US Politics: The Transition Continues

[James Arryn]

14 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Because Rural areas are different, culturally, from urban areas.  Becuase they have lower populations their issues could safely be ignored by a president elected by popular vote. 

You do raise an exellent point about rural areas lost in the existing structure because they are part of States with high population areas.  I want to modify the existing EC structure and adopt the Maine/Nebraska method if apportionment.  I also want to outlaw the existing gerrymandering that would favor parties in power before such apportion were adopted.

 

I've raised all kinds of other modifiers that include distinctions, including some geographic, but you've never responded explaining why this one modifier justifies tipping the scales of democracy but others do not. Should Mormons get 2 votes? Should native Americans get 3? Should coastal fishermen get 1.5? Why does this one single qualifier get to completely upset the principle of 1 person: 1 vote?

 

You rightfully pride yourself on trying to be fair, and that strarts with being aware of your own biases. Do you have any reason to lack objectivity when it comes to representing the minority of folk living in rural areas, Scot? Honest question, I don't actually know where you come from/live.

[Altherion]

6 hours ago, butterbumps! said:

Hamilton's color-conscious reversal of the historic marginalization of PoC is a critique, and cries of "reverse racism" are just absurd.

It is absurd to you, but not to the vast majority of Breitbart's audience. I see what Hamilton is trying to do, but most of them either do not understand or do not care -- the critique is irrelevant to them and they see only something offensive.

And yes, this is a good distraction. After all, Pence being insulted has no effect on people in positions of real power whereas something like Sessions becoming Attorney General does. Every story about Pence and Hamilton means less attention to Sessions and the like.

5 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

What?  Are you suggesting we are going to lose the Arts community and that loss is no big deal?

We're not going to lose he Arts community, but look, we're not talking about Art at the level of Beethoven or Dickens here. This is no more than the usual pop culture -- everywhere and widely acclaimed today, only on storage media tomorrow.

[Denvek]

3 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Because the President shouldn't be elected by only the East and West coasts having only to consider urban issues.

The EC will always be flawed at best but I don't see straight popular vote for the Presidency as much of an improvement.

"Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others that have been tried from time to time." - Winston Churchill

Also, even if you have a properly un-gerrymandered map to use the Maine-Nebraska method with, it's still not truly balanced unless you get rid of the EC votes that match up with Senators, and you'd then end up with a President who would almost always spend at least the first half of their term with control of the House.

I'd be fine with the President being a popular vote thing. You'd still have the Senate giving disproportionate power to the smaller rural states, and the House with a lesser version of the same thing (given that geographically smaller urban districts are more likely to be politically homogeneous than the larger, more rural ones).

 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

8 minutes ago, Dr. Pepper said:

Scot, I can't help but wonder if you realize your whole "rural special interests, food production, blah blah blah" argument for the EC is a continued legacy of slavery.  It's honestly really hard reading your defense of the EC (even though you advocate for an update) when it just mirrors the same language used during such a dark and horrible time in our history. 

You do realize that the state with the highest population in 1790 was Virginia, a Slave State, as such the EC actually hurt Virginia's power to pick the President:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1790_United_States_Census

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

James,

I live in Columbia SC.

Denvek,

I'd also like to lift the cap on the number of Representatives in the HoR.  That would increase the total number of electors available for voting.

[felice]

10 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Because the President shouldn't be elected by only the East and West coasts having only to consider urban issues.

Candidates can't afford to ignore rural issues unless their opponent is ignoring urban issues. If there's any kind of contest in urban areas, the rural vote is enough to tip the balance. Unless you believe urban and rural interests are inherently opposed, rather than simply different, in which case no President can ever represent both and there's no point trying to find a balance.

[Dr. Pepper]

15 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Because there was an effort to eliminate the EC in the wake of the American Civil War?

I don't know what point you are making.

7 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

You do realize that the state with the highest population in 1790 was Virginia, a Slave State, as such the EC actually hurt Virginia's power to pick the President:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1790_United_States_Census

You do realize slaves weren't counted as whole persons, right?  And also weren't allowed to vote?  

[TrueMetis]

27 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Because the President shouldn't be elected by only the East and West coasts having only to consider urban issues.

The EC will always be flawed at best but I don't see straight popular vote for the Presidency as much of an improvement.

Population of the west coast 47.8 million. Population of the east coast 112.6 million. Total US population 318.9 million. Unless the candidate has overwhelming support from the entire east and west coast the rural vote is going to matter.

[Bennis of the Brown Shield]

Before Trump became the nominee I remember how jubilant many posters in the politics threads here were about the electoral map, because of how many of the key swing states were now likely to vote Democratic due to demographic changes. Going by the debate in the media, this effect was by some people assumed to be so strong that a conventional Republican candidate, with distributions of support comparable to what Romney had, could have won the popular vote by as much as two percentage points and still lost the electoral vote. 

