The problem with the 17th is that it radically altered the balance of power in government.
Remember that we have a federal government, formed by joint action of individual states. They set up, in the Constitution, systems of "checks and balances" to keep government from encroaching on the rights of its citizens. You were likely taught as a child about the division of power between the Leg/Exec/Jud branches.
But this is not the only power triangle. The Founders were not wary only of a part of government with too much power (king), but that the power of government as a whole was too far removed from the people. Reading the DoI and Constitution, it is clear the idea was that "we, the people" were sovereign, and the plan was that government should only be as big as necessary to perform it's necessary and proper functions. These functions are clearly delineated, mostly in Art 1 Sec 8. Government's natural tendency is to accumulate power to itself. What better check on the power of one government than to balance it against another government? Hence the idea of a federal system. The other power triangle is that of the People, States, and Federal.
We mostly see this in the design of Congress, divided as it is into two houses. The HoR represents the people, the popular will of the nation. Spending bills must originate in the HoR because ultimately it is the people that pay the taxes. The Senate represents the states in their capacity as sovereign political bodies. The president ratifies treaties with consent of 2/3 of the Senate because it is political bodies that are bound by treaties.
Representatives were to be selected by the popular vote of the district they represented. Senators were to be selected by the legislatures of their respective states, typically from among their own members. Today we are so ingrained with the idea of direct democracy that this seems foreign. "What do you mean I don't choose my senator?" But think about it a moment longer:
Your state deals with local matters that affect you day to day, but at the US Congress' level you have to be concerned with the nation as a whole and world affairs. Does the average individual have enough time to become educated on all the issues around the country and the world in order to make a good selection for senator? No! The indirect democratic process lets you send wise people from your own community (that you probably know well) to your state capitol, and let them, hopefully the "best and brightest" of your state, the people you've delegated the responsibility of pondering political matters "full-time" on your behalf, select who represents the state in DC.
(To a lesser extent, you also see this balance in the Electoral College. The number of electors isn't random, it's the sum of Senators and Representatives for a reason - it's an attempt at unifying the popular will and the states' will into choosing someone for a singular office (president). The president is not only the leader of people, he's the leader of the united states - plural - too.)
The 17th Amendment threw this all out the window. To "fix" a few procedural problems (Senate vacancies going unfilled because of partisan squabbling in the states) it was changed to allow direct election of senators. This effectively stripped the states (as political entities) from having any voice in DC. No longer are senators obligated to look at "the big picture" and do what is best for the state (which is why senators were given 6-year terms), they become more concerned with getting re-elected and pleasing advocacy groups to win votes. Senators used to be the "cool heads" because of this, not easily heated up by the passions of the people. Senators took the long-term view. Representatives were only given 2-year terms so that they could not do too much damage following the whims of the people. The Founders knew the dangers of democracy ("mob rule") and that's why we have a republic. But after the 17th, Senators because Representatives with a term long enough to push through popular, but dangerous, agendas. No longer was power kept close to the people in their respective states, but it began to accumulate in Washington. The safeguard of one government against another is gone. Now you routinely see state governors whining to "big brother" for federal aid for this or that, and more local issues being controlled by far-away bureaucrats - the very thing the Founders loathed.
Another side effect of this amendment is the detachment of senators even from the people who put them in office! Each Represenative has about, what, half a million constituents? Do you really think that he is able to meet with all of them, know all of them, to represent their interests well? How much worse for Senators who may represent up to 50 times that many, or more! Your senator doesn't know you, or care about you. Your ignorance (of national matters, of world matters, of him personally) puts him in office - that's what he likes. Senators today are not truly accountable, as they were when they only had to answer to a small group (the state legislature) that could chastise them. Six years from now we'll have forgotten any offenses, and re-elect the guy. Add the fact that senate campaigns are some of the most expensive in the country, because you have to cover the whole state, rather a smaller group. If you want "campaign finance reform", repeal the 17th amendment! Overnight you'll see far less political money thrown around.
