"SEND HER BACK!" Will they defend this?

[smartcooky]

These proposals to change the makeup of the Senate are Darth Vader tier crap.

States joined the union in part because the Senate guaranteed them an equal say in the administration of the union.

Now the citizens of some states wish to change the the makeup of the Senate, in order to impose their will on the citizens of the other states.

"I have altered the deal. Pray I do not alter it any further."

Well geewhiz. The way your Senators are elected was changed is 1913. The deal has already been changed since 1776.


PS: There is a reason why the US Democratic System is considered to be a flawed one!
https://www.scmp.com/news/world/uni...y-united-states-being-called-flawed-democracy

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

...
But I guess I shouldn't expect much from someone who thinks 4>2 is a statement that should be demonstrated.

Can't you stop insulting people and talk about the facts instead?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

If you're doing this much of an overhaul, why not toss DC a bone and give them a senator, too? Their population is higher than the bottom two states.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Fair call, and Puerto Rico?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

This. Is. Pathetic.

Personally, I think he's a Travis follower (Travis called 'em concentration camps in a thread starter in November, last year.)

Touché.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

States also entered the Union on the condition they got to keep their slaves. And, of course, nobody from the Independence era is still alive, so the people currently affected did not consent to the current state of affairs.

The citizens of other states unfairly impose their will on me by non-democratic, non-representative means. That is wrong, and it should be changed.

A serious post by Cain and it's a good one.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Hey, remember that time when we ignored the right-wing distractions for like a full day? That was pretty cool.

This is my favorite thread today.

 

[bruto]

These proposals to change the makeup of the Senate are Darth Vader tier crap.

States joined the union in part because the Senate guaranteed them an equal say in the administration of the union.

Now the citizens of some states wish to change the the makeup of the Senate, in order to impose their will on the citizens of the other states.

"I have altered the deal. Pray I do not alter it any further."

The states also joined the union with a constitution that has a built-in process for change. A change in the makeup of the senate would require that process, which is not exactly new and surprising. In fact, I think one could find evidence that it's been used before.

 

[autumn1971]

The states also joined the union with a constitution that has a built-in process for change. A change in the makeup of the senate would require that process, which is not exactly new and surprising. In fact, I think one could find evidence that it's been used before.

But.... her e-mails?

 

[Foolmewunz]

Hey, remember that time when we ignored the right-wing distractions for like a full day? That was pretty cool.

That day was in November of 2016. Remember what happened while we were playing Dungeons and Dragons vowing not to be distracted by the two "just about equal" candidates?

Don't ignore them; take 'em down. Watching the two most dedicated interference runners try to excuse abject bigotry - in their party's President and in their fellow conservatives - is a joy to behold.

Ridiculing their total loss of credibility and their feeble attempts at bull feces intellectualism is a duty, not necessarily a pleasant one, but hey, they want people who "tell it like it is", so they're only fulfilling their own bucket lists.

This Is Like It Is... attempts to distract with petty rhetorical nitpicks are not working. In the past fifteen days, the other shoe has dropped. Trump is so desperate to get re-elected that he's gone full bore White Nationalist. Stevie The Creep is whispering sweet nothings in his ear and he really believes that he can tap into an even more bigoted and more deplorable base of "patriots". It will fail but it might rip the country apart while failing.

It's time for the lying conservatives to simply own up. They want the scumbag as leader because they see nothing wrong with bigotry, fostering hatred and fear, and think their little nest egg is more important than basic decency.

 

[angrysoba]

I think the issue of proportional representation deserves a thread of its own, and I hope a mod can look at this and sort the various posts out accordingly.

However, at the risk of further derailing this thread (and in anticipation that a mod will create a new thread) I wanted to put this idea for a proportionally represented US Senate.

I know its not perfect, but its a start, and I have tried to keep it uncomplicated.

