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On January 03 2021 05:04 RenSC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 03 2021 04:30 Danglars wrote:On January 03 2021 03:47 ChristianS wrote:On January 03 2021 03:38 Danglars wrote:On January 03 2021 03:32 ChristianS wrote:
I don’t think I’ve seen a single person anywhere argue that House representation should be anything other than proportional to population. What would that scheme even be? # of representatives rises quadratically with population?
The underlying principle is obviously that a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people” should decide its representation primarily by the opinion of the majority of people. If you’re going to privilege the opinion of some people by a couple orders of magnitude over the opinion of other people, you should present a compelling reason why they should be so over-represented. Protecting less populous communities and lifestyles from tyranny of the majority is potentially such a reason, but then apply it equally.
Or if you’ve got a different reason, spit it out. When people say "these areas need to have equal representation" and you, yourself "equal representation," it should be said that they don't have equal representation as the system exists today. It's literally one half of one third of the governing system. It deserves to be pointed out that equal only applies to the Senate, and as such arguments exist in electoral arguments more generally, people want them to have proportionately less representation in a system that already gives them less representation today. See: Electoral college reform, House reform. Please contest any of the factual basis you dispute in this post. The big states already have bigger representation in the House; some people want it to be more extreme. This is what I was responding to. Haven’t seen a single person anywhere argue that # of representatives per state should scale >linearly with population, and while I’m sure someone at some point has said it, it obviously violates the principle everyone is implicitly arguing about (i.e. that everyone’s vote should count equally). No idea what you’re referring to with “House reform,” if there’s some movement I’m unaware of to double CA’s house representatives or something you’ll have to give me a link. Why should people in wyoming have 70X (or w/e) more say than me on SCOTUS confirmations? This question isn’t rhetorical; give me an actual justification for weighting this way. Maybe we are arguing at cross purposes. You previously stated about "equal representation," when it is a truth that more populous states enjoy greater representation in the national government as things stand today. Equal representation of states only applies to half of the legislative branch of the federal government, and does not apply to the other half of the legislative branch of the government, or to the executive branch, or to the judicial branch. You agree that the problem does not consist of equal representation, or only narrowly consists of equal representation? And as pointed out to you, your half of a third is blatantly wrong. People from larger states count less in the house. They count less in the senate. They count less in the president. And by counting less in the president and senate, they count less in the Supreme Court. The senate is only the most un-representative of the people, but all branches are unrepresentative of the people. Most people are willing to accept the flaws of the house as it’s not terribly off, but the senate at this point is ridiculous. At a minimum, we need a process to merge or split states that are too populous or not populous enough. Wegandi, don’t accuse people of not understanding history and then wish we were still under the articles of confederation. They failed. Perhaps learn your history?
You're arguing two different things. Yes, people in CA relative representation in the House is less than the 1 Rep WY gets, but there is a finite # and so when it comes to actually voting 53 > 1. CA has far far far more power in the House than places like Vermont, WY, Alaska, etc. you know it, I know it. I also think the House is way too small. It should be at least 1500 members. The same goes for the EC (more populous states are more advantaged).
I am curious why Democrats think Republicans should change their views to win in NY, CA, IL, etc., but they don't believe they should change their views to win in KS, ID, MS, or OK.
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On January 03 2021 05:11 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On January 03 2021 04:58 Wegandi wrote:On January 03 2021 04:52 Simberto wrote:On January 03 2021 04:48 Wegandi wrote:On January 03 2021 04:42 Simberto wrote:On January 03 2021 04:30 Danglars wrote:On January 03 2021 03:47 ChristianS wrote:On January 03 2021 03:38 Danglars wrote:On January 03 2021 03:32 ChristianS wrote:
I don’t think I’ve seen a single person anywhere argue that House representation should be anything other than proportional to population. What would that scheme even be? # of representatives rises quadratically with population?
The underlying principle is obviously that a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people” should decide its representation primarily by the opinion of the majority of people. If you’re going to privilege the opinion of some people by a couple orders of magnitude over the opinion of other people, you should present a compelling reason why they should be so over-represented. Protecting less populous communities and lifestyles from tyranny of the majority is potentially such a reason, but then apply it equally.
Or if you’ve got a different reason, spit it out. When people say "these areas need to have equal representation" and you, yourself "equal representation," it should be said that they don't have equal representation as the system exists today. It's literally one half of one third of the governing system. It deserves to be pointed out that equal only applies to the Senate, and as such arguments exist in electoral arguments more generally, people want them to have proportionately less representation in a system that already gives them less representation today. See: Electoral college reform, House reform. Please contest any of the factual basis you dispute in this post. The big states already have bigger representation in the House; some people want it to be more extreme. This is what I was responding to. Haven’t seen a single person anywhere argue that # of representatives per state should scale >linearly with population, and while I’m sure someone at some point has said it, it obviously violates the principle everyone is implicitly arguing about (i.e. that everyone’s vote should count equally). No idea what you’re referring to with “House reform,” if there’s some movement I’m unaware of to double CA’s house representatives or something you’ll have to give me a link. Why should people in wyoming have 70X (or w/e) more say than me on SCOTUS confirmations? This question isn’t rhetorical; give me an actual justification for weighting this way. Maybe we are arguing at cross purposes. You previously stated about "equal representation," when it is a truth that more populous states enjoy greater representation in the national government as things stand today. Equal representation of states only applies to half of the legislative branch of the federal government, and does not apply to the other half of the legislative branch of the government, or to the executive branch, or to the judicial branch. You agree that the problem does not consist of equal representation, or only narrowly consists of equal representation? Why do you think anyone would mean "equal representation of states" when saying "equal representation"? Everyone who is not you means "Equal representation of PEOPLE". And that is exactly the problem. Some people get extra votes. The US polity is based on states, not people. I don't like pointing to names of countries because 99% it means jack shit, but the US is aptly named. Because you have no understanding of US history you make silly statements like you did. You don't know why the Senate is the way it is. You don't know about the Federalist and Anti-Federalist debates. You don't know the arguments for and against the things you propose. These issues aren't new. They're part of the founding of this country. There's a reason the US rejected democracy in favor of a representative republic. (Even though in an objective sense I'm not a fan of the Constitution, I'd rather have the Articles of Confederation still, that's another topic) Weird how only the republicans who are currently getting massive vote subsidies seem to think that that is good. And "You don't know shit" isn't a good argument. Fact is that it gave you probably the worst president in the history of your country, winning with a minority of the votes, and placing 3 judges for the next decades to fuck up the supreme court. Doesn't sound like a good result of a well-working system to me. You're extremely myopic. Didn't folks tell me why can't Republicans just change their views to win votes of newly admitted states like PR and DC when we had that argument? Why can't Democrats just change their views to win in places like Idaho, Oklahoma, Kansas, etc.? All you guys care about is power (and 99% of GOP). The ramifications of the changes to the system you're proposing would accelerate US collapse. The reason I said you're ignorant as fuck, is because you're ignorant as fuck. I'm not going to regurgitate 800 pages of the Federalist debates from the 1780s at you, but suffice to say, the US had this argument with each other all ready. There are innumerable good reasons why the US is more of a republic than a democracy. Are you seriously flipping “if the Republicans can’t win a majority of votes they should pick more popular policies” to “if the Democrats want to win they should drop their more popular policies and appeal to the niche interests of an over represented minority”? Does that sound like a working system to you?