An aside: read the Federalist Papers. (You can get Mary Webster's translation into "modern" English. Also handy because it indexes which letters discuss which topics.) Nothing in the Constitution was done on a whim or by chance. Everything was carefully reasoned out. Proposals for amendments should always be meticulously scrutinized. The 17th was not, unfortunately. William Jennings Bryan (IIRC) helped make it happen, but he spent the rest of his life trying to get it repealed. It also helps if you think of "The United States" as not one entity, but many, as the Founders did.
What's missing from the US Constitution is, quite frankly, consequences.
I think the consequences are implied from the 2nd Amendment and the DoI. "Screw with the rights of the people, and it could happen again. We, the people, reserve the just authority to do so." The 2nd Amendment is the bulwark of liberty. It's not there to protect your "right" to hunt or plink tin cans.
Because the most states have a "winner take all" system, any candidate that doesn't have enormous numbers of backers to begin with isn't going to win anyways.
"Winner takes all" only applies in presidential elections. There are a number of other problems which apply in all elections. The plurality voting system is chief among them.
So, if no candidate gets a majority, you have a run-off among the top contenders.
Bad idea. Learn about the problem with Instant Runoff Voting. The same problem applies in any runoff, instant or not. Sometimes the best "compromise" candidate may get eliminated first, and you're stuck voting between two bad choices - exactly what we have now. Yes, plurality voting is bad, but IRV isn't really any better (even though it seems to be). The system you want is Condorcetvoting. Same ranking method, but you consider all preferences simultaneously rather than sequentially.
Now that I think about it, getting rid of the electoral college would have the same effect as insisting on proportional represntation of electoral college seats.
Not really. True proportional representation by popular vote forgets that the states, as political entities, should be represented in the federal government too. (That's what federal government means, the federation of individual states.) In Congress we have one house that represents the states (at least we did until that lousy 17th Amendment) and one that represents the people. The EC is an attempt to unify the interests of the states and the people when voting for a singular office (president). That's why the number of EC votes a state has is the total number of Senators and Representatives from that state.
I do agree that "winner takes all" is a broken system. The legislators that put it in place were very short-sighted - in giving more power to "their state's party" in presidential elections, they didn't think that the balance of power in their state might swing another way in the future and end up hurting "their party". NE and ME allocate their EC votes (less two) proportionally by congressional district to the plurality winner of that district. That's a good attempt at compromise. I think it would be better if we used Condorcet, better still if the last two EC votes were decided in the state legislature (if they are supposed to represent the state's interest) and we scrapped the 17th Am. while we're at it. Remember, these issues are decided by your state legislators, not DC. This gives you much greater ability to make a change to the system. It's closer to you, and hence more responsive.
I've also heard people say that we don't have enough representatives in Congress. With only 435, each has far too many constituents to respond to. The Constitution originally called for a 1:30k ratio. Maybe several thousand would be a tad excessive, but with modern technology I don't see why the number couldn't be increased without hampering the ability to debate. This means you'd have more chance of your view being represented in Congress, and combined with the idea of allocating EC votes by CD, a better chance of picking the president too.
Two choices isn't a choice, it's a coin flip and a mockery of representative republican values. Both parties have tried for years to convince the public that having 10-190 people officially registered on the ballot is irresponsible because it creates chaos somehow. Having two people on the ballot is akin to having only one choice in most races.
I couldn't agree more. And as a member of an American third party, one of the issues I promote is voting reform. (Not campaign finance reform, which just restricts your ability to participate financially in the political process.) We needCondorcetvoting or some other method that allows to express a preference between more than only two candidates.
Look at it this way. The ideal political system runs on a foundation of honesty and truth. If the voting system compels you to sacrifice your conscience and vote for the "lesser of two evils" then your choice in the ballot box is a lie. Our system is rotten at its core. If we lie when we put officials into office, how can we expect the system to work truthfully and honestly? If you vote for a third party, any third party, I applaud you for standing true to your beliefs. To the rest of you: stop compromising what you believe in. Do the right thing, investigate all the parties and candidates in the race, and vote for the one you agree with the most even if "popular wisdom" says "he can't win". Even better, get off your butt and get involved in a party. Stop complaining and get involved.
