Yes, based on Christian principles. Because the bible says "thou shalt not kill" and "thou shalt not steal" I believe we should have laws against murder and theft. Do you disagree with me just because I'm basing them on Christian principles? I'm following the Christian God's teachings, but you won't support me simply because of that?
Are you seeing yet how simply acknowledging God in one's duties as a civil servant does not equate to the same thing as establishing an official religion?
A government that fairly dispenses justice and upholds the rights of all individuals is one that honors God. God is honored when persons of good character stand up for and work for what is right and true. I do this because I'm a Christian. Maybe you do it just because you think it sounds like a good idea. In my opinion, your work honors God even though you never intended it to, and might even be offended when I say so!
I believe there is ample evidence that Christian principles shaped our country. (Others interpret the facts differently and disagree.) I don't see anything wrong with acknowledging the source of our freedom in this nation being the work of men who sought to do their Christian duty. In that sense, God really did bless us with our liberties. Even if God doesn't really exist, because those men thought He did and tried to serve Him, we have the freedom that we enjoy today. Acknowledging this as a historical fact does not compel anyone to believe in a specific religious creed, establish any kind of state religion, nor prevent anyone from practicing their religion as they see fit. There is no First Amendment violation in this.
Because it's not government's job to do those things. Even if you and I are both Christians (for the sake of discussion) we may have legitimate differences of opinion. We both have free will after all. To treat you with brotherly Christian love, I must allow you to be true to your conscience before God.
This means I cannot compel/force you to support something in contradiction with your conscience, even if I think it's the best thing in the world. How can I be God's servant if I am forcing my brother to violate his duties as God's servant? If I'm being honest with myself, I have to realize that I might be wrong in my interpretation. (I don't think so, obviously, but the possibility exists.) Thus I have to let you be free to do
This is the Christian foundation for limited government. Each person is responsible for his own conduct before God.
Let's start with charity. It is my responsibility to help the poor, and also my right to do so. As a Christian I believe that I get to heaven by faith and not works/charity, but I also believe I will be rewarded somehow for those works once I get there. When gov't takes over this function, it robs me of my volition in the matter (I have to give), and robs me of the opportunity to gain my reward (since I don't have the extra funds any more). Plus, the charity assisted by government might not be one I approve of, so my material wealth might have been used in a way I would consider wasteful at best and sinful at worst!
Compulsory charity is no longer charitable - you have no choice in the matter. When government takes over these functions from the private sector, it takes away the opportunity for individuals to express love to each other. A government can't love - it's a soulless organization. It can provide food, clothing, shelter - but not the spiritual connection that is just as essential as these.
Guns. God gives us the gift of life. My life is mine, and not yours to take away. If you threaten it, I am justified in defending it. It's as simple as that. When Jesus left the pesach seder to go to Gethsemane, he asked if his disciples had any swords. Obviously he thought it appropriate to have them. Later he showed that he disapproved of how Peter used his (he struck first, and was relying on his own strength rather than God's).
Death penalty. God gave mankind dominion over the earth - to fill it, take care of it, make constructive use of it, form societies, etc. You are right that the gospel advocates justice - God expects us to behave justly to each other, and when someone does something wrong, justice demands compensation and/or retribution. God is love, and it is true that love can be expressed in mercy, but not meting out justice to wrongdoers does not show love to victims. Yes, I believe there are crimes so egregious to others that the criminal forfeits his right to continue living. We're human and thus fallible, yes, but God gave us the responsibility and authority to administer justice. To not do so because we might make a mistake would abrogate that responsibility.
The NT advocates peace, yes, but not necessarily non-violence. Overturning tables in the temple in (righteous) anger was violent.
Stewardship of the earth is important as well. But God gave this responsibility to individuals when He said "thou shalt not steal" and thus created the notion of private property. The tragedy of the commons is the logical outgrowth of public property, which results in worse outcomes than personal stewardship. You're going to take care of what belongs to you, after all.