That's (the "status quo") a better system (though I don't agree with your qualifiers) than the one being proposed where these people and these states have near 0 power. There's nothing magically better about democracy. If your goal is to increase the sectarian and partisan divide by all means, go democracy uber alles. That's the history of every country that isn't homogenous and where a purer democracy was instituted.
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United States42656 Posts
On January 03 2021 05:12 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On January 03 2021 05:04 RenSC2 wrote:On January 03 2021 04:30 Danglars wrote:On January 03 2021 03:47 ChristianS wrote:On January 03 2021 03:38 Danglars wrote:On January 03 2021 03:32 ChristianS wrote:
I don’t think I’ve seen a single person anywhere argue that House representation should be anything other than proportional to population. What would that scheme even be? # of representatives rises quadratically with population?
The underlying principle is obviously that a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people” should decide its representation primarily by the opinion of the majority of people. If you’re going to privilege the opinion of some people by a couple orders of magnitude over the opinion of other people, you should present a compelling reason why they should be so over-represented. Protecting less populous communities and lifestyles from tyranny of the majority is potentially such a reason, but then apply it equally.
Or if you’ve got a different reason, spit it out. When people say "these areas need to have equal representation" and you, yourself "equal representation," it should be said that they don't have equal representation as the system exists today. It's literally one half of one third of the governing system. It deserves to be pointed out that equal only applies to the Senate, and as such arguments exist in electoral arguments more generally, people want them to have proportionately less representation in a system that already gives them less representation today. See: Electoral college reform, House reform. Please contest any of the factual basis you dispute in this post. The big states already have bigger representation in the House; some people want it to be more extreme. This is what I was responding to. Haven’t seen a single person anywhere argue that # of representatives per state should scale >linearly with population, and while I’m sure someone at some point has said it, it obviously violates the principle everyone is implicitly arguing about (i.e. that everyone’s vote should count equally). No idea what you’re referring to with “House reform,” if there’s some movement I’m unaware of to double CA’s house representatives or something you’ll have to give me a link. Why should people in wyoming have 70X (or w/e) more say than me on SCOTUS confirmations? This question isn’t rhetorical; give me an actual justification for weighting this way. Maybe we are arguing at cross purposes. You previously stated about "equal representation," when it is a truth that more populous states enjoy greater representation in the national government as things stand today. Equal representation of states only applies to half of the legislative branch of the federal government, and does not apply to the other half of the legislative branch of the government, or to the executive branch, or to the judicial branch. You agree that the problem does not consist of equal representation, or only narrowly consists of equal representation? And as pointed out to you, your half of a third is blatantly wrong. People from larger states count less in the house. They count less in the senate. They count less in the president. And by counting less in the president and senate, they count less in the Supreme Court. The senate is only the most un-representative of the people, but all branches are unrepresentative of the people. Most people are willing to accept the flaws of the house as it’s not terribly off, but the senate at this point is ridiculous. At a minimum, we need a process to merge or split states that are too populous or not populous enough. Wegandi, don’t accuse people of not understanding history and then wish we were still under the articles of confederation. They failed. Perhaps learn your history? You're still framing this in terms of your hypothesized fairer system. The larger states possess increased House representation compared to smaller states. You're just angry that it isn't the type of increased representation you should prefer, but this should not stop you from admitting the fact that larger states do have increased representatives in both House and Electoral College. I've pointed it out, and we have very little to talk about if this basic admission is a bridge too far for you personally.
The larger states have decreased representation in the EC per person, not increased. You’re factually wrong here.
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United States42656 Posts
On January 03 2021 05:19 Wegandi wrote:Show nested quote +On January 03 2021 05:11 KwarK wrote:On January 03 2021 04:58 Wegandi wrote:On January 03 2021 04:52 Simberto wrote:On January 03 2021 04:48 Wegandi wrote:On January 03 2021 04:42 Simberto wrote:On January 03 2021 04:30 Danglars wrote:On January 03 2021 03:47 ChristianS wrote:On January 03 2021 03:38 Danglars wrote:On January 03 2021 03:32 ChristianS wrote:
I don’t think I’ve seen a single person anywhere argue that House representation should be anything other than proportional to population. What would that scheme even be? # of representatives rises quadratically with population?
The underlying principle is obviously that a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people” should decide its representation primarily by the opinion of the majority of people. If you’re going to privilege the opinion of some people by a couple orders of magnitude over the opinion of other people, you should present a compelling reason why they should be so over-represented. Protecting less populous communities and lifestyles from tyranny of the majority is potentially such a reason, but then apply it equally.
Or if you’ve got a different reason, spit it out. When people say "these areas need to have equal representation" and you, yourself "equal representation," it should be said that they don't have equal representation as the system exists today. It's literally one half of one third of the governing system. It deserves to be pointed out that equal only applies to the Senate, and as such arguments exist in electoral arguments more generally, people want them to have proportionately less representation in a system that already gives them less representation today. See: Electoral college reform, House reform. Please contest any of the factual basis you dispute in this post. The big states already have bigger representation in the House; some people want it to be more extreme. This is what I was responding to. Haven’t seen a single person anywhere argue that # of representatives per state should scale >linearly with population, and while I’m sure someone at some point has said it, it obviously violates the principle everyone is implicitly arguing about (i.e. that everyone’s vote should count equally). No idea what you’re referring to with “House reform,” if there’s some movement I’m unaware of to double CA’s house representatives or something you’ll have to give me a link. Why should people in wyoming have 70X (or w/e) more say than me on SCOTUS confirmations? This question isn’t rhetorical; give me an actual justification for weighting this way. Maybe we are arguing at cross purposes. You previously stated about "equal representation," when it is a truth that more populous states enjoy greater representation in the national government as things stand today. Equal representation of states only applies to half of the legislative branch of the federal government, and does not apply to the other half of the legislative branch of the government, or to the executive branch, or to the judicial branch. You agree that the problem does not consist of equal representation, or only narrowly consists of equal representation? Why do you think anyone would mean "equal representation of states" when saying "equal representation"? Everyone who is not you means "Equal representation of PEOPLE". And that is exactly the problem. Some people get extra votes. The US polity is based on states, not people. I don't like pointing to names of countries because 99% it means jack shit, but the US is aptly named. Because you have no understanding of US history you make silly statements like you did. You don't know why the Senate is the way it is. You don't know about the Federalist and Anti-Federalist debates. You don't know the arguments for and against the things you propose. These issues aren't new. They're part of the founding of this country. There's a reason the US rejected democracy in favor of a representative republic. (Even though in an objective sense I'm not a fan of the Constitution, I'd rather have the Articles of Confederation still, that's another topic) Weird how only the republicans who are currently getting massive vote subsidies seem to think that that is good. And "You don't know shit" isn't a good argument. Fact is that it gave you probably the worst president in the history of your country, winning with a minority of the votes, and placing 3 judges for the next decades to fuck up the supreme court. Doesn't sound like a good result of a well-working system to me. You're extremely myopic. Didn't folks tell me why can't Republicans just change their views to win votes of newly admitted states like PR and DC when we had that argument? Why can't Democrats just change their views to win in places like Idaho, Oklahoma, Kansas, etc.? All you guys care about is power (and 99% of GOP). The ramifications of the changes to the system you're proposing would accelerate US collapse. The reason I said you're ignorant as fuck, is because you're ignorant as fuck. I'm not going to regurgitate 800 pages of the Federalist debates from the 1780s at you, but suffice to say, the US had this argument with each other all ready. There are innumerable good reasons why the US is more of a republic than a democracy. Are you seriously flipping “if the Republicans can’t win a majority of votes they should pick more popular policies” to “if the Democrats want to win they should drop their more popular policies and appeal to the niche interests of an over represented minority”? Does that sound like a working system to you? That's (the "status quo") a better system (though I don't agree with your qualifiers) than the one being proposed where these people and these states have near 0 power. There's nothing magically better about democracy. If your goal is to increase the sectarian and partisan divide by all means, go democracy uber alles. That's the history of every country that isn't homogenous and where a purer democracy was instituted.
