Apple had A/UX at that time, and it runs decently on my IIsi with only 17MiB of RAM, which wasn't "extravagent" at the time. Apple could have built on that foundation. I wonder why they didn't. The biggest problem I'd see with adoption going forward was that it was the crufty old MacOS bolted on top of Unix, rather than integrated into it.
The Intel move is a major HW architectural shift. However, there are quite a few 1984 Mac apps that ran on every MacOS through 9.2, and still ran in Classic mode on the latest PPC Macs. That's survival through 20 years, one major HW architectural shift, and one major and numerous minor OS architecture changes already. That's nothing to sneeze at. For the Intel jump, Apple is providing Rosetta, so that at least 5 years of OS X code can be transitioned. That's not a bad effort, either.
I'm not saying Apple or MS is better or worse in legacy support, that's not my point. But your parent certainly isn't all "spin". Apple's done a darn good job, all things considered.
Yes, I'm saying that the Senate should revert to the old way of being elected - by the people indirectly via their elected representatives in their legislatures. The Senate is the house that represents the states at the federal level - how does electing Senators purely by the popular will fulfill that role? Senators should not be beholden directly to the people. (That's a laugh - do you think your senators see themselves personally accountable to you? If anything, they are less accountable.) They should be directly accountable to their state's interests - meaning that the legislature and governor have something to say about it. Accountability to a small group can be advantageous.
(Incidentally, this same problem is creeping into the House as well. Since membership was capped at 435, districts have grown tremendously in size. By the ratio that the Founders thought appropriate, we'd need about 8000 in the House today. This results in Representatives who are not particularly accountable, either. Today we have technology that can make meetings of that large a group feasible. We could easily increase this limit to 1000, at least.)
It doesn't particularly matter to me if the various states have different ways of electing their Senators. It's their Senator, let them decide how to do it. Why do you want to take control away from them, when it's none of your business?
Maybe people with deep pockets were elected Senators pre-17th. But heck, those are the only people being elected now, because they are the only people that can afford to run! I think every single Senator in office today is a millionaire.
The problem is not campaign contributions. Americans spend more on potato chips than we contribute to political campaigns. "Tightening up" the system with more restrictions will not help, but will only further entrench incumbents. The best way to fix the system is to open it up - make voters free to vote for alternatives to the Duopoly (who are mostly interested in maintaining the status quo). Condorcet voting makes alternative parties into realistic options, because there is no such thing as a "wasted vote". Why do we, as Americans, believe there are only two valid points of view? We don't need to reform campaign finance, but the voting system.
Government funding for campaigns is the absolutely worst possible idea. First of all, you'd be letting the people in charge give themselves money so that they can try to stay in charge. What sense does that make? Second, I may disagree with you on every single issue, but if I were a candidate you'd be forced to contribute your money (through taxes) to me - that's unconscionable! It isn't moral nor ethical for me to take your money in this situation. This is why government should be limited to the bare minimum required to perform its essential duties - anything more and you'll encounter unnecessary conflicts of conscience as some people are forced to support things they don't agree with. It's not right to force someone to violate his/her conscience. I believe in this so strongly that I'd refuse government money if I ran for office, even if I qualified for it. This (freedom of conscience) is a big reason I joined the CP.
BTW: Notice that you do have to "qualify" for gov't money - and who sets those qualifications? The people in charge. Do you trust them to make it easy for anyone to challenge them? If you believe that, I've got a trustworthy fox that would love to guard your henhouse...
If we remove power from government (by limiting it to its Constitutional functions - what a concept!), there becomes less reason for "big money" to bribe officeholders with campaign contributions. The problem isn't the money, it's the power! People should be free to spend their money however they want. Instead, remove the incentive to bribe!
The fact is that Bush signed a bill that didn't pass both houses of Congress
You assert this, but I have yet to see any proof from you. The article you linked doesn't say anything about it. Bills have to pass both houses in order to get to the presidents desk, further, both houses had to have passed the same verson of the bill. (If not, all my civics and government classes have been wrong.) If indeed this bill somehow go to the president's desk without passing both houses, then I'd agree that it is blatantly unconstitutional. As if the Constitution ever stops them when they really want to do something - most of the things Congress does now cannot be found authorized in A1S8.
adding a signing statement to make the law according to his definition
Presidents have been adding "signing statements" well before this one. I don't think they've ever been treated with anything resembling force of law - if they had, I believe we'd have heard of it before now. They reflect how the signing president may intend to interpret (and thus enforce) them, sure. I'd be surprised if SCOTUS sees them any differently, your conspiracy theories aside. The president cannot write (through signing statements) or edit (through line-item veto) legislation, but despite that there is some latitude for interpretation.
Why don't you lift a finger to actually examine the issue itself, among the caried and detailed material I keep producing to educate you?