I've tried to be brief so I'm probably not doing justice on each individual point, but the post is already getting long.
You say "condorcet is really just a lesser of all evils approach" and basically that's true, as politics (and thus politicians) are a necessary evil.:) But if you have to choose evil, isn't it an improvement to have lesser evils than just the biggest two?
But your analysis is wrong. B voters think A and C are equally bad. It doesn't matter if "B is good enough to get first-place votes". It only matters that a majority prefer B to A, and a majority prefer B to C. Neither A nor C can say they have the backing of a majority, only a large minority.
You say "MOST people (15) didn't want B" but I say MOST people prefer B to A or C. Throwing out the preferences of a minority, and the "secondary preferences" of everybody, means we can never reach a concensus. Do you want a concensus, or polarization?
8 people want A...but 12 (a majority) think he's the worst!
7 people want B...but 13 (a majority) think he's the worst!
From this perspective, how could you let either A or B win?
The "trick" is to redefine what "winner" means. Simply "getting more votes than anyone else" is too weak a definition. A real winner ought to be able to beat every other candidate in a head-to-head race, right? If it's just the winner against any loser, the winner should always win - this make sense. Armed with this definition, look at the preferences again.
8 people prefer A to B.
8 people prefer A to C.
12 people prefer B to A.
13 people prefer B to C.
7 people prefer C to A.
7 people prefer C to B.
Thus if you compare B to every other candidate, B always wins! Clearly, B is the real winner here. Even though the smallest bloc supports him fully, you could say the "average voter satisfaction" is higher with B than with either of the others. Do you want a majority stuck with someone they don't want at all, or with someone they can tolerate (at least). I think it is more important to satisfy a clear majority than to cater to a large minority (which is what a plurality is).
Peroutka wants to turn the USA into a Christian theocracy.
People say the same thing about Bush. Hint: it isn't true, for either one.
Where do people get this stuff from? Just because someone has strong religious convictions, everyone assumes he'll force it down everyone else's throat? We have the First Amendment in large part because of strongly religious people that didn't want government enforcing any particular religion. Look at Peroutka's platform and take it at face value.
You have the right to defend yourself, and use a gun to do so.
Unborn babies are human beings with a right to life.
Reduce gov't spending and balance the budget.
Parents should oversee the education their children receive, not some gov't bureaucracy.
Gov't should not be giving money to any faith-based group. [emphasis mine]
The marriage amendment is not necessary. [emphasis mine]
Trade agreements should benefit, not hurt, America.
Secure and defend our borders, deport those who are here illegally.
Government doesn't give us our (inherent inalienable) rights, government's job is to protect them.
Smaller gov't.
Medicare is a wasteful boondoggle, let people retain their own money and care for their own needs. (Likewise for other entitlements.)
Eliminate income, inheritance, and property taxes. Legitimate gov't functions can be financed by excises and duties.
Etc...
Now, you may disagree with these positions, but nowhere does he say, "I want to be a Christian dictator and force you all to go to church." He's a Christian, yes, and derives his political policies from his beliefs, yes. But doesn't everyone derive their policies from their beliefs? Are you deciding a priori that some policies are "bad" only because they come from religious beliefs? (Sounds intolerant.) Others could have the exact same policies derived from other sources - indeed, the Libertarian positions on most issues are very similar. Both call for limited government and personal responsibility; i.e. govern and conduct yourself well and you don't need much externally-imposed governance.
For example, Condorcet (the most common voting method touted above IRV) suffers from some pretty serious strategy problems.
Name them. All the ones I've ever seen brought up have been addressed. AFAIK, Condorcet is completely strategy-free - voting honestly is the best way to get the results you want.
Every year is going to be an important election year, every race is going to be a tight race. If your principles aren't worth standing up for at the most crucial time to make them known, I guess your principles aren't worth much.
