When Will The Anti Trump Hysteria Die Down?

^Fuck no if you mean me. Never said or even implied such a thing, clean your glasses if that's what you see. The closest I ever came to 'positive discrimination' is that I want all people to have the same access to student loans, or access to anything; equality of opportunity, not equality of results.

of course you do, it gives you power you don't need to earn while turning urban dwellers into 3/5 of a percentage point.

how about political enfranchisement?

One thing to consider is the number of Representatives is capped at 435 for no other reason than because the Government didn't want to pay for a bigger building the house them all, and the electorate concurs with the number of reps to a given state. This was a cap put in place a long ass time ago, when there was still plenty of territories that had yet to become states.

I say it's high time to revisit that decision, along with the winner-takes-all method of counting.

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ISWYDT

For the same reason we have Senators - so that sparse population's needs/wants are not ignored. See The Federalist no. 62 for more on that.

I'm saying any "fairness" arguments about a popular vote for President necessarily also argue against the Senate's representation scheme. Which, so far as I can remember, I've never seen you argue against at all, let alone with the vehemence you've attacked the electoral college.

The same arguments apply to the election of the president, albeit Hamilton and Madison envisioned popular election of the electors themselves, rather than of candidates with electors as a formality. Blame Andrew Jackson on that one.

First, it's a bit over 3:1 (WY:CA) at worst, not 300:1*. Second, while that should absolutely be the standard for the House of Representatives, once you concede a Senate not proportional to population is okay (hence my questioning why you're not arguing against that too) you have to ask why the President should inherently be elected the way the House is rather than how the Senate is. I don't see one, but having 538 electors does seem a good compromise between having 436 and having 102.

As to the winner-take-all-per-state system, well, I'm not going to defend it. I think it's terrible, but probably slightly less terrible than 1 elector per district+2 for the popular vote winner until gerrymandering is solved once and for all, when it will become a lot better.

*The number gets higher accounting for the current partisan alignment and winner-take-all-per-state system, but it's one realignment away from breaking some other way completely. Structurally, it's 3.62:1 at worst. (This could be partially remedied by substantially increasing the size of the House, which I'd support)

Now this I agree with. The house of Representatives was supposed to represent everyone equally by population, that was how it was set up, and it sure as fuck is not doing that now. The cap is not in the Constitution and it needs to go. It would also be useful to ditch the winner takes all system so that more people's voted actually matter.

Agreed, although I think only Alaska and Hawaii weren't states at that point. I'd have the House be at least one representative for every 100,000 people if I had my druthers on that.

To use CA and Texas as examples, they have 55 and 38 electoral votes respectively, but with strong pockets contrasting from the solid blue and red. Central California is as solidly red as most of Texas, while the urban areas like Austin and San Antonio and El Paso aren't much different politically from San Diego (apart from better BBQ and chicken fried chicken )

It'd go for an even smaller number...somewhere between 50 and 70k, so the reps will absolutely gave to get for face time with the people he or she represents, but that would be a start.

ok, how come i have to prove equal distribution of representation is moral and you don't?

see, we have that in our parliament.
the average canadian riding is about 100 000 people, with a few remote exceptions. This means that 100 000 people in Quinte West don't have a louder voice than the 100 000 people who live within half a kilometer of me in anything, including selecting the PM.

In my experience New Yorkers behave the same way no matter which state they escaped to.

I cited the arguments in Federalist 62. You haven't cited or argued anything.

The smaller the district the easier it will be for third parties to get elected via the old fashioned knocking on the door retail politics method. Now, in the huge districts in California if you do not have a budget of tens of millions for TV and radio advertising you go no where.

As an added bonus the smaller the districts the harder it is to gerrymander an the more each vote counts.

That seems to concede that in a democracy minority groups are at a explicit disadvantage. If members of a geographic minority are going to be given extra representation then why not racial minorities, or religious minorities? The rich are able to push their message to more people, so by the same reasoning we should give people more political representation the poorer they are.

Hey !! I resemble that remark.

actually, i cited stats that are readily available and in relatively curent discussion about how many people actually voted for Trump. My position has been that the electoral college thwarted the will of the majority that voted. Not sure if I'm particularly "vehement" about it. I haven't felt I was hyperbolic incomparing it to an ennobled class-literally the elites the new right (neo con is so 00's) cried about this last election... but lets get back to what I think it is you took issue with in the first place.

You don't like that I said America's version of democracy is a failure and a fraud, right?