Because I find your "issue" unimportant. I don't think the "signing statement" is that big a deal, as I just stated. I think you're blowing it waaaay out of proportion. You think differently. Fine - we disagree.
"\." is pronounced "backslashdot" - this site was originally called "/."
It ought to have been called \. - and I do sometimes write it that way - because it tends to lean so far left. It's humor. Get it? Ha ha.
Troll
Actually, I think "berating people without justification" falls under the very definition you give, regarding provocation. You were the one making the statements without facts. I was just asking for clarification of a point that your sources didn't address. You're the one building the argument - defend it when you are questioned.
Are you afraid or unable to answer a simple question? Do you feel the need to impugn the intelligence and/or motives of those who disagree with you? Does that make you feel better somehow?
So I will now take your final request, not to bother replying
Cute how you claim to have not replied at the tail end of your reply. Sounds like something John Kerry would do.:)
now that I've done all that I can to school you without compensation
That arrogant condescension must make you a real hit at parties.
So as a responsible \. reader trying to make an informed post I read
The posted story
The linked articles in the story
Your post, which ought to contain enough information on its own to make your point
Your linked pages, for supplementary information if I found your post worthy of pursuing further or it seems you make direct (not passing) reference to it, which it didn't appear to me that you were in this case
And now you say I ought to read the linked pages from those linked pages? Sorry...I don't think so. I read the TPMCafe article...it had a lot to say about the signing statement thing but absolutely nothing relevant to the bicameral resolution process, which is what you took me to task about in the first place. Nothing in what you wrote or linked in response addresses that. So I ask again, what are you blathering on about?
It seems to me you like to berate people without justification. That fits my definition of "troll". So perhaps you are correct in one thing: questioning why I continue to post responses to you. One really shouldn't feed the trolls.
Now.................... Back to the original point of this subthread.
Maybe my understanding is wrong, maybe bills can make it to the president even when the House and Senate have different versions. (Though I'm really unsure what the final law would actually say, if so - perhaps "government is schizophrenic"?) If you don't address this in your response, don't bother replying at all.
Errmmm... The Fine Article you mention is about the UK, but this thread has drifted to the US. Your link doesn't say anything about the process of the Congress going to bicameral committees to resolve differences in bills that I could see.
So what the heck are you snarking off about, dude?
Very interesting. I thought the UK had a federal system similar to the US and Canada. It only makes sense - nobody likes "them" deciding "our" business for us, that's basic human nature.
Just this week, Bush signed into law a bill that was not Constitutional
This is nothing new - Congress has been passing unconstitutional bills and the President has been signing them for a very long time. (Yet we keep voting for these schmucks...) I don't think we've had a government that has cared much about the limitations the Constitution puts on it since, oh, maybe Teddy Roosevelt's time. Not that he was perfect, but it's gotten steadily worse at a(n increasingly) fast pace since.
because it had not been agreed in the same terms by both Senate and House
You sure of that? How can a bill get to the president's desk unless both chambers of Congress passed the same thing? Differences have to be worked out in committee.
So he "fixed it" with a "signing statement" declaring how he will execute the law.
This is also nothing new. In fact, in the past there have been presidents that took it upon themselves to decide the constitutionality of the law, and refused to execute what they felt were bad laws. Presidents are sworn to uphold the Constitution, and how can they do that unless they have opinions as to what it says? A signing statement just makes it clear what the president's philosophy will be when it comes to enforcement.
Correct, and agreed! But the parent has a point - history does show that state-level partisanship began having undue influence in choosing Senators. If fact, it would hold up the process so much that seats would sit vacant in Congress - this was the driving force behind the 17th Amendment. (Though its leading proponent later regretted it once he saw what the actual results were.) This problem has two solutions. One, to allow the state executive (governor) to appoint Senators to fill vacancies until such time as the legislature elects a permanent replacement. Currently, governors can only appoint Senators when the legislature is in recess. Two, enact a Condorcet voting system so that state legislatures are opened up to more than two parties, as a way to avoid gridlock in electing Senators.
Have you looked at how the US Electoral College system works? They can appoint anyone they like as president.
Just like your city council, your state legislature, your Congress can pass any law it likes.
The EC is just another representative system. Read the Federalist Papers sometime. There are good reasons for the ways the House, Senate (originally), and President are selected - to balance competing interests within We the People.
Pure popular whim doesn't make good law - this is why the House (directly elected by district) serves such short terms, because the "will of the people" is fickle and changes all the time.
The Senate (chosen indirectly, through the sitting state Legislatures) are the "best of the best", probably selected from within that body as someone who has shown responsibility and talent and is capable of taking the long view for the best interest of their respective states. The ability to take a "long view" is what supposedly justifies a 6-year term. One significant interest of the state being to keep power to itself rather than giving it to the US Gov - keeping power close to home serves the interests of the people as well. That's the idea behind federalism.