The most important heritage I can pass on to my family, my community, and my country is to try to stand up for what's right regardless of the cost. Maybe I lose, but I can sleep at night and live with myself the next day. Your definition of "right" may differ completely from mine, and that's OK - I encourage you to make a stand, too. America is not made stronger by wishy-washy citizens playing it "safe". It would have been "safe" to stay subject to Britain in 1776, too.
It's never the wrong time to vote for your beliefs.
Couldn't agree more. Illegals are an affront to all the immigrants who go through the proper channels, like my great great grandparents did. If you don't go through the system you either have something to hide or don't have any respect for the culture/economy you want to exploit.
Following my own post, I know, but I wanted to be clear.
The only change I'd make in the EC is convincing more states to divvy votes by popular vote.
I think the districted approach is good because it follows the idea that Representatives are for districts. The statewide votes could be used to lean this result toward popular proportionality, since those are the "Senate" votes that are for the entire state.
For many things, that's true. But looking at the details, this time isn't one them.
That's why it's important to elect ppl to your legislature that are more concerned with doing the right thing than doing the selfish thing. Finding ppl like that, who won't be swayed with the power once they get in office, are hard to find.
"Power in proportion to your population" is somewhat different from "completely ignore"
Often it amounts to the same. If "your side" can carry only 40% of the vote, do you think you get 40% of your agenda enacted? No. Not if the other 60% wants to do something completely different. They can safely ignore you while they vote for what they want. There have to be safeguards built into the system, such as requiring supermajorities on some votes or building a system that requires "equality" in more than one way of looking at it, to counteract this.
OK, I wrote that a little sloppy as my thoughts were getting ahead of my fingers. The EC votes are granted by district, not proportionally.
One of my suggested refinements to the districted allocation system is to use the 2 state-at-large votes to tweak the results closer to true proportionality. Thus if Bush carries all 3 districts and Kerry only gets 20% in the popular vote, he'd still get one of those 2 EC votes.
Thank Abraham Lincoln for invading the CSA when they wanted to peacefully secede. The passage of the 17th Amendment pretty much cemented the death of federalism. Federalism worked quite well before this point. Far more concern went into local and state politics than far-off Washington.
Federalism works very well as a concept, it's just that it's been destroyed in the US. We're now a federal republic in name only.
The EC is fine as it is. It helps avoid tyranny of the majority by giving some votes to each state by virtue of population, and some by virtue of being an independent state. (How else do you combine the ideals of House/Senate representation into a singular office?) If it were pure popular vote, rural areas would be completely ignored. As a resident of a rural state, I'd protest this change most strongly. And since you need an amendment to change this, which must be ratified by 3/4 of the states, it's not going to happen.
The only change I'd make in the EC is convincing more states to divvy votes by popular vote.
Funny thing is that the Electoral College system creates tyranny of the majority- within each state. [...] There are a majority of Republicans and a minority of Democrats. When they vote for President, however, ALL the electoral votes go to Bush, instead of the Democrats sending their 30% to Kerry.
This is not the fault of the EC itself. This is a fault at the state level, because each state decides how to assign the EC votes. Nebraska and Maine divvy the votes proportionally to the popular vote. Colorado is considering it.
So petition your state legislature! It's easier to make a change at the state level than at the federal. That is, in fact, the primary reason for federalism (as opposed to nationalism) - it's supposed to keep more power at the state and local levels rather than centralizing it.
If equal voting power and equal ability to participate in the free market aren't enough to give those towns viability, then let them die.
Fine, if California (and the other big states) will let Iowa (and the other small states) secede when they start getting screwed. That was the original idea with a federal system, too. States (especially New England) threatened secession often in the first half century of the union. I bet if they tried today, CA/NY/TX/etc would suddenly feel that those states are important enough to keep them in the union, by force if necessary.
You can't just completely ignore people's concerns because they're a minority. You're arguing for tyranny of the majority, the primary reason that pure democracy doesn't work!