Remember, having two parties on the ballot is only one more than they had in Soviet Russia. As ShatteredDream said, that's not a choice at all.
Kind of like the snooping of libraries under the (un)PATRIOT act. Sure you may have the right to say/print what you want, but we'll bust you for listening/reading.:P The freedom of speech/press necessarily includes the freedom to listen/read. The freedom to keep arms must necessarily include the freedom to keep ammunition.
Technically, UPS is a private company, and they can refuse business if they want to. (There are plenty of cases where companies are told they cannot refuse business from certain groups, but we won't go into that now.) You're free to start a competing company. However, if that refusal is due to coercion by government, that's a different story.
I think the most insightful observation was the likening of high schools to prison. The primary goal is to keep you on the premises, make sure you get fed, and keep you out of too much trouble. In that order. (And if you learn something, that must be a bonus.)
Outside of the computer industry, nobody knows what a programmer is.
I agree. Just about every time I spend any significant amount of time talking with family, regardless of who it is (parents, grandparents, cousins), I get asked "So what do you actually do, again?" And they don't ask just once. Next time we visit, they'll ask again.
I couldn't agree more. I was given half a dozen PowerMac 6100's by folks that lived on the "high end" and thought these were obsolete. Often I'd get old kids games and ancient copies of Word with them. I scrounged spare memory I had, and swapped some parts around, and now I have 6 machines with 24-36 MB RAM and 500-800 MB drives. To the people I'm giving these to, these machines are wonderful. Their kids can write school papers at home instead of staying late at school or spending time up at the library.
If I've contributed to bringing a family a little closer together, it's definitely worth it.
60 MHz is plenty fast to do this. Heck, I was using machines 10 years older than these to do word processing. As long as the hardware isn't kaput, it's useful to somebody. (I've got an SE/30 running NetBSD, but that's another story.)
It matters because the idea of "the two-party system" is a self-fulfilling prophecy. As soon as a third party makes inroads and shows some gains, more people that would be hesitant to "throw their vote away" might go ahead and vote their conscience. It would allow third parties to gain momentum in a system stacked against them.
It is indeed one of the greatest ironies of the American landscape.
It always is. Everyone's against "wasteful" spending, but what's spent on me is not (by definition!) wasteful. You can apply this argument to any group - they all think they are entitled to what gov't gives them. I advocate equal opportunity spending cuts - cut all pork, even if I'm benefitting from some of it. It's the only way to be fair.
The joke in the Midwest is "How do farmers' seed corn caps get curved brims? From looking into their mailboxes to find the gov't check." Or something to that effect.
It's what we elect them for. We elect politicians who promise to tax other people and spend that money on us. It's called bringing home the bacon.
That's not what I elect them for. I vote against bacon-types. I vote for candidates who will secure our liberties, no more, no less. Unfortunately, these candidates are few and far between. Dr. Ron Paul's about the only one I know of in DC. There are a few others who will sometimes take a stand on specific issues, but none who stand by principle. Until we break the Duopoly's stranglehold on American politics, there are unlikely to be many more.
Plurality voting is the source of most of the election problems we have in the US. We don't need "campaign finance" reform, we need voting method reform! The problem isn't that Democrats and/or Republicans spend a lot of money, the problem is that we can't effectively vote against both of them!
Glad to see someone else posting usefulCondorcetlinks. Condorcet is so superior to other methods, and IRV so flawed, I'm surprised that IRV is still mentioned as a possible replacement for plurality.
Farming shouldn't have to be subsidized. Sink or swim, that's free enterprise. Why should their business get a free handout if mine doesn't?
Instead, stop regulating the farmer so dang much and let him compete fairly against all the foreign producers that aren't struggling under the pressures he is. The American farmer is practically told what to plant, how much of it, where to do it, and when he can do it - if he wants to keep getting assistance.
Won't be long before the gov't just openly nationalizes farming. Once gov't controls your food supply, it's really got you by the short hair. Since it's already got your money and your guns, and is indoctrinating your children, who's going to resist?
Funny, the small rural states are usually the ones that are the most fiecely independent.