Criteria
1. All States shall be entitled to at least one Seat in the Senate. This Seat is the Minimum Representation (MR) Seat.
2. A State will be required to have a total population of 1.5% of the National population in order to be entitled to additional Population Based Representation (PBR) Seats
3. The Percentage population is rounded up or down to the nearest whole percentage point to determine the number of PBR Seats.
4. Under most circumstances, this will result in a Senate of more than 100 Seats. If required, this can be corrected back to 100 by adjusting the divisor downwards until the resulting Senate is exactly 100 Seats. This will result in some States not being allocated one of their PBR Seats due to their population percentage being marginal.

Example
[qimg]https://www.dropbox.com/s/bdd6ew6kdinaoel/ProportionalSenate.png?raw=1[/qimg]

This one results in 109 Senate seats. If you want to reduce the number of Seats to 100, but keep it near proportional, then reducing the divisor from 100 to 89 will do the job, but nine states will not be allocated one of their PBR seats.

California
Texas
New York
Pennsylvania
Illinois
Ohio
New Jersey
Virginia
South Carolina

As I said, its not perfect, but it would be a fairer and more representative system than the current one, which grossly over-represents lower populated states, and grossly under represents higher populated states.

NOTE: I anticipate there will be all sorts of objections that the US Constitution says it can't be done because of this or that or the next thing. To those arguments, I would reply that the US Constitution is a living document, as evidenced by its 27 ratified Amendments. Indeed, the way Senators are elected was changed by the 17th amendment in 1913.

I would also argue that the US Constitution doesn't mean much in a country where the president routinely ignores it for his own personal and political purposes.

I also anticipate arguments from some that the system isn't broken and doesn't need fixing. To those people I say, you have not been paying attention.

It won’t be agreed to because three quarters of states have to agree to an amendment, and according to your proposal at least half of the states would need to vote to reduce their influence by at minimum a while senate seat, and in more cases, they will have proportionately fewer seats than the big states. Also, prior to that, both houses of Congress need to pass the amendment by two thirds majority meaning you would be asking a ton of Senators to make themselves either redundant or relatively impotent. It beggars belief that they would summon enough idealistic altruism and courage to face down the lobby groups in whose pockets they reside in order to create a “more perfect union”.

 

[I Am The Scum]

That day was in November of 2016. Remember what happened while we were playing Dungeons and Dragons vowing not to be distracted by the two "just about equal" candidates?

Don't ignore them; take 'em down. Watching the two most dedicated interference runners try to excuse abject bigotry - in their party's President and in their fellow conservatives - is a joy to behold.

Ridiculing their total loss of credibility and their feeble attempts at bull feces intellectualism is a duty, not necessarily a pleasant one, but hey, they want people who "tell it like it is", so they're only fulfilling their own bucket lists.

This Is Like It Is... attempts to distract with petty rhetorical nitpicks are not working. In the past fifteen days, the other shoe has dropped. Trump is so desperate to get re-elected that he's gone full bore White Nationalist. Stevie The Creep is whispering sweet nothings in his ear and he really believes that he can tap into an even more bigoted and more deplorable base of "patriots". It will fail but it might rip the country apart while failing.

It's time for the lying conservatives to simply own up. They want the scumbag as leader because they see nothing wrong with bigotry, fostering hatred and fear, and think their little nest egg is more important than basic decency.

You're badly misunderstanding my point. There are some issues we should be paying attention to (the actual topic of this thread, for instance). However, it is a guarantee that Trump supporters, argumentatively deficient, will distract with accusations of terrorism or a side-topic of draconian political systems.

And we fall for it every time.

 

[angrysoba]

True. Trump has shown that he is a morally backward opportunist. He clearly loves his crowd’s behavior and will have no problem if it gets even more out of hand. In fact, he’ll keep stoking it. At heart he is an authoritarian demagogue. I even think he is too unprincipled to be a fascist.

 

[Foolmewunz]

You're badly misunderstanding my point. There are some issues we should be paying attention to (the actual topic of this thread, for instance). However, it is a guarantee that Trump supporters, argumentatively deficient, will distract with accusations of terrorism or a side-topic of draconian political systems.

And we fall for it every time.