Condorcet'smethod avoids Duverger's Law by providing a ranked voting system in which all preferences are simultaneously pairwise evaluated. It can be seen as a generalization of plurality voting and approval voting. However it is unlike Instant Runoff Voting, which also uses ranking and pairwise comparisons, because IRV evaluates preferences sequentially, discarding some as it goes. So though the vote casting method is the same between the two, the vote counting method is different.*
To get a conceptual grasp for what Condorcet tries to do, ask yourself what the definition of "election winner" is. Plurality voting says it is the guy with the most votes. This has a strategic problem whenever there are more than two candidates, however - are you really voting for candidate A, or against candidate B when you really prefer dark horse C? Since the system doesn't allow you to express your full preferences, there is a temptation to abandon your principles and put your vote where you think it will have the most effect - behind one of the two perceived front-runners. They're perceived that way because everyone else faces the same dilemma you do.
OTOH, Condorcet voting says the winner is the candidate who would win a clear majority of head-to-head elections against all the other candidates individually. If you're the best candidate, then this is something you ought to be able to do - right? When clear 1-2-3 preferences are given, it is easy to tally this. Time-consuming (you're not counting ballots but "wins" - so in an n-way race there will be (n^2 - n)/2 "wins" on every ballot) but conceptually easy.
Note this is related to how the media looks at 3rd parties as "spoilers" - they ask people "if Nader wasn't in the race, would you vote Bush or Gore?" Why don't they ask "if Gore weren't in the race, would you vote Bush or Nader?" Maybe Gore was a spoiler for Nader! If you can vote for who you really want (Nader, for example) while still making your preference of Gore over Bush clear, the spoiler problem is eliminated. With Condorcet, you can vote your conscience without sacrificing the result!
The Condorcet winner tends to be the concensus winner - he might not be the first choice of the largest voting bloc, but the average voter satisfaction will be higher. Take the 1912 presidential race. Together Roosevelt and Taft got 51% of the vote, and differed little. But Democrat Wilson won with only 42% because the other two split the conservative vote. I think it's fairly obvious that the 51% would have been happier had either Roosevelt or Taft won, though only about 25% would have listed either as their first choice.
I like to think of the Libertarians as the parallel today. Fiscally conservative and socially liberal (to generalize), they can be seen as "between" the Democrats and Republicans. Though they might not win many first-place rankings, I tend to believe that most Ds and Rs would prefer them over the "other guy". This large number of second-over-third-place wins could put them over the top. And conceptually this makes sense - you get a president that a clear majority can live with, instead of a polarizing factor in the Oval Office.
FWIW, approval voting comes somewhere between these models. You can give multiple candidates a "thumbs up" instead of just one like plurality, and the guy with the most votes still wins, but there is no differentiation between them like Condorcet. Thus there is still a temptation to vote strategically. If you approve of A and B but actually preferred A, you might not give an approval to B in order to sabotage his chances. Then we're right back to plurality voting and two major candidates.
who the republicans are listening to these days is the "Moral Majority" or the "Religious Right"
From what I hear, the social conservatives (as opposed to the fiscal conservative arm of the Elephant Party) aren't very happy with many of Bush's actions, either. Why anyone still blindly holds on to the GOP hoping it will return to its roots, I don't know. It's pretty clear that it won't.
Your state's Secretary of State would know. The SoS is the "election official" among other things. I happen to be a presidential elector in Nebraska this year.
Sorry, it's an issue I've thought much about and have strong opinions for. Third parties will never gain traction as long as the mass media continues to spoon feed overly simplified analyses to the American public. And American politics desperately needs more than two views represented. The USSR had one political party. Two is only one more. A healthy political system ought to have several viable competing alternatives to choose from. Of course, moving from plurality voting to Condorcet voting would eliminate the spoiler effect you mention. It's a vicious cycle.
The whole issue is about the voting process, not the entire political system. I agree with you that a two-party system sucks, but the point here [...]
You are talking about the voting process. Your parent post was talking about the voting system. Rumors to the contrary aside, the US does not have a two-party system. Plurality voting virtually guarantees that two parties will rise to dominance (Duverger's Law), but "two-party system" isn't carved in stone anywhere.