Obviously the country is going to go deeper in debt if you lower taxes without decreasing spending at the same time. The poster was saying "Stop collecting taxes and stop disbursing money". In Taxachusetts, a ballot initiative to can the income tax had about 40% support (IIRC) without the huge funding and publicity the pro-tax lobby had. But if it had passed, you know the reaction in Boston would be "How do we make up for that income" not "Now we have to cut back spending".
Politicians love to spend other people's money, that's all there is to it.
You are correct. NE and ME allocate EC votes proportionally. This is controlled by the state legislatures. "Winner takes all" was adopted in every state in the 1830's for the reason you mention, and these two only recently broke away from it. Adopting "winner takes all" was shortsighted, IMO. The majority party in the state probably thought it was a good way to give "their" party a boost in the presidential race, but they obviously didn't think ahead to it being used against them if the majority party were ever to change.
Personally I'd prefer preferential voting (Condorcet method) in tandem with non-block-allocated EC votes. I'll leave the exact method of allocation up to the states, but I do feel winner-takes-all is not a good system. Though perhaps, as you say, preference voting would obviate the need for different allocation. If third parties have a real chance at being chosen on the ballot, they could win entire states rather than begging for scraps of 1-3%.
Your point about the NM recount is irrelevant. The original poster said that NH's population is insignificant to the point that candidates wouldn't bother to campaign there. And candidates largely do ignore small states during campaigns. (IA and NH being exceptions due to their first-in-the-nation status.) When you have a razor thin margin in the final tally, of course you're going to recount anything that's exceptionally close, even if it's only a handful of votes. That doesn't address the original poster's point, though.
Candidates court the larger swing states. This is not the fault of the EC itself, but the allocation of those EC votes, which is determined by the individual states. Even if NE and ME were swing states (I don't think they usually are) they would probably be campaigned less than other swing states of equal votes, because NE and ME don't give EC votes as a block. The "winner takes all" element in presidential races is one of the biggest problems in the US electoral system, IMO. Nader could easily take 2% in CA (one of CA's 50+ EC votes), but he'll never get any recognition out of it. Until a third party can "make it onto the board" his platform is largely ignored, perpetuating the two-party myth. (I'm not Green, this was just a convenient example.)
The other big change we need to make to voting is adopting the Condorcet method to replace plurality voting, but that's another issue.
Exactly. If we're supposed to abide by these laws, we should be able to understand them. Else we could break them unknowingly, and "ignorance is no excuse", so we're trapped. As I said earlier, in a supposedly free and just society, that's not right.
It shouldn't take a pack of lawyers to explain law to "us idiots" because we're not. If it does, then the legal system is no longer about having just laws, it's about control. Someone micromanages your life, it doesn't make sense, and when you ask why you are told, "It's too complex for you to understand. Just do what we say." That's not freedom.
Did you even read what I wrote? We do know that if you drop something, it falls. That much physics, we all know, and it's sufficient to keep us out of lots of trouble. The analogy is knowing theft is wrong - knowing that much law also keeps us out of lots of trouble. The problem comes when obtuse legislation makes something completely harmless into "theft" when no normal, sane person would call it that - like the fair use example I used earlier.
Like someone posted in a different subthread, we can't get hurt by not knowing physics. We can be hurt by not knowing the law. If it applies to us, we should be able to understand it.
To use your example, basic Newtonian mechanics and gravity apply to me, and what I need to know about, I do. (Fall out of a tree, I get hurt.) I understand it well enough to not get hurt. However, there are hundreds of laws that apply to me that I'm probably not even aware of, and if I break one, they are too arcane for me to understand to defend myself against. (What do you mean I can't decrypt this DVD to play in my Linux box? I bought it! You're putting me in jail for making fair use of something I own?!?) In a society that calls itself free and just, that's not right.
Law is the organized force of society. Once law is too complex for ordinary members of society to understand, it creates an elite who can abuse that force to their own gain.
