Hi, I think I'm going to come back into the conversation, given a little deepening of my thoughts as I read what others are discussing with you. Which of the following would you say you agree with? For redistricting the US House of Reps,
a. the US House districts should be configured to reflect the will of the electorate as close as possible
b. whatever legal power a group can wield to produce results is acceptable
c. whatever power, legal or illegal, a group can wield to produce results is acceptable
d. something else?
I suspect you aren't going to be surprised to learn that the answer is d.
I'm looking for a clear, plain statement as to what your position actually is as to what should happen in redistricting for the US House, in your opinion, without explanation, context, etc. Just the topic sentence from the paragraph, so to speak, just as I've done for a/b/c above.
Thanks.
Again, I think the structure of your question assumes the nature of my answer. I won't bore you by saying it all again at length, but I am coming at this from what I think the nature of the world is, rather than how I think the world ought to be. Take "b" and "c". I'm reading "acceptable" to be some kind of statement about whether the particular answer is moral. I am not and have not been talking about that.
Then, I feel like you are talking about universals again. "a" feels like it is talking about some kind of principle that the election should adhere to. If it creates a workable solution, where people are generally happy with their lives and their country and each generation does a bit better than the last, to decide everything by popular vote, I am happy with that. If the same can be achieved with a hereditary monarch, I am happy with that too. Any solution with have a ruling group whose interests and world views frames acceptable opinion. Change in regimes come from the splitting, or replacement of that group. I have absolutely no correct solution in mind at all, certainly not a permanently correct one. To me, the thing that makes the most difference is the extent to which the interests and incentives of the controlling group align with the interests of the governed.
Looking at your possible answer "c". I would say that is closer to how the world works, except that it is a lot easier to rule if you don't continually wield power openly in this way. The system will just wear itself out that way. Ideally, you convince everybody else that there is a set of rules that have some kind of moral necessity behind them that keeps you in power. You had better make sure you still have the big stick though. Machievali is kind of outdated, and things have moved on quite a bit, but the basic problem of power is the same as it ever was. Ultimately the possibility of power and violence is always there. If it wasn't, somebody who was prepared to use power and violence would come along and seize the throne.
The problem of districting seems to me a bit like the various deals before the civil war that were used to reduce the immediate tensions and kick the problem down the road a bit further. You have incompatible visions and ways of life that can't be squared and a desire to centralise power that can not tolerate the localism that would be needed to allow the two visions to coexist. The solutions you recommend tell one of those visions that they have lost and their way of life is over. It's the same choice that the South was faced with before the Civil War. The 2020s aren't the 1850s and I'm sure smarter people than me have all sorts of plans. Things will be different. The structural problem seems the same to me.
ATTEMPT AT A CLEAR PLAIN STATEMENT
You wanted a "clear, plain statement as to what [my] position actually is as to what should happen in redistricting for the US House, in [my] opinion, without explanation, context". I didn't give it to you above because I don't have one. I will try now the best I can to give you something, you may not like it, but it is the best I can do. I have told you over and over that I think any solution is a balancing act between competing interests. To live together, a balance must be found such that all the power and influence isn't concentrated in New York, Chicago, LA and a few other big metropolitan areas. I think that leads to the end of the US. Ideally, I would say that a huge amount of power would be pulled away from the federal government such that issues like districting were much less of a national issue. I have no expectation of that happening though. Basically, I see no way out and redistricting is just one aspect of the problem.