As long as there are always an even number of parties, and that they are equally divided on the right/left axis
There are n axes, one for every single issue anybody cares about. It's idiotically simplistic to say that everyone who votes "left" on this issue will be "left" on every other issue. Two points of view as expressed by merely two political parties is woefully inadequate to model reality.
FL recently amended its constitution to extend certain rights to pigs. Seems to me that law can be applied to animals. If marriage is only about "love" then the argument for "marrying" your dog seems pretty strong.
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Yes, based on Christian principles. Because the bible says "thou shalt not kill" and "thou shalt not steal" I believe we should have laws against murder and theft. Do you disagree with me just because I'm basing them on Christian principles? I'm following the Christian God's teachings, but you won't support me simply because of that?
Are you seeing yet how simply acknowledging God in one's duties as a civil servant does not equate to the same thing as establishing an official religion?
A government that fairly dispenses justice and upholds the rights of all individuals is one that honors God. God is honored when persons of good character stand up for and work for what is right and true. I do this because I'm a Christian. Maybe you do it just because you think it sounds like a good idea. In my opinion, your work honors God even though you never intended it to, and might even be offended when I say so!
I believe there is ample evidence that Christian principles shaped our country. (Others interpret the facts differently and disagree.) I don't see anything wrong with acknowledging the source of our freedom in this nation being the work of men who sought to do their Christian duty. In that sense, God really did bless us with our liberties. Even if God doesn't really exist, because those men thought He did and tried to serve Him, we have the freedom that we enjoy today. Acknowledging this as a historical fact does not compel anyone to believe in a specific religious creed, establish any kind of state religion, nor prevent anyone from practicing their religion as they see fit. There is no First Amendment violation in this.
Because it's not government's job to do those things. Even if you and I are both Christians (for the sake of discussion) we may have legitimate differences of opinion. We both have free will after all. To treat you with brotherly Christian love, I must allow you to be true to your conscience before God.
This means I cannot compel/force you to support something in contradiction with your conscience, even if I think it's the best thing in the world. How can I be God's servant if I am forcing my brother to violate his duties as God's servant? If I'm being honest with myself, I have to realize that I might be wrong in my interpretation. (I don't think so, obviously, but the possibility exists.) Thus I have to let you be free to do
This is the Christian foundation for limited government. Each person is responsible for his own conduct before God.
Let's start with charity. It is my responsibility to help the poor, and also my right to do so. As a Christian I believe that I get to heaven by faith and not works/charity, but I also believe I will be rewarded somehow for those works once I get there. When gov't takes over this function, it robs me of my volition in the matter (I have to give), and robs me of the opportunity to gain my reward (since I don't have the extra funds any more). Plus, the charity assisted by government might not be one I approve of, so my material wealth might have been used in a way I would consider wasteful at best and sinful at worst!
Compulsory charity is no longer charitable - you have no choice in the matter. When government takes over these functions from the private sector, it takes away the opportunity for individuals to express love to each other. A government can't love - it's a soulless organization. It can provide food, clothing, shelter - but not the spiritual connection that is just as essential as these.
Guns. God gives us the gift of life. My life is mine, and not yours to take away. If you threaten it, I am justified in defending it. It's as simple as that. When Jesus left the pesach seder to go to Gethsemane, he asked if his disciples had any swords. Obviously he thought it appropriate to have them. Later he showed that he disapproved of how Peter used his (he struck first, and was relying on his own strength rather than God's).
Death penalty. God gave mankind dominion over the earth - to fill it, take care of it, make constructive use of it, form societies, etc. You are right that the gospel advocates justice - God expects us to behave justly to each other, and when someone does something wrong, justice demands compensation and/or retribution. God is love, and it is true that love can be expressed in mercy, but not meting out justice to wrongdoers does not show love to victims. Yes, I believe there are crimes so egregious to others that the criminal forfeits his right to continue living. We're human and thus fallible, yes, but God gave us the responsibility and authority to administer justice. To not do so because we might make a mistake would abrogate that responsibility.