In a system of one man one vote the smaller states wouldn’t have zero power, they would have exactly the amount of power that their population deserves. It’s not about giving small states no power, it’s about returning the disproportionate power they have stolen from the voters of larger states. One man one vote should not be this controversial. The idea that one Californian one vote, one Wyoming resident 70 votes, is a natural state of affairs which would strip the people of Wyoming of their power if we changed is baffling.
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On January 03 2021 05:24 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On January 03 2021 05:19 Wegandi wrote:On January 03 2021 05:11 KwarK wrote:On January 03 2021 04:58 Wegandi wrote:On January 03 2021 04:52 Simberto wrote:On January 03 2021 04:48 Wegandi wrote:On January 03 2021 04:42 Simberto wrote:On January 03 2021 04:30 Danglars wrote:On January 03 2021 03:47 ChristianS wrote:On January 03 2021 03:38 Danglars wrote:
[quote]
When people say "these areas need to have equal representation" and you, yourself "equal representation," it should be said that they don't have equal representation as the system exists today. It's literally one half of one third of the governing system. It deserves to be pointed out that equal only applies to the Senate, and as such arguments exist in electoral arguments more generally, people want them to have proportionately less representation in a system that already gives them less representation today. See: Electoral college reform, House reform.
Please contest any of the factual basis you dispute in this post. The big states already have bigger representation in the House; some people want it to be more extreme. This is what I was responding to. Haven’t seen a single person anywhere argue that # of representatives per state should scale >linearly with population, and while I’m sure someone at some point has said it, it obviously violates the principle everyone is implicitly arguing about (i.e. that everyone’s vote should count equally). No idea what you’re referring to with “House reform,” if there’s some movement I’m unaware of to double CA’s house representatives or something you’ll have to give me a link. Why should people in wyoming have 70X (or w/e) more say than me on SCOTUS confirmations? This question isn’t rhetorical; give me an actual justification for weighting this way. Maybe we are arguing at cross purposes. You previously stated about "equal representation," when it is a truth that more populous states enjoy greater representation in the national government as things stand today. Equal representation of states only applies to half of the legislative branch of the federal government, and does not apply to the other half of the legislative branch of the government, or to the executive branch, or to the judicial branch. You agree that the problem does not consist of equal representation, or only narrowly consists of equal representation? Why do you think anyone would mean "equal representation of states" when saying "equal representation"? Everyone who is not you means "Equal representation of PEOPLE". And that is exactly the problem. Some people get extra votes. The US polity is based on states, not people. I don't like pointing to names of countries because 99% it means jack shit, but the US is aptly named. Because you have no understanding of US history you make silly statements like you did. You don't know why the Senate is the way it is. You don't know about the Federalist and Anti-Federalist debates. You don't know the arguments for and against the things you propose. These issues aren't new. They're part of the founding of this country. There's a reason the US rejected democracy in favor of a representative republic. (Even though in an objective sense I'm not a fan of the Constitution, I'd rather have the Articles of Confederation still, that's another topic) Weird how only the republicans who are currently getting massive vote subsidies seem to think that that is good. And "You don't know shit" isn't a good argument. Fact is that it gave you probably the worst president in the history of your country, winning with a minority of the votes, and placing 3 judges for the next decades to fuck up the supreme court. Doesn't sound like a good result of a well-working system to me. You're extremely myopic. Didn't folks tell me why can't Republicans just change their views to win votes of newly admitted states like PR and DC when we had that argument? Why can't Democrats just change their views to win in places like Idaho, Oklahoma, Kansas, etc.? All you guys care about is power (and 99% of GOP). The ramifications of the changes to the system you're proposing would accelerate US collapse. The reason I said you're ignorant as fuck, is because you're ignorant as fuck. I'm not going to regurgitate 800 pages of the Federalist debates from the 1780s at you, but suffice to say, the US had this argument with each other all ready. There are innumerable good reasons why the US is more of a republic than a democracy. Are you seriously flipping “if the Republicans can’t win a majority of votes they should pick more popular policies” to “if the Democrats want to win they should drop their more popular policies and appeal to the niche interests of an over represented minority”? Does that sound like a working system to you? That's (the "status quo") a better system (though I don't agree with your qualifiers) than the one being proposed where these people and these states have near 0 power. There's nothing magically better about democracy. If your goal is to increase the sectarian and partisan divide by all means, go democracy uber alles. That's the history of every country that isn't homogenous and where a purer democracy was instituted. In a system of one man one vote the smaller states wouldn’t have zero power, they would have exactly the amount of power that their population deserves. It’s not about giving small states no power, it’s about returning the disproportionate power they have stolen from the voters of larger states. One man one vote should not be this controversial. The idea that one Californian one vote, one Wyoming resident 70 votes, is a natural state of affairs which would strip the people of Wyoming of their power if we changed is baffling.
You're daft. "Your" side wants to get rid of the legislative filibuster and only requiring simple majority to pass laws in the Senate, coupled with increasing Senators proportionally, and increasing House size so more populous states have more power, and then abolishing the EC for a popular vote. Tell me...in such a system how will Kansas or North Dakota have any power? Our system of governance does not work based on "reps / people". To make a law you need X votes (If the minority small states were proportional their effective power is basically 0...you don't understand that). Increasingly one side wants to make this entirely majority empowered. Tell me, how will the states who are minority status be able to do anything in such a system?
For someone who yells at me coming at things too simply, seems like the pot calling the kettle black.
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United States42656 Posts
On January 03 2021 05:47 Wegandi wrote:Show nested quote +On January 03 2021 05:24 KwarK wrote:On January 03 2021 05:19 Wegandi wrote:On January 03 2021 05:11 KwarK wrote:On January 03 2021 04:58 Wegandi wrote:On January 03 2021 04:52 Simberto wrote:On January 03 2021 04:48 Wegandi wrote:On January 03 2021 04:42 Simberto wrote:On January 03 2021 04:30 Danglars wrote:On January 03 2021 03:47 ChristianS wrote:
[quote]
[quote]
This is what I was responding to. Haven’t seen a single person anywhere argue that # of representatives per state should scale >linearly with population, and while I’m sure someone at some point has said it, it obviously violates the principle everyone is implicitly arguing about (i.e. that everyone’s vote should count equally). No idea what you’re referring to with “House reform,” if there’s some movement I’m unaware of to double CA’s house representatives or something you’ll have to give me a link.