Yet you go on to cite the exact same concerns I've stated several times in this thread and others... namely, under populated districts, gerrymandering, and unequal representation. You'll forgive me if I'm a little confused by what it is you're asking regarding "morality" at this point... Not even sure there's a moral issue here?

Federated republics, not a democracy.

You're missing my point. Why should we necessarily care about how the majority voted for President?

I think the U.S. should move to a minimum of 1,000 House members and adjust it upward for population every ten years with the census.

I've heard the big objection to expanding the size of the House in such a way is from the Republican and Democratic House leaders.

It is a lot easier to ride heard over 200-250 or so House members than it would be to corral 500-550 (approximate number from each party in an expanded House).

WHy bother having elections for the office at all if the majority's will isn't followed?

Hell, why even bother with the office?

If the person leading the country isn't there by virtue of the popular national vote, then what authority do they truly have?

.....constitutional.......

like I said... a fraud and failure.

Your opinion. you are entitled to it of course.

Are you calling all the heads of the government and state that aren't elected directly democratically illegitimate? Seriously? I was going to list what other countries you're crapping on, but the list you're not crapping on is shorter.

Out of 125 nominal democracies (including republics and including dictatorships that pretend to be democracies), only the following have directly elected heads of state and government (whether or not that's in one person): Argentina, Benin, Bolivia, Brazil, Burundi, Chile, Colombia, Comoros, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Gambia, Georgia, Ghana, Guatemala, Honduras, Indonesia, Ireland, Kenya, Kiribati, Liberia, Malawi, Maldives, Marshall Islands, Mexico, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Palau, Panama, Paraguay, Philippines, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somaliland, South Sudan, Sudan, Turkmenistan, Uruguay, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

Even the great paragon of direct democracy, Switzerland, has its head of state elected by Parliament.

If we're going by the company we keep in not having a directly elected head of state and/or government, I'll take ours any day.

Spaceturkey, you're a nice guy, but you're asking the wrong questions. If you want answers to "How should we choose our leaders?" questions, then you need to start much further up the line than "Why have a federal republic instead of one monolithic democracy?" (which is really what you're asking).

Start by questioning democracy itself, for example.

Take Joe Sixpack and Rich Dood. Joe Sixpack dropped out of school after tenth grade, he has never been more than 100 miles from where he was born, he spends his time drinking and smoking dope, and he always votes for the same party because "He saw it on television; the other guys are a bunch of crooks." Rich Dood has two PhD's, one in business management and one in economics. He has travelled the world extensively, speaks four languages fluently, and has been actively involved in starting a number of projects (hospitals, schools, job training for unwed mothers...) to help make the world a better place. Before you go any further in terms of "Who's vote should count the most?", explain why Joe Sixpack's vote should count for as much as Rich Dood's vote: Is the former really as valid as the latter in making sure that we have good leaders?

Then take Sally Smart and Bob Niceguy. Sally has an IQ of around 160, she graduated from high school at the age of 15 and began university studies on a full scholarship three states away from her family. She is capable, informed, careful, and doing very well in the world. She is 16 years old. Bob's IQ is in the mid to high 80s, he can write enough to sign his own name, he reads very simple things (about what an ordinary 7 or 8-year-old could be expected to read) and holds a steady job -- putting things into the trash bins as a supermarket. He is 20 years old. Explain why Bob should be allowed to have a full voice in the choice of the country's leaders, but Sally should have no voice whatsoever, simply because Bob has managed to continue to breathe for over 18 years, while Sally has not yet accomplished that particular feat.

When you can demonstrate how it is "moral" for Joe Sixpack to have as much say as Rich Dood, and why it is "moral" for Sally Smart to be totally excluded from the process while Bob Niceguy has a full vote, then you can begin to explain how democracy should work.

And please note that with this, I am not defending the American system of a federation of 50 more or less unlimited democracies. I am just pointing out that if we want serious answers to serious questions, we cannot start by taking as "given" the systems with which we are familiar and thus passing a moral judgment on other systems. We need to start out by demonstrating that the systems we defend are indeed "moral."

Apologies, I was approaching this from more of a high level "what is the fairest way of doing things" perspective. If the debate is what US constitutional law dictates then I defer to whatever judgements the courts and/or US founding fathers have made in this matter.

If we're putting the existence of the separate states on the table than sure we could come up with a new system which might be fairer (or it might not). But if all we're talking about changing is how the president is elected, then I think I can make a better case for the electoral college than direct election.