Dave47 - I’m not going to fully rehash the argument, but the small voting deficit that California faces in the electoral college (relative to the national average, not just an outlier like Wyoming) is, IMO, more than offset by the clumping effect of all of those electors going in a single direction, as a group. If California were a politically competitive state, it would probably see massively disproportionate efforts by candidates to win it. How many presidential candidates make appearances in Wyoming (or other 3 electoral vote states)?
Yeah, it’s really bad. That’s why the state of Wyoming runs the nation, and folks from New York and California really have very little say in the federal government…
Yes, I am. That one half of one third of the federal government is quite important.
But it appears that was a “design feature” to offset power big states would have in other ways. Hence, looking at big state power in other ways IS quite relevant, unless you’re arguing that every subdivision of federal power must be nearly exactly balanced in terms of the geographic origin of those in that subdivision (i.e. balance at each individual component, instead of in the aggregate).
And I’ve provided several critiques of the rationale for this “design feature”. It just doesn’t make sense that a person from Wyoming counts for 69 people in California in the senate and apparently almost 2 Californians for the presidential election. If it were a small bias it might be acceptable but that is huge.
Furthermore, it doesn’t achieve what people are saying it achieves. It doesn’t prevent big swings in many directions, it just gives small states an inherent advantage to prevent big swings from big states. However there are more small states than big states and it’s not uncommon in our history for the smaller “red” states to be driving policy change.
And if you’re complaining about THAT, then there are a lot of other ways one could argue for balance (aside from geographical lines). Those ways would be fairly stupid, IMO, but there you go…
I’m arguing that unless you can figure out a reason why a person from Wyoming’s vote is worth 69x mine in the Senate then it’s probably a really stupid way to set up the senate. I haven’t really heard any good arguments against this just a bunch of blathering that the founding fathers must have had their reasons and if it was good enough for them then it’d be god damn unpatriotic to question it now (ok, that’s hyperbole, but you know what I mean). The particular state I’m in doesn’t really matter. Where it’s located or what it’s political leaning doesn’t really matter either. What matters is that there is a very important part of our government where my representative power is 1/69th of the power of someone from Wyoming for really no good reason at all.
Phil, they just don’t understand. Honestly, we are several pages into a political discussion where Gabe thought his opinion was somehow valid and well informed, and we find out that he didn’t even know how the electoral college works.
Here’s a suggestion, if you don’t understand how the fucking government works, don’t tell us that we need to change it.
OH NOES!!!
You mean you actually had to get 3 Republicans to agree with the biggest new spending plan in US history? Wouldn’t one-party rule be so much simpler?
DOUBLE NOES!!!
I guess even one party rule wouldn’t be much good if you had to do some give and take to get your own party to sign off on it…
Next, you’ll tell me that the (from New York) Treasury Secretary and/or the (from New York, I think) Fed Chairman had to listen to some input from some folks who weren’t from Wall Street. Well, at least they could conflab with the president (from Chicago, Illinois), and the House Speaker (from San Francisco, California). But wait, MAYBE they had to let the Senate Majority leader (from Nevada - is that even a state?) in on some of the discussions…
Truly, our democracy is on the precipe of disaster.
I think 57% is enough, but noooo you need 60% because of the ludicrous much-more-frequently-used-now filibuster rules.
Jason, at least you’ve consistently been down on the filibuster, even way back when it helped the Democrats.
Oh wait:
One party rule is DEFINITELY the way to go, as long as its your party.
Or something…
Hahahaha.
I had the grace to admit that I’d forgotten one specific detail of our government and that makes me wrong on all counts. Yay, hyperbole. I guess I should have just kept my internet posture of perfect knowledge of all things rather than discuss things as an actual human being.
Anyway, go back to making us laugh. You’re better at that.
OH NOES!!!
Way to put up a nice distraction. You asked where this mattered. I told you. It did matter. Whether democrats should have a super-majority or not is another issue. You’re fixating on a lot of extraneous details that don’t have anything to do with the core problem.
You keep saying that big states have advantages in other branches of government? What are these? Having more people and thus more representation for your greater tax revenue and greater needs is not an advantage. That’s just how democracy is supposed to work. One person, one vote and all that.