Why should people in wyoming have 70X (or w/e) more say than me on SCOTUS confirmations? This question isn’t rhetorical; give me an actual justification for weighting this way. Maybe we are arguing at cross purposes. You previously stated about "equal representation," when it is a truth that more populous states enjoy greater representation in the national government as things stand today. Equal representation of states only applies to half of the legislative branch of the federal government, and does not apply to the other half of the legislative branch of the government, or to the executive branch, or to the judicial branch. You agree that the problem does not consist of equal representation, or only narrowly consists of equal representation? Why do you think anyone would mean "equal representation of states" when saying "equal representation"? Everyone who is not you means "Equal representation of PEOPLE". And that is exactly the problem. Some people get extra votes. The US polity is based on states, not people. I don't like pointing to names of countries because 99% it means jack shit, but the US is aptly named. Because you have no understanding of US history you make silly statements like you did. You don't know why the Senate is the way it is. You don't know about the Federalist and Anti-Federalist debates. You don't know the arguments for and against the things you propose. These issues aren't new. They're part of the founding of this country. There's a reason the US rejected democracy in favor of a representative republic. (Even though in an objective sense I'm not a fan of the Constitution, I'd rather have the Articles of Confederation still, that's another topic) Weird how only the republicans who are currently getting massive vote subsidies seem to think that that is good. And "You don't know shit" isn't a good argument. Fact is that it gave you probably the worst president in the history of your country, winning with a minority of the votes, and placing 3 judges for the next decades to fuck up the supreme court. Doesn't sound like a good result of a well-working system to me. You're extremely myopic. Didn't folks tell me why can't Republicans just change their views to win votes of newly admitted states like PR and DC when we had that argument? Why can't Democrats just change their views to win in places like Idaho, Oklahoma, Kansas, etc.? All you guys care about is power (and 99% of GOP). The ramifications of the changes to the system you're proposing would accelerate US collapse. The reason I said you're ignorant as fuck, is because you're ignorant as fuck. I'm not going to regurgitate 800 pages of the Federalist debates from the 1780s at you, but suffice to say, the US had this argument with each other all ready. There are innumerable good reasons why the US is more of a republic than a democracy. Are you seriously flipping “if the Republicans can’t win a majority of votes they should pick more popular policies” to “if the Democrats want to win they should drop their more popular policies and appeal to the niche interests of an over represented minority”? Does that sound like a working system to you? That's (the "status quo") a better system (though I don't agree with your qualifiers) than the one being proposed where these people and these states have near 0 power. There's nothing magically better about democracy. If your goal is to increase the sectarian and partisan divide by all means, go democracy uber alles. That's the history of every country that isn't homogenous and where a purer democracy was instituted. In a system of one man one vote the smaller states wouldn’t have zero power, they would have exactly the amount of power that their population deserves. It’s not about giving small states no power, it’s about returning the disproportionate power they have stolen from the voters of larger states. One man one vote should not be this controversial. The idea that one Californian one vote, one Wyoming resident 70 votes, is a natural state of affairs which would strip the people of Wyoming of their power if we changed is baffling. You're daft. "Your" side wants to get rid of the legislative filibuster and only requiring simple majority to pass laws in the Senate, coupled with increasing Senators proportionally, and increasing House size so more populous states have more power, and then abolishing the EC for a popular vote. Tell me...in such a system how will Kansas or North Dakota have any power? Our system of governance does not work based on "reps / people". To make a law you need X votes (If the minority small states were proportional their effective power is basically 0...you don't understand that). Increasingly one side wants to make this entirely majority empowered. Tell me, how will the states who are minority status be able to do anything in such a system? For someone who yells at me coming at things too simply, seems like the pot calling the kettle black.
I’m not arguing for them to have disproportionate power, I’m arguing only for the democratic rights of the people to be restored to them. You ask how Kansas will wield power in a democratic system, it will wield the power of its voters, and no more. Why should it wield more? Why should the democratic rights of the populous states be arbitrarily redistributed to the less populous in the name of fairness?
Voters named John are massively outnumbered by non John voters in the US. The interests of Johns aren’t given special respect, there hasn’t been a John president in decades and the last time there was he was murdered. Would you argue that the only way to redress this would be to give Johns multiple votes so that the voice of Johns isn’t drowned out by the larger number of other people? How can the minority names like Johns expect to wield any kind of power without extra votes? We can clearly delineate this country into two distinct groups, Johns and not Johns, and it is self evident that both should wield equal political influence.
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On January 03 2021 05:47 Wegandi wrote:Show nested quote +On January 03 2021 05:24 KwarK wrote:On January 03 2021 05:19 Wegandi wrote:On January 03 2021 05:11 KwarK wrote:On January 03 2021 04:58 Wegandi wrote:On January 03 2021 04:52 Simberto wrote:On January 03 2021 04:48 Wegandi wrote:On January 03 2021 04:42 Simberto wrote:On January 03 2021 04:30 Danglars wrote:On January 03 2021 03:47 ChristianS wrote:
[quote]
[quote]
This is what I was responding to. Haven’t seen a single person anywhere argue that # of representatives per state should scale >linearly with population, and while I’m sure someone at some point has said it, it obviously violates the principle everyone is implicitly arguing about (i.e. that everyone’s vote should count equally). No idea what you’re referring to with “House reform,” if there’s some movement I’m unaware of to double CA’s house representatives or something you’ll have to give me a link.
Why should people in wyoming have 70X (or w/e) more say than me on SCOTUS confirmations? This question isn’t rhetorical; give me an actual justification for weighting this way. Maybe we are arguing at cross purposes. You previously stated about "equal representation," when it is a truth that more populous states enjoy greater representation in the national government as things stand today. Equal representation of states only applies to half of the legislative branch of the federal government, and does not apply to the other half of the legislative branch of the government, or to the executive branch, or to the judicial branch. You agree that the problem does not consist of equal representation, or only narrowly consists of equal representation? Why do you think anyone would mean "equal representation of states" when saying "equal representation"? Everyone who is not you means "Equal representation of PEOPLE". And that is exactly the problem. Some people get extra votes. The US polity is based on states, not people. I don't like pointing to names of countries because 99% it means jack shit, but the US is aptly named. Because you have no understanding of US history you make silly statements like you did. You don't know why the Senate is the way it is. You don't know about the Federalist and Anti-Federalist debates. You don't know the arguments for and against the things you propose. These issues aren't new. They're part of the founding of this country. There's a reason the US rejected democracy in favor of a representative republic. (Even though in an objective sense I'm not a fan of the Constitution, I'd rather have the Articles of Confederation still, that's another topic) Weird how only the republicans who are currently getting massive vote subsidies seem to think that that is good. And "You don't know shit" isn't a good argument. Fact is that it gave you probably the worst president in the history of your country, winning with a minority of the votes, and placing 3 judges for the next decades to fuck up the supreme court. Doesn't sound like a good result of a well-working system to me. You're extremely myopic. Didn't folks tell me why can't Republicans just change their views to win votes of newly admitted states like PR and DC when we had that argument? Why can't Democrats just change their views to win in places like Idaho, Oklahoma, Kansas, etc.? All you guys care about is power (and 99% of GOP). The ramifications of the changes to the system you're proposing would accelerate US collapse. The reason I said you're ignorant as fuck, is because you're ignorant as fuck. I'm not going to regurgitate 800 pages of the Federalist debates from the 1780s at you, but suffice to say, the US had this argument with each other all ready. There are innumerable good reasons why the US is more of a republic than a democracy. Are you seriously flipping “if the Republicans can’t win a majority of votes they should pick more popular policies” to “if the Democrats want to win they should drop their more popular policies and appeal to the niche interests of an over represented minority”? Does that sound like a working system to you? That's (the "status quo") a better system (though I don't agree with your qualifiers) than the one being proposed where these people and these states have near 0 power. There's nothing magically better about democracy. If your goal is to increase the sectarian and partisan divide by all means, go democracy uber alles. That's the history of every country that isn't homogenous and where a purer democracy was instituted. In a system of one man one vote the smaller states wouldn’t have zero power, they would have exactly the amount of power that their population deserves. It’s not about giving small states no power, it’s about returning the disproportionate power they have stolen from the voters of larger states. One man one vote should not be this controversial. The idea that one Californian one vote, one Wyoming resident 70 votes, is a natural state of affairs which would strip the people of Wyoming of their power if we changed is baffling. You're daft. "Your" side wants to get rid of the legislative filibuster and only requiring simple majority to pass laws in the Senate, coupled with increasing Senators proportionally, and increasing House size so more populous states have more power, and then abolishing the EC for a popular vote. Tell me...in such a system how will Kansas or North Dakota have any power? Our system of governance does not work based on "reps / people". To make a law you need X votes (If the minority small states were proportional their effective power is basically 0...you don't understand that). Increasingly one side wants to make this entirely majority empowered. Tell me, how will the states who are minority status be able to do anything in such a system? For someone who yells at me coming at things too simply, seems like the pot calling the kettle black.