"Who was it said..." Probably a lawyer. They sure don't want you not using their services. Law shouldn't be so unapproachable that normal people can't understand it. Normal people should be able to understand the laws they live by. Other than the procedural formalities of being in court, I don't know why an intelligent person shouldn't be perfectly capable of representing himself, pro se.
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The problem with the 17th is that it radically altered the balance of power in government.
Remember that we have a federal government, formed by joint action of individual states. They set up, in the Constitution, systems of "checks and balances" to keep government from encroaching on the rights of its citizens. You were likely taught as a child about the division of power between the Leg/Exec/Jud branches.
But this is not the only power triangle. The Founders were not wary only of a part of government with too much power (king), but that the power of government as a whole was too far removed from the people. Reading the DoI and Constitution, it is clear the idea was that "we, the people" were sovereign, and the plan was that government should only be as big as necessary to perform it's necessary and proper functions. These functions are clearly delineated, mostly in Art 1 Sec 8. Government's natural tendency is to accumulate power to itself. What better check on the power of one government than to balance it against another government? Hence the idea of a federal system. The other power triangle is that of the People, States, and Federal.
We mostly see this in the design of Congress, divided as it is into two houses. The HoR represents the people, the popular will of the nation. Spending bills must originate in the HoR because ultimately it is the people that pay the taxes. The Senate represents the states in their capacity as sovereign political bodies. The president ratifies treaties with consent of 2/3 of the Senate because it is political bodies that are bound by treaties.
Representatives were to be selected by the popular vote of the district they represented. Senators were to be selected by the legislatures of their respective states, typically from among their own members. Today we are so ingrained with the idea of direct democracy that this seems foreign. "What do you mean I don't choose my senator?" But think about it a moment longer:
Your state deals with local matters that affect you day to day, but at the US Congress' level you have to be concerned with the nation as a whole and world affairs. Does the average individual have enough time to become educated on all the issues around the country and the world in order to make a good selection for senator? No! The indirect democratic process lets you send wise people from your own community (that you probably know well) to your state capitol, and let them, hopefully the "best and brightest" of your state, the people you've delegated the responsibility of pondering political matters "full-time" on your behalf, select who represents the state in DC.
(To a lesser extent, you also see this balance in the Electoral College. The number of electors isn't random, it's the sum of Senators and Representatives for a reason - it's an attempt at unifying the popular will and the states' will into choosing someone for a singular office (president). The president is not only the leader of people, he's the leader of the united states - plural - too.)
The 17th Amendment threw this all out the window. To "fix" a few procedural problems (Senate vacancies going unfilled because of partisan squabbling in the states) it was changed to allow direct election of senators. This effectively stripped the states (as political entities) from having any voice in DC. No longer are senators obligated to look at "the big picture" and do what is best for the state (which is why senators were given 6-year terms), they become more concerned with getting re-elected and pleasing advocacy groups to win votes. Senators used to be the "cool heads" because of this, not easily heated up by the passions of the people. Senators took the long-term view. Representatives were only given 2-year terms so that they could not do too much damage following the whims of the people. The Founders knew the dangers of democracy ("mob rule") and that's why we have a republic. But after the 17th, Senators because Representatives with a term long enough to push through popular, but dangerous, agendas. No longer was power kept close to the people in their respective states, but it began to accumulate in Washington. The safeguard of one government against another is gone. Now you routinely see state governors whining to "big brother" for federal aid for this or that, and more local issues being controlled by far-away bureaucrats - the very thing the Founders loathed.
Another side effect of this amendment is the detachment of senators even from the people who put them in office! Each Represenative has about, what, half a million constituents? Do you really think that he is able to meet with all of them, know all of them, to represent their interests well? How much worse for Senators who may represent up to 50 times that many, or more! Your senator doesn't know you, or care about you. Your ignorance (of national matters, of world matters, of him personally) puts him in office - that's what he likes. Senators today are not truly accountable, as they were when they only had to answer to a small group (the state legislature) that could chastise them. Six years from now we'll have forgotten any offenses, and re-elect the guy. Add the fact that senate campaigns are some of the most expensive in the country, because you have to cover the whole state, rather a smaller group. If you want "campaign finance reform", repeal the 17th amendment! Overnight you'll see far less political money thrown around.