The President likewise is chosen indirectly, through the Electoral College. The EC is not a permanently sitting body - they don't come into this duty with an agenda, and there is no benefit to them (politically) to choose one way or the other, because their "office" ceases to exist as soon as they've done their single job. The EC is chosen at the particular time a President is needed, expressly for that one purpose, so they can reflect the will of the nation at that specific time in order to choose the best leader.
The Constitution doesn't state that the popular vote be used to choose electors - in the early 19th c., state legislatures picked the electors in some states.
The enumeration of electors (equal to sum of the number of Representatives and Senators) reflects the need to balance the will of the people (House) and states (Senate) in a singular office (Presidency).
At least, that's how it's supposed to work. The 17th Amendment broke the model significantly. Abolishing the EC altogether would likewise be a colossal mistake. This doesn't mean it can't be tweaked in certain ways. States still get to decide how their electors are chosen. I imagine they will leave it to the popular vote, but they could allocate them by district, as is done in Nebraska and Maine (with the "Senate" votes going to the largest plurality winner), rather than "winner-takes-all" by state. (That strategy took hold in the mid-19th when partisan politics grew stronger at the state level - party leaders [short-sightedly] wanted to deliver their entire state for the presidential candidate of their party, but of course that works against them when a rival party gains power in their state.) Personally, I think those extra two votes could be used even better. One idea: simulate PR (proportional representation) a bit. For example, if your candidate gets 10% of the vote in your 10 EV state, but not enough in any one district to win it, give him one of those votes to reflect this. Second idea: since those two votes represent the states influence in the Executive branch, have the state legislatures pick those electors (as they were supposed to select Senators). Another possibility for a "tweak" is for the number of Representatives in the House to be increased, both to bring better representation to Congress, and to mitigate the effect of the smallest states having undue influence on the Presidency. (But with states losing influence in Congress due to the 17th Amendment and in the Presidency due to this, the concept of federalism really takes a beating. We need to repeal the 17th.)
FYI, I was chosen as a potential elector by my party in 2004. I didn't get to serve because my party's candidate didn't win here. But I did put quite a bit of time and effort into learning the history of the system to understand why it works the way it does.
The purpose that our Senate was originally supposed to serve, namely to be a brake on the other half of the Legislature, it seems to regularly fail to do; each party's House and Senate contingents seem to be in lock-step on all but the smallest details
Blame the 17th Amendment. Senators are nothing but super-representatives now, thus it's not surprising that they act very much the same on most issues. The biggest difference today is that Senators are millionaires, as they have to campaign across a statewide district, instead of being selected by the state Legislatures. Then Congress has the gall to pass "campaign finance reform" acts so that nobody else can raise enough money to break into the system. Senate campaigns are about the most expensive there are in the US - if you want to get the "corrupting" influence of money out of politics (the purported goal of campaign finance reform), ditch the 17th. Pre-17th, Senators were the "best of the best" and served in DC because they could take the long view; that's what justified their 6-year term. The two houses balanced each other by representing the people in different ways and being elected in different ways, but that went out the window.
However bad you think your government is now, with enough meddling it could always get spectacularly worse in a hurry.
The 17th is proof. To sidestep a niggling procedural detail of filling vacant seats in the early 20th c., we changed the balance and character of the whole system, and threw it out of whack. The best thing we could do for the US federal government is to repeal the 16th and 17th amendments.
How 3/4 of the states ever agreed to give up their representation in Congress, I'll never understand.
I use Xubuntu (preferring Xfce to other, slower, DEs) and can't figure out how to edit the menu, either. There seems to be a large system-defined chunk that I can't touch, but that's the part I'd most want to configure.
I wish there were a single, simple menuing standard for all WMs to use. I hate not being able to port my menus from my slower machines running Blackbox to other faster machines where I run IceWM or Xfce or whatever. I want to configure them once and be done.
If you believe in equalizing bank accounts then I suppose you are correct. If you believe in the inherent equality of all persons then I think you are wrong.
I don't really care if $X is a bigger burden on someone poor. They ought to be receiving equal services (as defined in Article 1 Section 8) from their government because they are a citizen just the same as anyone else. So they should be contributing just as much (directly) to it.
Since you obviously can't get blood from a turnip, you can't squeeze a poor guy for money he just plain doesn't have - any capitation (head) tax would have to be nominal, a mere token. Therefore, this is not a good place for the government to derive revenue. That should come from tariffs and such, as described in the Constitution. This is where the rich (indirectly) contribute vastly more in taxes to the government's coffers - they buy lots more stuff.
I favor a complete elimination of income tax - no graduate tax, no flat tax, none at all. Let the government go back to the way it financed itself in the 19th century.