The people in Kansas will have as many votes as they should have. Currently they have more. You try to hide this by talking about states rather than people.
The fair comparison is how much power one person from Kansas has in comparison to one person from California. You argue that the person from Kansas deserves more power than the person from California. Also, you argue that this should change if California were to split into Kansas-sized Minicals. This seems absurd to me.
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On January 03 2021 04:30 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On January 03 2021 03:47 ChristianS wrote:On January 03 2021 03:38 Danglars wrote:On January 03 2021 03:32 ChristianS wrote:
I don’t think I’ve seen a single person anywhere argue that House representation should be anything other than proportional to population. What would that scheme even be? # of representatives rises quadratically with population?
The underlying principle is obviously that a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people” should decide its representation primarily by the opinion of the majority of people. If you’re going to privilege the opinion of some people by a couple orders of magnitude over the opinion of other people, you should present a compelling reason why they should be so over-represented. Protecting less populous communities and lifestyles from tyranny of the majority is potentially such a reason, but then apply it equally.
Or if you’ve got a different reason, spit it out. When people say "these areas need to have equal representation" and you, yourself "equal representation," it should be said that they don't have equal representation as the system exists today. It's literally one half of one third of the governing system. It deserves to be pointed out that equal only applies to the Senate, and as such arguments exist in electoral arguments more generally, people want them to have proportionately less representation in a system that already gives them less representation today. See: Electoral college reform, House reform. Please contest any of the factual basis you dispute in this post. The big states already have bigger representation in the House; some people want it to be more extreme. This is what I was responding to. Haven’t seen a single person anywhere argue that # of representatives per state should scale >linearly with population, and while I’m sure someone at some point has said it, it obviously violates the principle everyone is implicitly arguing about (i.e. that everyone’s vote should count equally). No idea what you’re referring to with “House reform,” if there’s some movement I’m unaware of to double CA’s house representatives or something you’ll have to give me a link. Why should people in wyoming have 70X (or w/e) more say than me on SCOTUS confirmations? This question isn’t rhetorical; give me an actual justification for weighting this way. Maybe we are arguing at cross purposes. You previously stated about "equal representation," when it is a truth that more populous states enjoy greater representation in the national government as things stand today. Equal representation of states only applies to half of the legislative branch of the federal government, and does not apply to the other half of the legislative branch of the government, or to the executive branch, or to the judicial branch. You agree that the problem does not consist of equal representation, or only narrowly consists of equal representation?
So when you said:
The big states already have bigger representation in the House; some people want it to be more extreme.
If I’m understanding you correctly the antecedent of “it” was not “bigger representation in the House,” (as it appeared earlier in the sentence) but “bigger representation [in government overall]”? Still a weird framing but at least I understand what you were saying.
I don’t understand what you’re wanting me to acknowledge here? I mean, yes, I understand that other parts of government do not apportion representation equally by state. I passed my high school Government class. But you’re getting really hung up on the term “equal representation” in a way that isn’t actually clarifying anything, because it has to be equal relative to something. If we apportioned Senators by population, or by GDP, or by pounds of Jello consumed per year, it would still be “equal representation” in some sense. What we care about is fair representation, and if the term “equal representation” isn’t clarifying discussion about what constitutes fair representation we should discard it. Was the Ancien Regime “equal representation”? Sort of, arguably so. Was it fair? No!
So I understand that the House apportions by population and the Senate apportions per State. Why? What principles make that a good and fair construction? Once we have principles to work from we can answer not just what the system *is* but what it *should be,* including questions like:
Were the founders right to design it this way?
Assuming they + Show Spoiler +(at least conditionally, setting aside things like the 3/5ths compromise)
How should we approach possible or likely or inevitable changes to the system they devised?
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How often does a senator of Wyoming have to decide any matters that consider the state of Wyoming. You are acting as if senators would not decide matters that affect their population directly through bills that are nationwide. The senator is voted into office by the people, not the state, not the governour, he represents the people. So why would it be the state as a an entity that needs to be represented fairly?
Anyway, again, if the American System is sacrosanct and the only way to keep a country from failing, why did America not once in it's long history of dictating the political systems of foreign countries recreate it in another country? Not in germany, not in Iraq, not in Afghanistan, not in any South Amercian puppet or in Japan? You act as if the only way for your country to work is by following the rules that work in your favour. If i would magically flip 5 states in the Midwest to become pure blue and vote democrat for the EC and their Senate races, you would start crying how unfair the system is and that something needs to be done to help republicans win again. You don't care for what is a good and fair system of government, you just care about keeping whatever you think you are entitled to despite the majority of your neighbours disagreeing with you.
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On January 03 2021 07:15 Broetchenholer wrote:
How often does a senator of Wyoming have to decide any matters that consider the state of Wyoming. You are acting as if senators would not decide matters that affect their population directly through bills that are nationwide. The senator is voted into office by the people, not the state, not the governour, he represents the people. So why would it be the state as a an entity that needs to be represented fairly?
Anyway, again, if the American System is sacrosanct and the only way to keep a country from failing, why did America not once in it's long history of dictating the political systems of foreign countries recreate it in another country? Not in germany, not in Iraq, not in Afghanistan, not in any South Amercian puppet or in Japan? You act as if the only way for your country to work is by following the rules that work in your favour. If i would magically flip 5 states in the Midwest to become pure blue and vote democrat for the EC and their Senate races, you would start crying how unfair the system is and that something needs to be done to help republicans win again. You don't care for what is a good and fair system of government, you just care about keeping whatever you think you are entitled to despite the majority of your neighbours disagreeing with you.
It isn't only about partisan power, though. There are much more profound forces in place: about an indoctrinated faith in the almos divine status of the consitution, traditions, fear of change (conservatism) and what would replace the current system.
In reality, though, the US democratic system is reality of what happens when an archaic, outdated and unfair system set in place to keep the elites in power which is built around a no-party system becomes hyper-partisan.