An aside: read the Federalist Papers. (You can get Mary Webster's translation into "modern" English. Also handy because it indexes which letters discuss which topics.) Nothing in the Constitution was done on a whim or by chance. Everything was carefully reasoned out. Proposals for amendments should always be meticulously scrutinized. The 17th was not, unfortunately. William Jennings Bryan (IIRC) helped make it happen, but he spent the rest of his life trying to get it repealed. It also helps if you think of "The United States" as not one entity, but many, as the Founders did.
I think the consequences are implied from the 2nd Amendment and the DoI. "Screw with the rights of the people, and it could happen again. We, the people, reserve the just authority to do so." The 2nd Amendment is the bulwark of liberty. It's not there to protect your "right" to hunt or plink tin cans.
"Winner takes all" only applies in presidential elections. There are a number of other problems which apply in all elections. The plurality voting system is chief among them.
Bad idea. Learn about the problem with Instant Runoff Voting. The same problem applies in any runoff, instant or not. Sometimes the best "compromise" candidate may get eliminated first, and you're stuck voting between two bad choices - exactly what we have now. Yes, plurality voting is bad, but IRV isn't really any better (even though it seems to be). The system you want is Condorcet voting. Same ranking method, but you consider all preferences simultaneously rather than sequentially.
Not really. True proportional representation by popular vote forgets that the states, as political entities, should be represented in the federal government too. (That's what federal government means, the federation of individual states.) In Congress we have one house that represents the states (at least we did until that lousy 17th Amendment) and one that represents the people. The EC is an attempt to unify the interests of the states and the people when voting for a singular office (president). That's why the number of EC votes a state has is the total number of Senators and Representatives from that state.
I do agree that "winner takes all" is a broken system. The legislators that put it in place were very short-sighted - in giving more power to "their state's party" in presidential elections, they didn't think that the balance of power in their state might swing another way in the future and end up hurting "their party". NE and ME allocate their EC votes (less two) proportionally by congressional district to the plurality winner of that district. That's a good attempt at compromise. I think it would be better if we used Condorcet, better still if the last two EC votes were decided in the state legislature (if they are supposed to represent the state's interest) and we scrapped the 17th Am. while we're at it. Remember, these issues are decided by your state legislators, not DC. This gives you much greater ability to make a change to the system. It's closer to you, and hence more responsive.
I've also heard people say that we don't have enough representatives in Congress. With only 435, each has far too many constituents to respond to. The Constitution originally called for a 1:30k ratio. Maybe several thousand would be a tad excessive, but with modern technology I don't see why the number couldn't be increased without hampering the ability to debate. This means you'd have more chance of your view being represented in Congress, and combined with the idea of allocating EC votes by CD, a better chance of picking the president too.
I couldn't agree more. And as a member of an American third party, one of the issues I promote is voting reform. (Not campaign finance reform, which just restricts your ability to participate financially in the political process.) We need Condorcet voting or some other method that allows to express a preference between more than only two candidates.
Look at it this way. The ideal political system runs on a foundation of honesty and truth. If the voting system compels you to sacrifice your conscience and vote for the "lesser of two evils" then your choice in the ballot box is a lie. Our system is rotten at its core. If we lie when we put officials into office, how can we expect the system to work truthfully and honestly? If you vote for a third party, any third party, I applaud you for standing true to your beliefs. To the rest of you: stop compromising what you believe in. Do the right thing, investigate all the parties and candidates in the race, and vote for the one you agree with the most even if "popular wisdom" says "he can't win". Even better, get off your butt and get involved in a party. Stop complaining and get involved.
Remember, having two parties on the ballot is only one more than they had in Soviet Russia. As ShatteredDream said, that's not a choice at all.
Kind of like the snooping of libraries under the (un)PATRIOT act. Sure you may have the right to say/print what you want, but we'll bust you for listening/reading. :P The freedom of speech/press necessarily includes the freedom to listen/read. The freedom to keep arms must necessarily include the freedom to keep ammunition.