The NT advocates peace, yes, but not necessarily non-violence. Overturning tables in the temple in (righteous) anger was violent.
Stewardship of the earth is important as well. But God gave this responsibility to individuals when He said "thou shalt not steal" and thus created the notion of private property. The tragedy of the commons is the logical outgrowth of public property, which results in worse outcomes than personal stewardship. You're going to take care of what belongs to you, after all.
I've tried to be brief so I'm probably not doing justice on each individual point, but the post is already getting long.
You say "condorcet is really just a lesser of all evils approach" and basically that's true, as politics (and thus politicians) are a necessary evil. :) But if you have to choose evil, isn't it an improvement to have lesser evils than just the biggest two?
But your analysis is wrong. B voters think A and C are equally bad. It doesn't matter if "B is good enough to get first-place votes". It only matters that a majority prefer B to A, and a majority prefer B to C. Neither A nor C can say they have the backing of a majority, only a large minority.
You say "MOST people (15) didn't want B" but I say MOST people prefer B to A or C. Throwing out the preferences of a minority, and the "secondary preferences" of everybody, means we can never reach a concensus. Do you want a concensus, or polarization?
You're looking at it wrong.
8 people want A...but 12 (a majority) think he's the worst!
7 people want B...but 13 (a majority) think he's the worst!
From this perspective, how could you let either A or B win?
The "trick" is to redefine what "winner" means. Simply "getting more votes than anyone else" is too weak a definition. A real winner ought to be able to beat every other candidate in a head-to-head race, right? If it's just the winner against any loser, the winner should always win - this make sense. Armed with this definition, look at the preferences again.
8 people prefer A to B.
8 people prefer A to C.
12 people prefer B to A.
13 people prefer B to C.
7 people prefer C to A.
7 people prefer C to B.
Thus if you compare B to every other candidate, B always wins! Clearly, B is the real winner here. Even though the smallest bloc supports him fully, you could say the "average voter satisfaction" is higher with B than with either of the others. Do you want a majority stuck with someone they don't want at all, or with someone they can tolerate (at least). I think it is more important to satisfy a clear majority than to cater to a large minority (which is what a plurality is).
People say the same thing about Bush. Hint: it isn't true, for either one.
Where do people get this stuff from? Just because someone has strong religious convictions, everyone assumes he'll force it down everyone else's throat? We have the First Amendment in large part because of strongly religious people that didn't want government enforcing any particular religion. Look at Peroutka's platform and take it at face value.
Now, you may disagree with these positions, but nowhere does he say, "I want to be a Christian dictator and force you all to go to church." He's a Christian, yes, and derives his political policies from his beliefs, yes. But doesn't everyone derive their policies from their beliefs? Are you deciding a priori that some policies are "bad" only because they come from religious beliefs? (Sounds intolerant.) Others could have the exact same policies derived from other sources - indeed, the Libertarian positions on most issues are very similar. Both call for limited government and personal responsibility; i.e. govern and conduct yourself well and you don't need much externally-imposed governance.
Name them. All the ones I've ever seen brought up have been addressed. AFAIK, Condorcet is completely strategy-free - voting honestly is the best way to get the results you want.
Every year is going to be an important election year, every race is going to be a tight race. If your principles aren't worth standing up for at the most crucial time to make them known, I guess your principles aren't worth much.
The most important heritage I can pass on to my family, my community, and my country is to try to stand up for what's right regardless of the cost. Maybe I lose, but I can sleep at night and live with myself the next day. Your definition of "right" may differ completely from mine, and that's OK - I encourage you to make a stand, too. America is not made stronger by wishy-washy citizens playing it "safe". It would have been "safe" to stay subject to Britain in 1776, too.
It's never the wrong time to vote for your beliefs.