Arguments about the danger of big states dominating smaller states is a futile one. In Norway, a blueprint democracy in most ways, the lareg but very sparsely populated region of Finnmark has just short of 15k citizens per parlament member, which is very low compared to the 32k of Oslo, but it it just does not compare to the bizarre unfairness of the US senate seats.
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On January 03 2021 07:15 Broetchenholer wrote:
How often does a senator of Wyoming have to decide any matters that consider the state of Wyoming. You are acting as if senators would not decide matters that affect their population directly through bills that are nationwide. The senator is voted into office by the people, not the state, not the governour, he represents the people. So why would it be the state as a an entity that needs to be represented fairly?
Anyway, again, if the American System is sacrosanct and the only way to keep a country from failing, why did America not once in it's long history of dictating the political systems of foreign countries recreate it in another country? Not in germany, not in Iraq, not in Afghanistan, not in any South Amercian puppet or in Japan? You act as if the only way for your country to work is by following the rules that work in your favour. If i would magically flip 5 states in the Midwest to become pure blue and vote democrat for the EC and their Senate races, you would start crying how unfair the system is and that something needs to be done to help republicans win again. You don't care for what is a good and fair system of government, you just care about keeping whatever you think you are entitled to despite the majority of your neighbours disagreeing with you.
Doesn't your Bundersrat have unequal vote weights? And why are you comparing the US to failed states with no democratic traditions like Iraq or Afghanistan or homogeneous countries like Germany and Japan?
I have no strong opinions about the American system, but I think it's pointless to compare apples and oranges. I think copying the American system in Germany, France or Poland would make no sense, but that doesn't mean I consider German or French models to be objectively better.
In theory I would prefer the qualified majority voting rules that we currently have in the EU (listed below) over what Americans have now, but since the UK just left us it won't be easy to argue our rules are better at keeping everyone in the union happy.
the conditions for a qualified majority, effective since 1 November 2014 (Lisbon rules):
- Majority of countries: 55% (comprising at least 15 of them), or 72% if acting on a proposal from neither the Commission nor from the High Representative, and
- Majority of population: 65%.
- A blocking minority requires—in addition to not meeting one of the two conditions above—that at least 4 countries (or, if not all countries participate in the vote, the minimum number of countries representing more than 35% of the population of the participating countries, plus one country) vote against the proposal.
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On January 03 2021 07:08 ChristianS wrote:Show nested quote +On January 03 2021 04:30 Danglars wrote:On January 03 2021 03:47 ChristianS wrote:On January 03 2021 03:38 Danglars wrote:On January 03 2021 03:32 ChristianS wrote:
I don’t think I’ve seen a single person anywhere argue that House representation should be anything other than proportional to population. What would that scheme even be? # of representatives rises quadratically with population?
The underlying principle is obviously that a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people” should decide its representation primarily by the opinion of the majority of people. If you’re going to privilege the opinion of some people by a couple orders of magnitude over the opinion of other people, you should present a compelling reason why they should be so over-represented. Protecting less populous communities and lifestyles from tyranny of the majority is potentially such a reason, but then apply it equally.
Or if you’ve got a different reason, spit it out. When people say "these areas need to have equal representation" and you, yourself "equal representation," it should be said that they don't have equal representation as the system exists today. It's literally one half of one third of the governing system. It deserves to be pointed out that equal only applies to the Senate, and as such arguments exist in electoral arguments more generally, people want them to have proportionately less representation in a system that already gives them less representation today. See: Electoral college reform, House reform. Please contest any of the factual basis you dispute in this post. The big states already have bigger representation in the House; some people want it to be more extreme. This is what I was responding to. Haven’t seen a single person anywhere argue that # of representatives per state should scale >linearly with population, and while I’m sure someone at some point has said it, it obviously violates the principle everyone is implicitly arguing about (i.e. that everyone’s vote should count equally). No idea what you’re referring to with “House reform,” if there’s some movement I’m unaware of to double CA’s house representatives or something you’ll have to give me a link. Why should people in wyoming have 70X (or w/e) more say than me on SCOTUS confirmations? This question isn’t rhetorical; give me an actual justification for weighting this way. Maybe we are arguing at cross purposes. You previously stated about "equal representation," when it is a truth that more populous states enjoy greater representation in the national government as things stand today. Equal representation of states only applies to half of the legislative branch of the federal government, and does not apply to the other half of the legislative branch of the government, or to the executive branch, or to the judicial branch. You agree that the problem does not consist of equal representation, or only narrowly consists of equal representation? So when you said: Show nested quote +The big states already have bigger representation in the House; some people want it to be more extreme. If I’m understanding you correctly the antecedent of “it” was not “bigger representation in the House,” (as it appeared earlier in the sentence) but “bigger representation [in government overall]”? Still a weird framing but at least I understand what you were saying. I don’t understand what you’re wanting me to acknowledge here? I mean, yes, I understand that other parts of government do not apportion representation equally by state. I passed my high school Government class. But you’re getting really hung up on the term “equal representation” in a way that isn’t actually clarifying anything, because it has to be equal relative to something. If we apportioned Senators by population, or by GDP, or by pounds of Jello consumed per year, it would still be “equal representation” in some sense. What we care about is fair representation, and if the term “equal representation” isn’t clarifying discussion about what constitutes fair representation we should discard it. Was the Ancien Regime “equal representation”? Sort of, arguably so. Was it fair? No! So I understand that the House apportions by population and the Senate apportions per State. Why? What principles make that a good and fair construction? Once we have principles to work from we can answer not just what the system *is* but what it *should be,* including questions like: Were the founders right to design it this way? Assuming they + Show Spoiler +(at least conditionally, setting aside things like the 3/5ths compromise) were right, is there anything different about the modern day that would change the answer? How should we approach possible or likely or inevitable changes to the system they devised?
When we're talking about the per-state apportionment of representatives to the House of Representatives, the bigger states get more representatives. Period. Same about electors, the winner of the popular vote in the nation's biggest states get more electors than the winner of the popular vote in the nation's smaller states.
The states, as they exist now, favor the big ones, and there's no denying it. And day after day I hear people who should know better bemoaning that the US should've been founded on people, taking national popular votes to determine results, and it's a crying shame we aren't much closer to direct democracy. You can compute the national popular vote for shits and giggles, statistics can be fun like that, but it has never and will never be the method of determining any elected position of the US.
Yes, we've taken measures, as all good countries should do upon founding, to balance
the concerns of larger states, particularly with their larger share of tax revenue to the fed, that shouldn't be redistributed by a collection of smaller states
the concerns of smaller states, particularly since their interests could end up dominated by numbers instead of compromised with in a bad system (Senate, not directly proportional House)
Sadly, this sort of important consideration comes with its modern version (maybe it should be called left-populism these days) of populist whining: Our votes count for less on a per-person basis outside of our state! This is by design: insulate power from the will of the mob, and layer it through deliberately non-proportional means, so that minorities neither dominate nor become dominated, and any national message much include their voices, rather than just pursue the top-10 metros and only fly to middle america to see great-grandparents.
Like I told micronesia, the concept of tinkering isn't an immediately dismissible idea. There's a lot of room in the gap between every state gets the same representation in the House, and every state gets representation directly proportional to their citizens. Neither extreme is desirable. I should also note for the second time, the census does its own share of tinkering, since big state California has done such a remarkable job alienating it's own citizens and companies, who go away to better states like Arizona and Texas, and might cost them a seat in the House.