Technically, UPS is a private company, and they can refuse business if they want to. (There are plenty of cases where companies are told they cannot refuse business from certain groups, but we won't go into that now.) You're free to start a competing company. However, if that refusal is due to coercion by government, that's a different story.
Hasn't this already been done, numerous times? Why do it again? Of course, that doesn't negate the "just because I wanna do it" rationale...
Yes, and Frymaster was making the point that it's the football team that needs to learn those things.
I think the most insightful observation was the likening of high schools to prison. The primary goal is to keep you on the premises, make sure you get fed, and keep you out of too much trouble. In that order. (And if you learn something, that must be a bonus.)
I agree. Just about every time I spend any significant amount of time talking with family, regardless of who it is (parents, grandparents, cousins), I get asked "So what do you actually do, again?" And they don't ask just once. Next time we visit, they'll ask again.
Whoa, for a second there I thought you were CleverNickName.
(Just kidding, Wil.)
I couldn't agree more. I was given half a dozen PowerMac 6100's by folks that lived on the "high end" and thought these were obsolete. Often I'd get old kids games and ancient copies of Word with them. I scrounged spare memory I had, and swapped some parts around, and now I have 6 machines with 24-36 MB RAM and 500-800 MB drives. To the people I'm giving these to, these machines are wonderful. Their kids can write school papers at home instead of staying late at school or spending time up at the library.
If I've contributed to bringing a family a little closer together, it's definitely worth it.
60 MHz is plenty fast to do this. Heck, I was using machines 10 years older than these to do word processing. As long as the hardware isn't kaput, it's useful to somebody. (I've got an SE/30 running NetBSD, but that's another story.)
It matters because the idea of "the two-party system" is a self-fulfilling prophecy. As soon as a third party makes inroads and shows some gains, more people that would be hesitant to "throw their vote away" might go ahead and vote their conscience. It would allow third parties to gain momentum in a system stacked against them.
It always is. Everyone's against "wasteful" spending, but what's spent on me is not (by definition!) wasteful. You can apply this argument to any group - they all think they are entitled to what gov't gives them. I advocate equal opportunity spending cuts - cut all pork, even if I'm benefitting from some of it. It's the only way to be fair.
The joke in the Midwest is "How do farmers' seed corn caps get curved brims? From looking into their mailboxes to find the gov't check." Or something to that effect.
That's not what I elect them for. I vote against bacon-types. I vote for candidates who will secure our liberties, no more, no less. Unfortunately, these candidates are few and far between. Dr. Ron Paul's about the only one I know of in DC. There are a few others who will sometimes take a stand on specific issues, but none who stand by principle. Until we break the Duopoly's stranglehold on American politics, there are unlikely to be many more.
Yeah. We might have had to search for it.
I'd suggest the proper "Chimra" instead, but I can't since Slashdot doesn't allow entity references in comments. (pudge/krow: Hint, hint.)
Plurality voting is the source of most of the election problems we have in the US. We don't need "campaign finance" reform, we need voting method reform! The problem isn't that Democrats and/or Republicans spend a lot of money, the problem is that we can't effectively vote against both of them!
Glad to see someone else posting useful Condorcet links. Condorcet is so superior to other methods, and IRV so flawed, I'm surprised that IRV is still mentioned as a possible replacement for plurality.
Farming shouldn't have to be subsidized. Sink or swim, that's free enterprise. Why should their business get a free handout if mine doesn't?
Instead, stop regulating the farmer so dang much and let him compete fairly against all the foreign producers that aren't struggling under the pressures he is. The American farmer is practically told what to plant, how much of it, where to do it, and when he can do it - if he wants to keep getting assistance.
Won't be long before the gov't just openly nationalizes farming. Once gov't controls your food supply, it's really got you by the short hair. Since it's already got your money and your guns, and is indoctrinating your children, who's going to resist?
Funny, the small rural states are usually the ones that are the most fiecely independent.
Obviously the country is going to go deeper in debt if you lower taxes without decreasing spending at the same time. The poster was saying "Stop collecting taxes and stop disbursing money". In Taxachusetts, a ballot initiative to can the income tax had about 40% support (IIRC) without the huge funding and publicity the pro-tax lobby had. But if it had passed, you know the reaction in Boston would be "How do we make up for that income" not "Now we have to cut back spending".