A poll (head) tax is quite fair. If every person is equal before the law, and every person - seeing them as individuals, not as bank accounts - has equal dignity and worth, then simply assess every person $X a year. Obviously X has to be relatively low, because there are poor people, and you shouldn't throw ppl in jail for failure to pay taxes just because they are poor.
In fact, a head tax was originally the one of the only kinds of direct taxes the federal government could levy on its citizens. Direct taxes had to be apportioned among the states by population - ergo, a head tax.
It's precisely because it is controlled by the states that I think there is hope. You don't have to change national opinion, just one state. Once the system is proven to work, other states may notice and be more willing to try it.
But at least you get the "inoffensive" candidate by true concensus, rather than by political pandering of the candidates. I think that's good. I'd prefer to see candidates that took a firm stance on issues and stuck to their principles, even if I didn't agree with them. Let the voters sort it out at the ballot box, rather than trying (and failing) to be all things to all people.
Thanks for the link, btw. There was a good site at electionmethods.org, but it's gone now. You can find it in at archive.org though.
It's clear from the voting turnout that people desperately want third-party options. Perot was the first "serious" third-party candidate in many years. And you know what? 1992 was the first presidential election year since 1960 that voting turnout was up from the time before. When people feel their vote will make a difference, they'll vote. When they think there isn't a dime's worth of difference between them, they won't.
I especially liked how the Dems got a "replacement" for Senator Wellstone on the ballot in MN a couple years ago. I'm sorry the guy died, but it is illegal to add someone to the ballot after the deadline, and illegal to transfer votes from the named candidate to another. Do you think either the Donkeys of Elephants would have allowed the Green/Constitution/Libertarian party to get away with that?
The Duopoly writes the laws to their own advantage, and doesn't even bother to obey them if they turn out to be inconvenient. All the more reason to vote third party, any third party, just to get rid of them.
I believe there are quite a few people who would instantly change their voting habits if they felt they weren't "throwing their vote away". The voting system itself is to blame for this. Just because you primarily supported Badnarik doesn't mean that you don't have a preference between Bush and Kerry...and since it seemed that they were the front-runners, it would be nice to have a say in the outcome of that race, yet without having to give up your support of the person you think is truly the best for the position! It's a quandary.
The solution (as I've posted several other places in this thread) is a Condorcet system. This restores freedom of conscience to the process - no longer would one have to forfeit his principles and values on the altar of pragmatism. No longer would you have to vote "for" the lesser of two evils, or "against" the greater of the two - you could vote for who you really want, and still influence the decision between the Evil Twins of the Duopoly.
PR is for multi-seat bodies, like a legislature. The Electoral College is used for the Presidency, a single-seat office. I don't think you've thought through voting and representation issues as well as you'd like to think you have.
There are very good reasons why there are three different types of representation used for the House, Senate (pre-17th Amendment), and EC. Try reading the Federalist Papers sometime and educate yourself.
That said, I wouldn't mind seeing PR used in one house of state legislatures. Congress has two houses, composed (again, pre-17th, a very very bad amendment) in two different ways, to serve as a balance and check against competing needs of the people being represented. This is a good idea. Yet most state legislatures use the same districted allocation for both houses. That makes no sense. There may be a relatively strong (~10%) political undercurrent across a state that is geographically distributed, and thus will never be able to carry a single district, so those people will never be truly represented. PR could help change that. I don't think it PR should be used to the exclusion of all other representation methods though.
I'm referring to the fact that our voting system only requires a plurality, not a majority, to win. Thus in a race of 3 candidates, the results can be 40/32/28 and you have a winner that a majority did not elect. That isn't right.
It may be the case that a majority find a "loser", while not a favorite, at least acceptable for the office, whereas the front-runner may be acceptable to only his core supporters. It may be the case that, if their favored candidate were not running, a majority would have voted for a "loser" instead. But with the current voting system we have no way of knowing. Alternative voting systems, such as Condorcet methods, do give us this information, so we can arrive a more fully-informed result as our winner.
Maybe with either the 40 or 32 guy out of the race, all those voters would have chosen Mr. 28 instead - a candidate with a strong core and wide acceptance as well. This is what a voting system should measure - can a candidate beat every other if the race were head-to-head between only them. That is a conclusive win. The current system is too prone to "strategic" considerations. When you only get to make one mark on the ballot, people will think, "I really think A is the best, but I feel that everyone else is going to make it come down to B or C, so I'd be better off using my single vote to influence that race rather than 'wasting my vote' on A." It's the old "I'm voting against B, not for C" - and a system that forces you to choose the lesser of two evils is clearly a broken system. One ought to be free to vote for (what one thinks is) the greatest good, without fear that you'll actually help the greater evil get in!
I think a consensus candidate would be a better pick than a minority winner who is unacceptable to a majority. Yet that's exactly what our polarized two-party system gives us. There is room for more than two views on the issues. The voting method needs to reflect this reality. We need to adopt a Condorcet voting system.
