other compounds work better and producing silicon compounds takes a lot of energy and time.
He tried selling the same BS to the left but they weren't buying
Simple supply and demand: when you have the NYT, the WP, Quartz, and HuffPo, to name just a few, then the market for left wing fake news is obviously already saturated.
A "conspiracy" involves a secret plan. Is there anything secret about OPEC? No. OPEC is a legal, transnational cartel that pursues policies that enrich their authoritarian governments at the cost of everybody else. So, thanks for illustrating my point: you don't understand what a conspiracy actually is. That's why you mischaracterize criticism of the left as if people were charging that there is a "leftist conspiracy".
People aren't charging US media with a "conspiracy" when they accuse them of political bias and corruption, they are charging US media with bias and dishonesty based on naked economic self-interest. You know, kind of like OPEC.
Slashdot Mirror
The Electoral College has already been reformed: effectively, it has changed from a deliberative, representative body to a winner-take-all system based on state votes. That's a reasonable system and it doesn't need reforming.
About half the states already have laws against faithless electors. As for the remaining electors, they were selected by their parties for a ceremonial function and made a commitment to vote for the party candidate; that is, they are people with extra time on their hands, not necessarily any insight into politics. If anybody had anticipated an actual deliberative and decision making function for them, an entirely different group of people would have been chosen.
I don't think it would be "unfair" for them to start deliberating and altering the outcome of the election (the presidency isn't a prize, reward, or birthright, much as Clinton supporters don't seem to understand that), it would simply be foolishness.
No, for many reasons: the EC represents a reasonable distribution of political power across the states; electors weren't selected to deliberate or make decisions; an "elector revolt" would cause utter chaos; and, from a practical point of view, I think Clinton would be an even worse president than Trump.
In any case, all of this is academic. There isn't going to be an elector revolt. Mostly, this whole brouhaha shows again how out of touch Clinton supporters are, and how much disdain Clinton supporters have for the will of the people and our democracy.
By "the party", I'm referring to "the party" as an organization with a leadership, not the set of people who voted in the primaries.
Donald Trump was nominated against the express wishes of the Republican party. Hillary Clinton was successfully nominated by the Democratic party.
Well, your obsession with race and status, and your snobbery and arrogance, are certainly typical for Silicon Valley. Fortunately, they haven't infected the rest of the country quite as much yet, as this election shows.
I'm not talking about who the electors pick. I'm talking about your comment about what the right time to "change the electoral college" might be.
Don't blame me if you spew ambiguous bullshit.
So you are saying that we should get rid of the electoral college because it would help the wealthy and privileged in a few astronomically expensive cities make even more money.
And you wonder why voters don't fall for the Democratic bullshit about "equality".
FTFY. Looks like it's working as intended. Check.
Well, lucky then that Republicans took care of that problem more than a century ago.
California has very serious financial problems:
http://www.sfchronicle.com/pol...
These are worsened by the outflux of people from California:
http://knowmore.washingtonpost...
In fact, without its massive illegal population, California would be losing several congressional seats (which is why Californian politicians love illegals so much).
They shouldn't. That is precisely why conservatives and libertarians favor subsidiarity, states' rights, and small federal government.
I don't see anything "hypocritical" about believing that the electoral college system is "fine and dandy as it is". As far as I'm concerned, I have always strongly opposed majoritarianism.
It's people who favor majoritarianism and simultaneously call themselves "liberals" that are hypocritical, because the two ideas cannot be reconciled.
I would like to see your feet held to the fire for a bit, because the political views your comments imply are reprehensible.
You can change it any time you want. But the way to start is by working towards a Constitutional amendment, not by changing the rules after the election.
Heck, I am from all over the world and speak several different languages, and I wouldn't be anywhere near you. Maybe the problem is with you rather than with your relatives?
The historic mistake was nominating Hillary Clinton, a corrupt, incompetent war monger. The electoral college can't fix that.
Maybe the reason it spread so quickly was that CNN initially confirmed it before then denying it?
Also, given how unimportant the story is, people simply don't spend much time veryfing it.
Correct. I presented an argument, not evidence:
I leave it to you to verify the facts that I refer to yourself, it's easy enough to do. You're welcome to use "logic and reason" to attack my argument; so far, you haven't.
That's the Democratic and progressive party line, and if you disagree with it, progressives will treat you as a pariah and insult you. But there is actually little reason that the positions these people take on gay rights, abortion, religion, etc. matter much, and to the limited degree that they do, progressives arguably get it wrong.
I disagree. Progressives and democrats have been particularly guilty of hijacking the political discussion with issues most people simply don't care much about: income inequality, government funding of abortions, gay marriage, gay wedding cakes, climate change, financial regulation, gender pay gap, etc. What people actually care about hasn't changed much: economic growth and national security.