It's a shame this subject has claimed Wegandi, since he also made good points that I didn't need to make myself because of his effort. Just don't respond to people that you'd call daft or bad faith or enact enough instances of the pot calling the kettle black. It aint worth it.
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United States42656 Posts
On January 03 2021 08:51 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On January 03 2021 07:08 ChristianS wrote:On January 03 2021 04:30 Danglars wrote:On January 03 2021 03:47 ChristianS wrote:On January 03 2021 03:38 Danglars wrote:On January 03 2021 03:32 ChristianS wrote:
I don’t think I’ve seen a single person anywhere argue that House representation should be anything other than proportional to population. What would that scheme even be? # of representatives rises quadratically with population?
The underlying principle is obviously that a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people” should decide its representation primarily by the opinion of the majority of people. If you’re going to privilege the opinion of some people by a couple orders of magnitude over the opinion of other people, you should present a compelling reason why they should be so over-represented. Protecting less populous communities and lifestyles from tyranny of the majority is potentially such a reason, but then apply it equally.
Or if you’ve got a different reason, spit it out. When people say "these areas need to have equal representation" and you, yourself "equal representation," it should be said that they don't have equal representation as the system exists today. It's literally one half of one third of the governing system. It deserves to be pointed out that equal only applies to the Senate, and as such arguments exist in electoral arguments more generally, people want them to have proportionately less representation in a system that already gives them less representation today. See: Electoral college reform, House reform. Please contest any of the factual basis you dispute in this post. The big states already have bigger representation in the House; some people want it to be more extreme. This is what I was responding to. Haven’t seen a single person anywhere argue that # of representatives per state should scale >linearly with population, and while I’m sure someone at some point has said it, it obviously violates the principle everyone is implicitly arguing about (i.e. that everyone’s vote should count equally). No idea what you’re referring to with “House reform,” if there’s some movement I’m unaware of to double CA’s house representatives or something you’ll have to give me a link. Why should people in wyoming have 70X (or w/e) more say than me on SCOTUS confirmations? This question isn’t rhetorical; give me an actual justification for weighting this way. Maybe we are arguing at cross purposes. You previously stated about "equal representation," when it is a truth that more populous states enjoy greater representation in the national government as things stand today. Equal representation of states only applies to half of the legislative branch of the federal government, and does not apply to the other half of the legislative branch of the government, or to the executive branch, or to the judicial branch. You agree that the problem does not consist of equal representation, or only narrowly consists of equal representation? So when you said: The big states already have bigger representation in the House; some people want it to be more extreme. If I’m understanding you correctly the antecedent of “it” was not “bigger representation in the House,” (as it appeared earlier in the sentence) but “bigger representation [in government overall]”? Still a weird framing but at least I understand what you were saying. I don’t understand what you’re wanting me to acknowledge here? I mean, yes, I understand that other parts of government do not apportion representation equally by state. I passed my high school Government class. But you’re getting really hung up on the term “equal representation” in a way that isn’t actually clarifying anything, because it has to be equal relative to something. If we apportioned Senators by population, or by GDP, or by pounds of Jello consumed per year, it would still be “equal representation” in some sense. What we care about is fair representation, and if the term “equal representation” isn’t clarifying discussion about what constitutes fair representation we should discard it. Was the Ancien Regime “equal representation”? Sort of, arguably so. Was it fair? No! So I understand that the House apportions by population and the Senate apportions per State. Why? What principles make that a good and fair construction? Once we have principles to work from we can answer not just what the system *is* but what it *should be,* including questions like: Were the founders right to design it this way? Assuming they + Show Spoiler +(at least conditionally, setting aside things like the 3/5ths compromise) were right, is there anything different about the modern day that would change the answer? How should we approach possible or likely or inevitable changes to the system they devised? Same about electors, the winner of the popular vote in the nation's biggest states get more electors than the winner of the popular vote in the nation's smaller states.
False. The bigger states are underrepresented in EC votes per resident, not over represented. You’re measuring the wrong thing. This basic inability to compare ratios is what so embarrassed you a few days ago when you tried to suggest that the US had higher inequality than South Africa. Your ongoing inability to understand that 3:1 is a higher ratio than 6:3, even though 3-1 is less than 6-3, will continue to shame you until you learn basic maths.
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On January 03 2021 09:11 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On January 03 2021 08:51 Danglars wrote:On January 03 2021 07:08 ChristianS wrote:On January 03 2021 04:30 Danglars wrote:On January 03 2021 03:47 ChristianS wrote:On January 03 2021 03:38 Danglars wrote:On January 03 2021 03:32 ChristianS wrote:
I don’t think I’ve seen a single person anywhere argue that House representation should be anything other than proportional to population. What would that scheme even be? # of representatives rises quadratically with population?
The underlying principle is obviously that a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people” should decide its representation primarily by the opinion of the majority of people. If you’re going to privilege the opinion of some people by a couple orders of magnitude over the opinion of other people, you should present a compelling reason why they should be so over-represented. Protecting less populous communities and lifestyles from tyranny of the majority is potentially such a reason, but then apply it equally.
Or if you’ve got a different reason, spit it out. When people say "these areas need to have equal representation" and you, yourself "equal representation," it should be said that they don't have equal representation as the system exists today. It's literally one half of one third of the governing system. It deserves to be pointed out that equal only applies to the Senate, and as such arguments exist in electoral arguments more generally, people want them to have proportionately less representation in a system that already gives them less representation today. See: Electoral college reform, House reform. Please contest any of the factual basis you dispute in this post. The big states already have bigger representation in the House; some people want it to be more extreme. This is what I was responding to. Haven’t seen a single person anywhere argue that # of representatives per state should scale >linearly with population, and while I’m sure someone at some point has said it, it obviously violates the principle everyone is implicitly arguing about (i.e. that everyone’s vote should count equally). No idea what you’re referring to with “House reform,” if there’s some movement I’m unaware of to double CA’s house representatives or something you’ll have to give me a link. Why should people in wyoming have 70X (or w/e) more say than me on SCOTUS confirmations? This question isn’t rhetorical; give me an actual justification for weighting this way. Maybe we are arguing at cross purposes. You previously stated about "equal representation," when it is a truth that more populous states enjoy greater representation in the national government as things stand today. Equal representation of states only applies to half of the legislative branch of the federal government, and does not apply to the other half of the legislative branch of the government, or to the executive branch, or to the judicial branch. You agree that the problem does not consist of equal representation, or only narrowly consists of equal representation? So when you said: The big states already have bigger representation in the House; some people want it to be more extreme. If I’m understanding you correctly the antecedent of “it” was not “bigger representation in the House,” (as it appeared earlier in the sentence) but “bigger representation [in government overall]”? Still a weird framing but at least I understand what you were saying. I don’t understand what you’re wanting me to acknowledge here? I mean, yes, I understand that other parts of government do not apportion representation equally by state. I passed my high school Government class. But you’re getting really hung up on the term “equal representation” in a way that isn’t actually clarifying anything, because it has to be equal relative to something. If we apportioned Senators by population, or by GDP, or by pounds of Jello consumed per year, it would still be “equal representation” in some sense. What we care about is fair representation, and if the term “equal representation” isn’t clarifying discussion about what constitutes fair representation we should discard it. Was the Ancien Regime “equal representation”? Sort of, arguably so. Was it fair? No! So I understand that the House apportions by population and the Senate apportions per State. Why? What principles make that a good and fair construction? Once we have principles to work from we can answer not just what the system *is* but what it *should be,* including questions like: Were the founders right to design it this way? Assuming they + Show Spoiler +(at least conditionally, setting aside things like the 3/5ths compromise) were right, is there anything different about the modern day that would change the answer? How should we approach possible or likely or inevitable changes to the system they devised? Same about electors, the winner of the popular vote in the nation's biggest states get more electors than the winner of the popular vote in the nation's smaller states. False. The bigger states are underrepresented in EC votes per resident, not over represented. You’re measuring the wrong thing. This basic inability to compare ratios is what so embarrassed you a few days ago when you tried to suggest that the US had higher inequality than South Africa. Your ongoing inability to understand that 3:1 is a higher ratio than 6:3, even though 3-1 is less than 6-3, will continue to shame you until you learn basic maths.