That's a fault of the (plurality) voting system, not the merits of any of those parties. A single choice can only select between two things. Work for voting reform. If the electorate has no chance to honestly express its preferences in the voting booth, how can we expect government to reflect the true will of the people? We need to implement a Condorcet method as soon as we can.
I really don't understand why there aren't more people voting Constitution and Libertarian. Has the effect of Duverger's Law really got this country so brainwashed, or what? I think most people with common sense just want everybody to mind their own business, and that includes government. Well, here are two parties espousing exactly that! If you keep voting for the entrenched Duopoly, you're part of the problem.
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Apple had A/UX at that time, and it runs decently on my IIsi with only 17MiB of RAM, which wasn't "extravagent" at the time. Apple could have built on that foundation. I wonder why they didn't. The biggest problem I'd see with adoption going forward was that it was the crufty old MacOS bolted on top of Unix, rather than integrated into it.
The Intel move is a major HW architectural shift. However, there are quite a few 1984 Mac apps that ran on every MacOS through 9.2, and still ran in Classic mode on the latest PPC Macs. That's survival through 20 years, one major HW architectural shift, and one major and numerous minor OS architecture changes already. That's nothing to sneeze at. For the Intel jump, Apple is providing Rosetta, so that at least 5 years of OS X code can be transitioned. That's not a bad effort, either.
I'm not saying Apple or MS is better or worse in legacy support, that's not my point. But your parent certainly isn't all "spin". Apple's done a darn good job, all things considered.
Yes, I'm saying that the Senate should revert to the old way of being elected - by the people indirectly via their elected representatives in their legislatures. The Senate is the house that represents the states at the federal level - how does electing Senators purely by the popular will fulfill that role? Senators should not be beholden directly to the people. (That's a laugh - do you think your senators see themselves personally accountable to you? If anything, they are less accountable.) They should be directly accountable to their state's interests - meaning that the legislature and governor have something to say about it. Accountability to a small group can be advantageous.
(Incidentally, this same problem is creeping into the House as well. Since membership was capped at 435, districts have grown tremendously in size. By the ratio that the Founders thought appropriate, we'd need about 8000 in the House today. This results in Representatives who are not particularly accountable, either. Today we have technology that can make meetings of that large a group feasible. We could easily increase this limit to 1000, at least.)
It doesn't particularly matter to me if the various states have different ways of electing their Senators. It's their Senator, let them decide how to do it. Why do you want to take control away from them, when it's none of your business?
Maybe people with deep pockets were elected Senators pre-17th. But heck, those are the only people being elected now, because they are the only people that can afford to run! I think every single Senator in office today is a millionaire.
The problem is not campaign contributions. Americans spend more on potato chips than we contribute to political campaigns. "Tightening up" the system with more restrictions will not help, but will only further entrench incumbents. The best way to fix the system is to open it up - make voters free to vote for alternatives to the Duopoly (who are mostly interested in maintaining the status quo). Condorcet voting makes alternative parties into realistic options, because there is no such thing as a "wasted vote". Why do we, as Americans, believe there are only two valid points of view? We don't need to reform campaign finance, but the voting system.
Government funding for campaigns is the absolutely worst possible idea. First of all, you'd be letting the people in charge give themselves money so that they can try to stay in charge. What sense does that make? Second, I may disagree with you on every single issue, but if I were a candidate you'd be forced to contribute your money (through taxes) to me - that's unconscionable! It isn't moral nor ethical for me to take your money in this situation. This is why government should be limited to the bare minimum required to perform its essential duties - anything more and you'll encounter unnecessary conflicts of conscience as some people are forced to support things they don't agree with. It's not right to force someone to violate his/her conscience. I believe in this so strongly that I'd refuse government money if I ran for office, even if I qualified for it. This (freedom of conscience) is a big reason I joined the CP.
BTW: Notice that you do have to "qualify" for gov't money - and who sets those qualifications? The people in charge. Do you trust them to make it easy for anyone to challenge them? If you believe that, I've got a trustworthy fox that would love to guard your henhouse...
If we remove power from government (by limiting it to its Constitutional functions - what a concept!), there becomes less reason for "big money" to bribe officeholders with campaign contributions. The problem isn't the money, it's the power! People should be free to spend their money however they want. Instead, remove the incentive to bribe!
Ahhhh, finally back on topic!
You assert this, but I have yet to see any proof from you. The article you linked doesn't say anything about it. Bills have to pass both houses in order to get to the presidents desk, further, both houses had to have passed the same verson of the bill. (If not, all my civics and government classes have been wrong.) If indeed this bill somehow go to the president's desk without passing both houses, then I'd agree that it is blatantly unconstitutional. As if the Constitution ever stops them when they really want to do something - most of the things Congress does now cannot be found authorized in A1S8.