Couldn't agree more. Illegals are an affront to all the immigrants who go through the proper channels, like my great great grandparents did. If you don't go through the system you either have something to hide or don't have any respect for the culture/economy you want to exploit.
Badnarik and not Peroutka?
/me is mildly surprised.
Even when not in the Valley this is unrealistic. Try something more in the ~2000 sq ft range, please.
That's essentially what "political correctness" gives us. Gotta be careful not to "offend" anyone, anywhere, anytime.
That's what I was going to say. We've grown into the name national republic - federalism still means composed of several parts.
Following my own post, I know, but I wanted to be clear.
I think the districted approach is good because it follows the idea that Representatives are for districts. The statewide votes could be used to lean this result toward popular proportionality, since those are the "Senate" votes that are for the entire state.
That's why it's important to elect ppl to your legislature that are more concerned with doing the right thing than doing the selfish thing. Finding ppl like that, who won't be swayed with the power once they get in office, are hard to find.
Often it amounts to the same. If "your side" can carry only 40% of the vote, do you think you get 40% of your agenda enacted? No. Not if the other 60% wants to do something completely different. They can safely ignore you while they vote for what they want. There have to be safeguards built into the system, such as requiring supermajorities on some votes or building a system that requires "equality" in more than one way of looking at it, to counteract this.
OK, I wrote that a little sloppy as my thoughts were getting ahead of my fingers. The EC votes are granted by district, not proportionally.
One of my suggested refinements to the districted allocation system is to use the 2 state-at-large votes to tweak the results closer to true proportionality. Thus if Bush carries all 3 districts and Kerry only gets 20% in the popular vote, he'd still get one of those 2 EC votes.
Thank Abraham Lincoln for invading the CSA when they wanted to peacefully secede. The passage of the 17th Amendment pretty much cemented the death of federalism. Federalism worked quite well before this point. Far more concern went into local and state politics than far-off Washington.
Federalism works very well as a concept, it's just that it's been destroyed in the US. We're now a federal republic in name only.
Or swing districts in Maine and Nebraska.
The EC is fine as it is. It helps avoid tyranny of the majority by giving some votes to each state by virtue of population, and some by virtue of being an independent state. (How else do you combine the ideals of House/Senate representation into a singular office?) If it were pure popular vote, rural areas would be completely ignored. As a resident of a rural state, I'd protest this change most strongly. And since you need an amendment to change this, which must be ratified by 3/4 of the states, it's not going to happen.
The only change I'd make in the EC is convincing more states to divvy votes by popular vote.
This is not the fault of the EC itself. This is a fault at the state level, because each state decides how to assign the EC votes. Nebraska and Maine divvy the votes proportionally to the popular vote. Colorado is considering it.
So petition your state legislature! It's easier to make a change at the state level than at the federal. That is, in fact, the primary reason for federalism (as opposed to nationalism) - it's supposed to keep more power at the state and local levels rather than centralizing it.
Fine, if California (and the other big states) will let Iowa (and the other small states) secede when they start getting screwed. That was the original idea with a federal system, too. States (especially New England) threatened secession often in the first half century of the union. I bet if they tried today, CA/NY/TX/etc would suddenly feel that those states are important enough to keep them in the union, by force if necessary.
You can't just completely ignore people's concerns because they're a minority. You're arguing for tyranny of the majority, the primary reason that pure democracy doesn't work!
This isn't the first time there's been malicious use of lasers. I'm not reaching for the tinfoil hat, but I wouldn't rule it out completely.
Condorcet's method avoids Duverger's Law by providing a ranked voting system in which all preferences are simultaneously pairwise evaluated. It can be seen as a generalization of plurality voting and approval voting. However it is unlike Instant Runoff Voting, which also uses ranking and pairwise comparisons, because IRV evaluates preferences sequentially, discarding some as it goes. So though the vote casting method is the same between the two, the vote counting method is different.*
To get a conceptual grasp for what Condorcet tries to do, ask yourself what the definition of "election winner" is. Plurality voting says it is the guy with the most votes. This has a strategic problem whenever there are more than two candidates, however - are you really voting for candidate A, or against candidate B when you really prefer dark horse C? Since the system doesn't allow you to express your full preferences, there is a temptation to abandon your principles and put your vote where you think it will have the most effect - behind one of the two perceived front-runners. They're perceived that way because everyone else faces the same dilemma you do.