We've had these discussions on these boards like eleventy-seven dozen times. There's ignoring and then there's ignoring. I think I'm with you, but we have to clarify which ignoring we're talking about. Ignore their distractions and continue the discussion while calling out the fact that they "Look, Squirrel!" and "Whataboutism" and "Abject Pedantry/Sealioning" are distractions? Sure. Ignoring them by changing letting them have their say with no one taking them down? No.

 

[jimbob]

These proposals to change the makeup of the Senate are Darth Vader tier crap.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by this, but it sounds bad - do you want some smelling salts?

States joined the union in part because the Senate guaranteed them an equal say in the administration of the union.

States aren't people. They made no decisions. Interested groups of people within the states made the decision at a time when they were allowed to own other people.

Now the citizens of some states wish to change the the makeup of the Senate, in order to impose their will on the citizens of the other states.

"I have altered the deal. Pray I do not alter it any further."

Now some of the citizens of some states want to preserve an obviously unjust system that allows them far more influence than would be their fair share. Obviously in any representative democracy, this will happen to a certain extent - even with a proportional system, but measures can be taken to alleviate this.

Now I can think of worse systems for allocating seats in an upper house of a bicameral system. Hereditary seats, or those allocated by patronage spring to mind. However, you should aim to be better than the UK.

 

[Red Baron Farms]

I don't know if you noticed but our resident conservatives have for now high tailed it out of here.

Wrong. Still here, but still waiting for intelligent discussion to comment on. So far all I see is two entrenched sides talking past one another.

 

[Belz...]

Where has anyone said to give some people No Representation.

My use of "essentially" should be a hint that it's not actually zero. And I've not said, anywhere, that someone has suggested this as the desired result. I don't know why it was interpreted that way. What I'm saying is that several states, with definitely rural considerations, would see their concerns ignored, most of the time.

 

[Cavemonster]

These proposals to change the makeup of the Senate are Darth Vader tier crap.

States joined the union in part because the Senate guaranteed them an equal say in the administration of the union.

Now the citizens of some states wish to change the the makeup of the Senate, in order to impose their will on the citizens of the other states.

"I have altered the deal. Pray I do not alter it any further."

This line of thinking seems to lead to the conclusion that constitutional amendments are evil.

Laws change, the way our government works changes. "The deal" can be altered in a manner set forth in that constitution every state agreed to. The original deal allowed for all sorts of things we now find abhorrent.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

Because it was never about immigrants being legal or illegal. It was about them being immigrants that are not white.

Deplorable.

But not a bad thing. We all knew they were thinking this, it just took Trump to coax it out of them. And now they can't deny it.

And even better, republicans have to keep supporting him!

 

[Belz...]

So liberals can have "no" representation, that's OK?

...what? Where did I say it was ok or desirable? There's a difference between describing something and putting a moral value on it.

I understand perfectly. When people don't agree with you it doesn't mean they don't understand.

This is just a platitude. I told you why I don't think you understand it. Stop twisting my words.

I'm underrepresented, it pisses me off and it's one reason we got the Iraq war and Trump.

Then do something about it. That's what was suggested to me about the reverse problem.

You're not even from here

Wow. "Send him back!", eh?

you are arguing the EC gives rural population more representation (d'uh) like that's a good thing

I didn't say the EC was a good thing. I said that there are benefits to it, just like there are downsides. I literally said that.

The EC is outdated and needs to change. It has gotten much too far out of proportion.

That's probably true. It does not follow from that that there are no benefits from it, however.

I repeat YOUR QUOTE: You said "rural Americans having essentially no representation on the Federal level"."

That is not me saying you suggested it. It's you claiming if the rest of us got fair representation rural areas would get none.

No, that's not that at all. Why not quote me in full and in context? I clearly said, more than once now, that rural states would have essentially no voice in the shaping of US federal policies if it were directly proportional. So far no one has addressed this except to call 4>2 speculation.

Can't you stop insulting people and talk about the facts instead?

It IS a fact. Oracle has said this directly. If it's insulting to point out a fact, that's no my problem.

You want to talk about facts? How about you address the ones I've mentioned rather than focus on your strawman and tone policing?