Politicians love to spend other people's money, that's all there is to it.
You are correct. NE and ME allocate EC votes proportionally. This is controlled by the state legislatures. "Winner takes all" was adopted in every state in the 1830's for the reason you mention, and these two only recently broke away from it. Adopting "winner takes all" was shortsighted, IMO. The majority party in the state probably thought it was a good way to give "their" party a boost in the presidential race, but they obviously didn't think ahead to it being used against them if the majority party were ever to change.
Personally I'd prefer preferential voting (Condorcet method) in tandem with non-block-allocated EC votes. I'll leave the exact method of allocation up to the states, but I do feel winner-takes-all is not a good system. Though perhaps, as you say, preference voting would obviate the need for different allocation. If third parties have a real chance at being chosen on the ballot, they could win entire states rather than begging for scraps of 1-3%.
Your point about the NM recount is irrelevant. The original poster said that NH's population is insignificant to the point that candidates wouldn't bother to campaign there. And candidates largely do ignore small states during campaigns. (IA and NH being exceptions due to their first-in-the-nation status.) When you have a razor thin margin in the final tally, of course you're going to recount anything that's exceptionally close, even if it's only a handful of votes. That doesn't address the original poster's point, though.
Candidates court the larger swing states. This is not the fault of the EC itself, but the allocation of those EC votes, which is determined by the individual states. Even if NE and ME were swing states (I don't think they usually are) they would probably be campaigned less than other swing states of equal votes, because NE and ME don't give EC votes as a block. The "winner takes all" element in presidential races is one of the biggest problems in the US electoral system, IMO. Nader could easily take 2% in CA (one of CA's 50+ EC votes), but he'll never get any recognition out of it. Until a third party can "make it onto the board" his platform is largely ignored, perpetuating the two-party myth. (I'm not Green, this was just a convenient example.)
The other big change we need to make to voting is adopting the Condorcet method to replace plurality voting, but that's another issue.
Ah, sorry. It's still very early here. Try using a smiley next time. ;)
Exactly. If we're supposed to abide by these laws, we should be able to understand them. Else we could break them unknowingly, and "ignorance is no excuse", so we're trapped. As I said earlier, in a supposedly free and just society, that's not right.
It shouldn't take a pack of lawyers to explain law to "us idiots" because we're not. If it does, then the legal system is no longer about having just laws, it's about control. Someone micromanages your life, it doesn't make sense, and when you ask why you are told, "It's too complex for you to understand. Just do what we say." That's not freedom.
Did you even read what I wrote? We do know that if you drop something, it falls. That much physics, we all know, and it's sufficient to keep us out of lots of trouble. The analogy is knowing theft is wrong - knowing that much law also keeps us out of lots of trouble. The problem comes when obtuse legislation makes something completely harmless into "theft" when no normal, sane person would call it that - like the fair use example I used earlier.
Like someone posted in a different subthread, we can't get hurt by not knowing physics. We can be hurt by not knowing the law. If it applies to us, we should be able to understand it.
To use your example, basic Newtonian mechanics and gravity apply to me, and what I need to know about, I do. (Fall out of a tree, I get hurt.) I understand it well enough to not get hurt. However, there are hundreds of laws that apply to me that I'm probably not even aware of, and if I break one, they are too arcane for me to understand to defend myself against. (What do you mean I can't decrypt this DVD to play in my Linux box? I bought it! You're putting me in jail for making fair use of something I own?!?) In a society that calls itself free and just, that's not right.
Law is the organized force of society. Once law is too complex for ordinary members of society to understand, it creates an elite who can abuse that force to their own gain.
"Who was it said..." Probably a lawyer. They sure don't want you not using their services. Law shouldn't be so unapproachable that normal people can't understand it. Normal people should be able to understand the laws they live by. Other than the procedural formalities of being in court, I don't know why an intelligent person shouldn't be perfectly capable of representing himself, pro se.