OTOH, Condorcet voting says the winner is the candidate who would win a clear majority of head-to-head elections against all the other candidates individually. If you're the best candidate, then this is something you ought to be able to do - right? When clear 1-2-3 preferences are given, it is easy to tally this. Time-consuming (you're not counting ballots but "wins" - so in an n-way race there will be (n^2 - n)/2 "wins" on every ballot) but conceptually easy.
Note this is related to how the media looks at 3rd parties as "spoilers" - they ask people "if Nader wasn't in the race, would you vote Bush or Gore?" Why don't they ask "if Gore weren't in the race, would you vote Bush or Nader?" Maybe Gore was a spoiler for Nader! If you can vote for who you really want (Nader, for example) while still making your preference of Gore over Bush clear, the spoiler problem is eliminated. With Condorcet, you can vote your conscience without sacrificing the result!
The Condorcet winner tends to be the concensus winner - he might not be the first choice of the largest voting bloc, but the average voter satisfaction will be higher. Take the 1912 presidential race. Together Roosevelt and Taft got 51% of the vote, and differed little. But Democrat Wilson won with only 42% because the other two split the conservative vote. I think it's fairly obvious that the 51% would have been happier had either Roosevelt or Taft won, though only about 25% would have listed either as their first choice.
I like to think of the Libertarians as the parallel today. Fiscally conservative and socially liberal (to generalize), they can be seen as "between" the Democrats and Republicans. Though they might not win many first-place rankings, I tend to believe that most Ds and Rs would prefer them over the "other guy". This large number of second-over-third-place wins could put them over the top. And conceptually this makes sense - you get a president that a clear majority can live with, instead of a polarizing factor in the Oval Office.
FWIW, approval voting comes somewhere between these models. You can give multiple candidates a "thumbs up" instead of just one like plurality, and the guy with the most votes still wins, but there is no differentiation between them like Condorcet. Thus there is still a temptation to vote strategically. If you approve of A and B but actually preferred A, you might not give an approval to B in order to sabotage his chances. Then we're right back to plurality voting and two major candidates.
*Sidebar: IRV is dangerous beca
From what I hear, the social conservatives (as opposed to the fiscal conservative arm of the Elephant Party) aren't very happy with many of Bush's actions, either. Why anyone still blindly holds on to the GOP hoping it will return to its roots, I don't know. It's pretty clear that it won't.
Your state's Secretary of State would know. The SoS is the "election official" among other things. I happen to be a presidential elector in Nebraska this year.
Sorry, it's an issue I've thought much about and have strong opinions for. Third parties will never gain traction as long as the mass media continues to spoon feed overly simplified analyses to the American public. And American politics desperately needs more than two views represented. The USSR had one political party. Two is only one more. A healthy political system ought to have several viable competing alternatives to choose from. Of course, moving from plurality voting to Condorcet voting would eliminate the spoiler effect you mention. It's a vicious cycle.
You are talking about the voting process. Your parent post was talking about the voting system. Rumors to the contrary aside, the US does not have a two-party system. Plurality voting virtually guarantees that two parties will rise to dominance (Duverger's Law), but "two-party system" isn't carved in stone anywhere.
There are n axes, one for every single issue anybody cares about. It's idiotically simplistic to say that everyone who votes "left" on this issue will be "left" on every other issue. Two points of view as expressed by merely two political parties is woefully inadequate to model reality.
FL recently amended its constitution to extend certain rights to pigs. Seems to me that law can be applied to animals. If marriage is only about "love" then the argument for "marrying" your dog seems pretty strong.