Presidents have been adding "signing statements" well before this one. I don't think they've ever been treated with anything resembling force of law - if they had, I believe we'd have heard of it before now. They reflect how the signing president may intend to interpret (and thus enforce) them, sure. I'd be surprised if SCOTUS sees them any differently, your conspiracy theories aside. The president cannot write (through signing statements) or edit (through line-item veto) legislation, but despite that there is some latitude for interpretation.
Because I find your "issue" unimportant. I don't think the "signing statement" is that big a deal, as I just stated. I think you're blowing it waaaay out of proportion. You think differently. Fine - we disagree.
It ought to have been called \. - and I do sometimes write it that way - because it tends to lean so far left. It's humor. Get it? Ha ha.
Actually, I think "berating people without justification" falls under the very definition you give, regarding provocation. You were the one making the statements without facts. I was just asking for clarification of a point that your sources didn't address. You're the one building the argument - defend it when you are questioned.
Are you afraid or unable to answer a simple question? Do you feel the need to impugn the intelligence and/or motives of those who disagree with you? Does that make you feel better somehow?
Cute how you claim to have not replied at the tail end of your reply. Sounds like something John Kerry would do. :)
That arrogant condescension must make you a real hit at parties.
So as a responsible \. reader trying to make an informed post I read
And now you say I ought to read the linked pages from those linked pages? Sorry...I don't think so. I read the TPMCafe article...it had a lot to say about the signing statement thing but absolutely nothing relevant to the bicameral resolution process, which is what you took me to task about in the first place. Nothing in what you wrote or linked in response addresses that. So I ask again, what are you blathering on about?
It seems to me you like to berate people without justification. That fits my definition of "troll". So perhaps you are correct in one thing: questioning why I continue to post responses to you. One really shouldn't feed the trolls.
Now.................... Back to the original point of this subthread.
Maybe my understanding is wrong, maybe bills can make it to the president even when the House and Senate have different versions. (Though I'm really unsure what the final law would actually say, if so - perhaps "government is schizophrenic"?) If you don't address this in your response, don't bother replying at all.
Errmmm... The Fine Article you mention is about the UK, but this thread has drifted to the US. Your link doesn't say anything about the process of the Congress going to bicameral committees to resolve differences in bills that I could see.
So what the heck are you snarking off about, dude?
Eh... I'm not so sure that you understand the federal model, at least as it works out in the USA.
Very interesting. I thought the UK had a federal system similar to the US and Canada. It only makes sense - nobody likes "them" deciding "our" business for us, that's basic human nature.
This is nothing new - Congress has been passing unconstitutional bills and the President has been signing them for a very long time. (Yet we keep voting for these schmucks...) I don't think we've had a government that has cared much about the limitations the Constitution puts on it since, oh, maybe Teddy Roosevelt's time. Not that he was perfect, but it's gotten steadily worse at a(n increasingly) fast pace since.
You sure of that? How can a bill get to the president's desk unless both chambers of Congress passed the same thing? Differences have to be worked out in committee.
This is also nothing new. In fact, in the past there have been presidents that took it upon themselves to decide the constitutionality of the law, and refused to execute what they felt were bad laws. Presidents are sworn to uphold the Constitution, and how can they do that unless they have opinions as to what it says? A signing statement just makes it clear what the president's philosophy will be when it comes to enforcement.
Correct, and agreed! But the parent has a point - history does show that state-level partisanship began having undue influence in choosing Senators. If fact, it would hold up the process so much that seats would sit vacant in Congress - this was the driving force behind the 17th Amendment. (Though its leading proponent later regretted it once he saw what the actual results were.) This problem has two solutions. One, to allow the state executive (governor) to appoint Senators to fill vacancies until such time as the legislature elects a permanent replacement. Currently, governors can only appoint Senators when the legislature is in recess. Two, enact a Condorcet voting system so that state legislatures are opened up to more than two parties, as a way to avoid gridlock in electing Senators.
Just like your city council, your state legislature, your Congress can pass any law it likes.
The EC is just another representative system. Read the Federalist Papers sometime. There are good reasons for the ways the House, Senate (originally), and President are selected - to balance competing interests within We the People.
Pure popular whim doesn't make good law - this is why the House (directly elected by district) serves such short terms, because the "will of the people" is fickle and changes all the time.
The Senate (chosen indirectly, through the sitting state Legislatures) are the "best of the best", probably selected from within that body as someone who has shown responsibility and talent and is capable of taking the long view for the best interest of their respective states. The ability to take a "long view" is what supposedly justifies a 6-year term. One significant interest of the state being to keep power to itself rather than giving it to the US Gov - keeping power close to home serves the interests of the people as well. That's the idea behind federalism.