You’re being exceedingly dense.
You talked about a bill, implying that the big states are underrepresented WRT to the bill.
I describe how 4 of the 5 likely prime movers for the bill are from (AFAIK) big states. That’s an “extraneous detail”?
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I can’t decide whether you’re more thick in this thread or when you try to argue that virtually the entire profession of economics is wrong.
Nevermind. I was going to throw some insults back, since we seem to have stooped to that level, but I’m just going to say that throwing out random data points is not an argument.
At any given time the make up of the positions you mention could be just about anything. If you look at appointments under Bush you’re quite likely to find a strong correlation to small states. Not to even mention the fact that many of the people you mentioned aren’t officials who are elected as representatives of a particular state or body of people so they’re largely irrelevant anyway.
I’ve made my case. I’m gonna get back to work.
Made your case that you belong in a loony bin, maybe.
One specific detail? It’s the Electoral College, not an EPA memo. What you should have done is keep your mouth shut when you don’t know what the fuck is going on. Ever notice how I am never telling people what to do in the Hardware Forum? There’s a reason. I don’t know what the fuck is going on. Ever see me give someone advice on how to raise a kid, or shoot a music video, or to fix a septic system? No? And can you guess why? Because I am smart enough to know that I don’t know shit about any of those things.
For some reason, politics is the one sphere of life where people seem to think that their opinion, no matter how ill-informed, is legitimate and deserves to be treated with respect. Well, it isn’t and it doesn’t. Maybe you can’t understand how dumb your suggestion sounds to people who understand the purpose of a bicameral legislature in a representative democracy, but allow me to illustrate.
Your request to reapportion the United States Senate is to a informed citizen as;
a)A request to, “Make my faucet shoot dreams!” is to a plumber,
b)drilling holes in a flatscreen is to people who know how tvs work.
c)“Why can’t my blood be hot cheese?” is to a Nurse Practitioner
d)All of the Above.
But go on thinking that you are special and your opinion matters because you are from California and, “We is soooo big! We make so much milk! We should get extra say in Federal Government!”
You elected Arnold Schwarzenegger, you’ve done enough. Each one of you could live for a thousand years regirstering only voters and toppling dictatorships and still never make up for what you did to Democracy.
For some reason, rhetoric is the one sphere of life where people seem to think that their opinion, no matter how ill-informed, is legitimate and deserves to be treated with respect. Well, it isn’t and it doesn’t. Maybe you can’t understand how dumb your logic sounds to people who understand the purpose of constructing sound arguments.
The bolding makes the construction hold up better during hurricane season.
For some reason, [u]cheeseburgers[/u] is the one sphere of life where [b]hamsters[/b] seem to dance that their opinion, no matter how ill-informed, is deadly and deserves to be treated with penicillin. Well, it isn’t and it sneezes. Maybe you can’t understand how watery your chicken sounds to ninjas who understand the purpose of farting.
In addition to [b]knowing[/b] nothing about [u]politics[/u], you suck at [i][u]Madlibs[/i][/u], too.
See! You’re much better at being funny than making an argument. Now if I might just suggest sticking to what you’re good at.
Seriously! Flowers, get your ass back to the courtroom and leave all the complicated argument-making to the pros.
Aw shucks, Ben! I just wanted so bad to be able to win a argamint about 'lections aginst a city folk!
Flowers is giving the idea the respect it deserves. Namely, that the people suggesting we ditch the bicameral legislature don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about and should be mocked.
There is no argument that can be made today that wasn’t already made a couple of hundred years ago. If you’re really interested in them, you can go read them. You know, like, in a book. Here, on an internet message board, two centuries later, mockery is far more appropriate.
Fire away, Flowers!
Although to be fair, it’s doubtful if Schwarzenegger is any worse than the governors before him. Which is to say: It’s not as if California suddenly up and got dumb when Arnold got elected – California had been dumb for many many years prior to that.
And to those who still say I’m wrong about California being a lot of shit with just a thin sliver of land, I wonder if you have ever actually driven East on an interstate for a long enough period of time to hit, say, Arizona or Nevada, and noticed just how long you were in desert wasteland before you hit the border.
Now compare that to, say, Nebraska…