We're talking the statement: "You can objectively come to this conclusion by deviating from their idea of normal. The left will tolerate you. The right will punish you." That statement has nothing to do with whether Pence, Giuliani, or Priebus advocate policies that are useful or harmful to this or that group; it has to do with whether ordinary progressives, social democrats, libertarians, or conservatives will "tolerate" or "punish" you in response to being different, like whether they'll scream at you or disinvite you for Christmas or unfriend you on Facebook.
No, not at all. What crony capitalism requires is mutual support of businesses that depend on government handouts and the politicians that are inclined to provide such handouts, like the relationship between Musk and Clinton, and the benefits he would have reaped from Clinton's policies. In his space business, he was running into other established players, but muscling his way into that market doesn't really make him a champion of free markets either.
I think it is legitimate to call Musk a crony capitalist and criticize him for it. If he wants to shed that image, he needs to change his politics and the way he deals with politicians.
Call me old-fashioned, but I think elections should be:
(1) held using pen and paper only (no electronic voting, no mail voting)
(2) on a Sunday (no conflict with work)
(3) require a photo ID
(4) stain people's right thumb to indicate that they have voted
Two other reforms:
(a) only citizens should count in the allocation of seats and electors
(b) congressional districts should be created algorithmically and have an upper limit on the ratio of the square of the boundary size of the district to the area of the district
Oh, Trump's crony capitlalism goes much deeper than that: as someone in the restaurant and gambling business, he's needed good political connections and favorable regulation. In that regard, he's pretty much the same as Musk. All I was saying that it is perfectly legitimate to call Musk a crony capitalist and to call into question the value and contributions of his business empire to society.
Having said that, there is one big difference: Trump has pretty much said "I had to get into bed with government to run my business, I think that's wrong, and I want to change it". I have yet to hear Musk say anything like that.
BuzzFeed started this "fake news" meme. They are defining "fake news" as "false or misleading news", then identify a whole bunch of conservative news sites as "fake" by that definition and create a scare about it. So, by their own definition, much of the news published by mainstream media is "fake", not necessarily because it is completely false, but because it is misleading. (To be sure, a significant fraction of even mainstream media stories are entirely false; it's simply that journalists don't make them up themselves, they just uncritically repeat other people's fictional stories if they fit their own political agenda.)
My point is not that there are other sources you should read, my point is that the "mainstream media" have deteriorated to the point where they are no more trustworthy than a random blog off the Internet. If you want to know what's going on, feel free to read the NYT and NPR, but also read Breitbart and NRO, and then do a little background research yourself to determine which of those gets the story right. Anybody who was surprised that Trump got elected shouldn't blame other people's ignorance, they should blame their own ignorance; if you had strayed outside the "mainstream media", it would have become clear that Trump was, in fact, quite "mainstream".
If you don't recognize that a large percentage of stories on the NYT, CNN, WP, Quartz, or HuffPo meet all the criteria of being fake, and that they are pushing this "fake news" meme out of simple self interest, you really are out of touch with reality. Heck, the "fake news list" that has been at the center of the discussion was created by a feminist professor and includes several mainstream conservative news outlets.
Of course, even his claim of "he tried selling the same BS to the left but they weren't buying" is something you uncritically accept; in fact, if he had written stories about "I'm a feminist and I'm getting death threats" or "I'm transgender and Trump supporters are drawing Swastikas on my car", those stories do get eaten up.
Silicon has long been known known to be an essential element for animals, and it is widely deposited by plants and animals (e.g., silica). So, there must be plenty of silicon biochemistry.
Why doesn't biology utilize it more? Probably because for most needs, other compounds work better and producing silicon compounds takes a lot of energy and time.
I, however, do think so: a lot of the stories on CNN, NYT, WP, HuffPo, etc. are fake news created to drive outrage on the left.
(Just look at the recent bullshit accusing Bannon of being antisemitic and a white supremacist.)
Simple supply and demand: when you have the NYT, the WP, Quartz, and HuffPo, to name just a few, then the market for left wing fake news is obviously already saturated.
A "conspiracy" involves a secret plan. Is there anything secret about OPEC? No. OPEC is a legal, transnational cartel that pursues policies that enrich their authoritarian governments at the cost of everybody else. So, thanks for illustrating my point: you don't understand what a conspiracy actually is. That's why you mischaracterize criticism of the left as if people were charging that there is a "leftist conspiracy".
People aren't charging US media with a "conspiracy" when they accuse them of political bias and corruption, they are charging US media with bias and dishonesty based on naked economic self-interest. You know, kind of like OPEC.