The President likewise is chosen indirectly, through the Electoral College. The EC is not a permanently sitting body - they don't come into this duty with an agenda, and there is no benefit to them (politically) to choose one way or the other, because their "office" ceases to exist as soon as they've done their single job. The EC is chosen at the particular time a President is needed, expressly for that one purpose, so they can reflect the will of the nation at that specific time in order to choose the best leader.
The Constitution doesn't state that the popular vote be used to choose electors - in the early 19th c., state legislatures picked the electors in some states.
The enumeration of electors (equal to sum of the number of Representatives and Senators) reflects the need to balance the will of the people (House) and states (Senate) in a singular office (Presidency).
At least, that's how it's supposed to work. The 17th Amendment broke the model significantly. Abolishing the EC altogether would likewise be a colossal mistake. This doesn't mean it can't be tweaked in certain ways. States still get to decide how their electors are chosen. I imagine they will leave it to the popular vote, but they could allocate them by district, as is done in Nebraska and Maine (with the "Senate" votes going to the largest plurality winner), rather than "winner-takes-all" by state. (That strategy took hold in the mid-19th when partisan politics grew stronger at the state level - party leaders [short-sightedly] wanted to deliver their entire state for the presidential candidate of their party, but of course that works against them when a rival party gains power in their state.) Personally, I think those extra two votes could be used even better. One idea: simulate PR (proportional representation) a bit. For example, if your candidate gets 10% of the vote in your 10 EV state, but not enough in any one district to win it, give him one of those votes to reflect this. Second idea: since those two votes represent the states influence in the Executive branch, have the state legislatures pick those electors (as they were supposed to select Senators). Another possibility for a "tweak" is for the number of Representatives in the House to be increased, both to bring better representation to Congress, and to mitigate the effect of the smallest states having undue influence on the Presidency. (But with states losing influence in Congress due to the 17th Amendment and in the Presidency due to this, the concept of federalism really takes a beating. We need to repeal the 17th.)
FYI, I was chosen as a potential elector by my party in 2004. I didn't get to serve because my party's candidate didn't win here. But I did put quite a bit of time and effort into learning the history of the system to understand why it works the way it does.
Blame the 17th Amendment. Senators are nothing but super-representatives now, thus it's not surprising that they act very much the same on most issues. The biggest difference today is that Senators are millionaires, as they have to campaign across a statewide district, instead of being selected by the state Legislatures. Then Congress has the gall to pass "campaign finance reform" acts so that nobody else can raise enough money to break into the system. Senate campaigns are about the most expensive there are in the US - if you want to get the "corrupting" influence of money out of politics (the purported goal of campaign finance reform), ditch the 17th. Pre-17th, Senators were the "best of the best" and served in DC because they could take the long view; that's what justified their 6-year term. The two houses balanced each other by representing the people in different ways and being elected in different ways, but that went out the window.
The 17th is proof. To sidestep a niggling procedural detail of filling vacant seats in the early 20th c., we changed the balance and character of the whole system, and threw it out of whack. The best thing we could do for the US federal government is to repeal the 16th and 17th amendments.
How 3/4 of the states ever agreed to give up their representation in Congress, I'll never understand.
I use Xubuntu (preferring Xfce to other, slower, DEs) and can't figure out how to edit the menu, either. There seems to be a large system-defined chunk that I can't touch, but that's the part I'd most want to configure.
I wish there were a single, simple menuing standard for all WMs to use. I hate not being able to port my menus from my slower machines running Blackbox to other faster machines where I run IceWM or Xfce or whatever. I want to configure them once and be done.
If you believe in equalizing bank accounts then I suppose you are correct. If you believe in the inherent equality of all persons then I think you are wrong.
I don't really care if $X is a bigger burden on someone poor. They ought to be receiving equal services (as defined in Article 1 Section 8) from their government because they are a citizen just the same as anyone else. So they should be contributing just as much (directly) to it.
Since you obviously can't get blood from a turnip, you can't squeeze a poor guy for money he just plain doesn't have - any capitation (head) tax would have to be nominal, a mere token. Therefore, this is not a good place for the government to derive revenue. That should come from tariffs and such, as described in the Constitution. This is where the rich (indirectly) contribute vastly more in taxes to the government's coffers - they buy lots more stuff.
I favor a complete elimination of income tax - no graduate tax, no flat tax, none at all. Let the government go back to the way it financed itself in the 19th century.
In fact, a head tax was originally the one of the only kinds of direct taxes the federal government could levy on its citizens. Direct taxes had to be apportioned among the states by population - ergo, a head tax.
It's precisely because it is controlled by the states that I think there is hope. You don't have to change national opinion, just one state. Once the system is proven to work, other states may notice and be more willing to try it.
But at least you get the "inoffensive" candidate by true concensus, rather than by political pandering of the candidates. I think that's good. I'd prefer to see candidates that took a firm stance on issues and stuck to their principles, even if I didn't agree with them. Let the voters sort it out at the ballot box, rather than trying (and failing) to be all things to all people.