The trick Danglars is using is to only talk about total numbers, and completely ignoring how many people a vote represents. California gets more total votes, thus he claims California is over represented, because one state gets more votes. Completely ignoring the amount of people that California represents. It is an argument based on a completely different set of axioms.
Danglars thinks, or claims to think, that people are irrelevant and only states matter. I find that utterly strange and absurd.
Regressives are really good at choosing the numbers to look at so their absurd positions appear to make some sense.
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On the subject of ratios I think it would be perfectly fair and reasonable in the large scale of things if the dakotas had around double the proportional representation than California going for a federal republic of states if that is what we really want. But the sheer imbalance of the Senate at the very least has gotten far out of hand well past even the wildest imaginations of the founding fathers who argued against the compromise.
I don't mean to mark out Minnesota as the example of the nation as it should be so much (even if it's a good example) but I think it's a valid bar for what states should get 2 senators instead of one. Rhode island west Virginia dc Wyoming the dakotas Nebraska. There are a lot of very low population states that getting two senators or 3 electoral voters that frankly don't deserve it.
On another note I think it would sate both sides if we just increased the electoral college a little and made all the votes proportional to the results. There is a very real and significant amount of red people in blue states and vice versa.
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Sorry if people can't grasp per-state vs per-person frames of looking at representation. Each state gets 2 senators. Larger states get more representatives than smaller states. CA gets 53, WY gets 1. "BUT WYOMING IS SO SMALL THAT THEY SHOULDN'T GET PROPORTIONALLY THAT MUCH, IT SHOULD BE [100, 200, 300] to WY'S ONE."
Welcome to the discussion of just how disproportionate is should be regarding people, not states. Let's make WY's representatives 1, and CA's representatives 1. Is that equal representatives in Congress? "NO, IT WASNT EQUAL AT THE START, AND THAT DOESN'T MAKE IT MORE EQUAL."
Come off the ideological, taxonomical high ground. Biggest states get increased representation in the House, the same representation in the Senate. It's always been about the states. State certifies electors, state send senators (originally state legislators send senators), states are apportioned house seats and divide them into areas. States, states, states.
No poster here should demand every other user frame the issue according to their desires. If you're uncomfortable talking about things in terms of state's relative power in national governance, you won't be comfortable in any debate with people that don't already think the same things that you do. You also have no business asking for electoral reform if you can't admit to basic definitions in the current state of the system.
I have half a mind to ask for Alaska to have the 53 representatives of California, and California to have the 1 of Alaska: that way I can believe the members of this forum are speaking from truth and intelligence when they say Alaska has increased representation in the House of Representatives compared to California.
I wish some here were elected to Congress, to be asked on the record: Sir, the 53 votes from California enacted something that the combined representatives from the states of Alaska, Arkansas, Delaware, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming were powerless to stop. Something must be wrong, since you know it to be the case that those states have greater representation in the national government compared to California!
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United States42656 Posts
A state is an arbitrarily drawn geographical administrative district. In a democracy people get political representation, not shapes on maps. It’s not that I don’t understand that you’re talking about representation per state, it’s that it’s a profoundly idiotic and arbitrary belief.
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The whole premise of (representative) democracy is that the government should act for the well-being of its people, and that to ensure that, the people should get to decide who is in the government (and, by proxy, what the government does). From that it’s a fairly natural extension that if we think each person’s well-being is of equal value, then each person should have equal say in whatever mechanism gives them a voice.
Now that’s a simple, idealistic conception. Real democracies have all sorts of problems (special interest problems and tyranny of the majority to name two), and devising a system other than simple proportional representation to preserve the virtues of democracy while avoiding its excesses isn’t a crazy notion. But foundationally, representation of people is the entire point, deriving from the fact that it’s *people’s* well-being we care about. A state can’t “enjoy” being “favored” for its larger population, because it can’t enjoy anything. It has no fears, desires, beliefs, or moral worth. Its people do, and insomuch as they help ensure people’s well-being states are good things, but the interests of one million people and the interests of ten thousand people are not of equal moral worth, even if the two group have assembled themselves into one state each.
So I asked: what is the justification for privileging the interests of one group of people by two orders of magnitude over those of another group? On what principle is this justified? The only answer I find in your posts is this:
This is by design: insulate power from the will of the mob, and layer it through deliberately non-proportional means, so that minorities neither dominate nor become dominated, and any national message much include their voices, rather than just pursue the top-10 metros and only fly to middle america to see great-grandparents.
I think there’s actually two arguments here: first, that non-proportional apportionment helps avoid mob rule by placing hurdles between the majority and enacting of their will; and second, that non-proportional apportionment helps prevent tyranny of the majority by privileging minorities in less populous states with extra representation relative to their demographics.
The first I think is largely irrelevant to proportional representation. Other aspects of the Senate (e.g. long terms with only 1/3 up for re-election in any given cycle) are clearly intended to accomplish this, but aside from those non-proportional apportionment only changes what demographic characteristics the mob would have to have. Any mob based primarily in large-population states would have a harder time enacting its will, but one based more in small-population states would have an easier time enacting its will compared to proportional representation.
The other is the usual justification: non-proportional apportionment helps protect political minorities from having their affairs meddled with by a tyrannical majority. And tyranny of the majority is a real problem in democracies, so it’s not implausible. Although this remedy depends on those political minorities being well-represented in small-population states, which is hardly guaranteed. Blacks, for instance, have been (and are) plagued by tyranny of the majority problems for the entire history of the US (including in the Constitution itself!) but they’re a small enough group distributed evenly enough across the country that this measure does nothing to protect them.
But even if protecting regional minorities does nothing for other types of minorities it might still be a good thing. But then, why not Puerto Rico. They’re Americans, and they have no representation at all to protect them from tyrannical majorities. They’re not that populous, but we already established we’re not very concerned about that, and anyway they wouldn’t even be close to the smallest state. Doesn’t the same principle clearly favor statehood?
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Personally I think the amount of democracy a person gets should be entirely proportional to the amount of land they inhabit.
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United States42656 Posts
On January 03 2021 11:18 Jockmcplop wrote:
Personally I think the amount of democracy a person gets should be entirely proportional to the amount of land they inhabit.
I for one welcome our Alaskan overlords.
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EPT