Thanks for the link, btw. There was a good site at electionmethods.org, but it's gone now. You can find it in at archive.org though.
It's clear from the voting turnout that people desperately want third-party options. Perot was the first "serious" third-party candidate in many years. And you know what? 1992 was the first presidential election year since 1960 that voting turnout was up from the time before. When people feel their vote will make a difference, they'll vote. When they think there isn't a dime's worth of difference between them, they won't.
Amen to that, brutha.
I especially liked how the Dems got a "replacement" for Senator Wellstone on the ballot in MN a couple years ago. I'm sorry the guy died, but it is illegal to add someone to the ballot after the deadline, and illegal to transfer votes from the named candidate to another. Do you think either the Donkeys of Elephants would have allowed the Green/Constitution/Libertarian party to get away with that?
The Duopoly writes the laws to their own advantage, and doesn't even bother to obey them if they turn out to be inconvenient. All the more reason to vote third party, any third party, just to get rid of them.
I believe there are quite a few people who would instantly change their voting habits if they felt they weren't "throwing their vote away". The voting system itself is to blame for this. Just because you primarily supported Badnarik doesn't mean that you don't have a preference between Bush and Kerry...and since it seemed that they were the front-runners, it would be nice to have a say in the outcome of that race, yet without having to give up your support of the person you think is truly the best for the position! It's a quandary.
The solution (as I've posted several other places in this thread) is a Condorcet system. This restores freedom of conscience to the process - no longer would one have to forfeit his principles and values on the altar of pragmatism. No longer would you have to vote "for" the lesser of two evils, or "against" the greater of the two - you could vote for who you really want, and still influence the decision between the Evil Twins of the Duopoly.
Errrr...
PR is for multi-seat bodies, like a legislature. The Electoral College is used for the Presidency, a single-seat office. I don't think you've thought through voting and representation issues as well as you'd like to think you have.
There are very good reasons why there are three different types of representation used for the House, Senate (pre-17th Amendment), and EC. Try reading the Federalist Papers sometime and educate yourself.
That said, I wouldn't mind seeing PR used in one house of state legislatures. Congress has two houses, composed (again, pre-17th, a very very bad amendment) in two different ways, to serve as a balance and check against competing needs of the people being represented. This is a good idea. Yet most state legislatures use the same districted allocation for both houses. That makes no sense. There may be a relatively strong (~10%) political undercurrent across a state that is geographically distributed, and thus will never be able to carry a single district, so those people will never be truly represented. PR could help change that. I don't think it PR should be used to the exclusion of all other representation methods though.
I'm referring to the fact that our voting system only requires a plurality, not a majority, to win. Thus in a race of 3 candidates, the results can be 40/32/28 and you have a winner that a majority did not elect. That isn't right.
It may be the case that a majority find a "loser", while not a favorite, at least acceptable for the office, whereas the front-runner may be acceptable to only his core supporters. It may be the case that, if their favored candidate were not running, a majority would have voted for a "loser" instead. But with the current voting system we have no way of knowing. Alternative voting systems, such as Condorcet methods, do give us this information, so we can arrive a more fully-informed result as our winner.
Maybe with either the 40 or 32 guy out of the race, all those voters would have chosen Mr. 28 instead - a candidate with a strong core and wide acceptance as well. This is what a voting system should measure - can a candidate beat every other if the race were head-to-head between only them. That is a conclusive win. The current system is too prone to "strategic" considerations. When you only get to make one mark on the ballot, people will think, "I really think A is the best, but I feel that everyone else is going to make it come down to B or C, so I'd be better off using my single vote to influence that race rather than 'wasting my vote' on A." It's the old "I'm voting against B, not for C" - and a system that forces you to choose the lesser of two evils is clearly a broken system. One ought to be free to vote for (what one thinks is) the greatest good, without fear that you'll actually help the greater evil get in!
I think a consensus candidate would be a better pick than a minority winner who is unacceptable to a majority. Yet that's exactly what our polarized two-party system gives us. There is room for more than two views on the issues. The voting method needs to reflect this reality. We need to adopt a Condorcet voting system.
That's a fault of the (plurality) voting system, not the merits of any of those parties. A single choice can only select between two things. Work for voting reform. If the electorate has no chance to honestly express its preferences in the voting booth, how can we expect government to reflect the true will of the people? We need to implement a Condorcet method as soon as we can.
I really don't understand why there aren't more people voting Constitution and Libertarian. Has the effect of Duverger's Law really got this country so brainwashed, or what? I think most people with common sense just want everybody to mind their own business, and that includes government. Well, here are two parties espousing exactly that! If you keep voting for the entrenched Duopoly, you're part of the problem.
One that's paid for in full. Just a future goal, not a futuristic one.