Then Trump came along and caused a political realignment, and suddenly the electoral vote system is undemocratic. That is an excellent example of why the Electoral College probably won't be going away anytime soon; to be able to change this system you need to be in power first, but if you do gain power you have little reason to change a system that appears to have worked out in your favor (or at least not hurt you too badly, since then it is unlikely that you would have won). 

https://pics.onsizzle.com/slate-slate-slate-five-very-good-reasons-to-keep-the-6747854.png 

 

[LongRider]

25 minutes ago, Altherion said:

It is absurd to you, but not to the vast majority of Breitbart's audience.

Gosh!  I would hate to upset Breibart's audience.  Hey, now that's funny!

edt; I just heard on National Public Radio (which I believe, upsets one of Breibart's writers) that Pence is now on record of not having been offended by what the actor said to him.    Perhaps that will upset Breibart's audience too.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

11 minutes ago, Dr. Pepper said:

I don't know what point you are making.

You do realize slaves weren't counted as whole persons, right?  And also weren't allowed to vote?  

Well aware. Nevertheless during the Constitutional convention Virginia advocated voting based on population in the "Virginia plan".  As such I'm not sure what your point is.

[Dr. Pepper]

9 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Well aware. Nevertheless during the Constitutional convention Virginia advocated voting based on population in the "Virginia plan".  As such I'm not sure what your point is.

Exactly!  Without voting based on population, southern slave states wouldn't have stood a chance because a popular vote would favor the population of the north.  

My whole point is that the language you are using to defend the EC is similar to the language used to protect the interests of slaveholders when the EC was first conceived.  As such, you can probably understand why many find the model outdated, disgusting, and in need of a huge overhaul.  

[Altherion]

35 minutes ago, LongRider said:

Gosh!  I would hate to upset Breibart's audience.  Hey, now that's funny!

It doesn't matter at all whether you upset Breitbart's audience -- they fully expect it of people like you and will reply in kind. My point was that Breitbart was playing to its audience and not to people like butterbumps.

[Tempra]

Got to love NBC's headline:

 

"Reince Priebus on Muslim Registry: 'Not Going to Rule Out Anything'"

 

Read the article and what do we see:

 

"Look I'm not going to rule out anything," Priebus said. "We're not going to have a registry based on a religion. But what I think what we're trying to do is say that there are some people, certainly not all people... there are some people that are radicalized. And there are some people that have to be prevented from coming into this country."

 

Like, seriously?    NBC has always been shit but this is fake news level egregious.

 

 

http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/priebus-muslim-registry-not-going-rule-out-anything-n686391

[Dr. Pepper]

So the fact that he actually said the words that are in the headline makes it fake....how?

[The Anti-Targ]

1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Because the President shouldn't be elected by only the East and West coasts having only to consider urban issues.

The EC will always be flawed at best but I don't see straight popular vote for the Presidency as much of an improvement.

Well by and large a Democratic president is only elected by East/West cities, and a Republican President is only elected by the more rural middle, and a majority of states never or rarely change colour from one presidential election to the other. So the argument that rural middle US votes matter so the EC must remain is flawed because to Democrats rural middle US votes don't matter. Democratic presidential candidates win when the urban and industrial states vote for them and that's all they need.

[Dr. Pepper]

Trump continues to rile up his base about any criticism towards his administration.  Maybe SNL's next cold open should focus on his corruption.  

Trump: SNL is a big biased meanie.

[The Anti-Targ]

7 minutes ago, Tempra said:

Got to love NBC's headline:

 

"Reince Priebus on Muslim Registry: 'Not Going to Rule Out Anything'"

 

Read the article and what do we see:

 

"Look I'm not going to rule out anything," Priebus said. "We're not going to have a registry based on a religion. But what I think what we're trying to do is say that there are some people, certainly not all people... there are some people that are radicalized. And there are some people that have to be prevented from coming into this country."

 

Like, seriously?    NBC has always been shit but this is fake news level egregious.

 

 

http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/priebus-muslim-registry-not-going-rule-out-anything-n686391

Well he did say they're not going to rule out anything, and then he ruled out something. So which of his truths should we believe?

Fact is, they can't have a registry based on an person's religion, because you can't ask for someone's religion at the border. But if they are going to have a registry based on a person having a passport from a "Muslim country" or even only certain "Muslim countries" then it is still a registry based on religion. However, it is impractical since there are a lot of radical Muslims living in "non-Muslim countries" and a registry will completely miss these people and thus any sense of security created with a registry will be a false one.

[LongRider]

36 minutes ago, Altherion said:

It doesn't matter at all whether you upset Breitbart's audience -- they fully expect it of people like you and will reply in kind. My point was that Breitbart was playing to its audience and not to people like butterbumps.

Nice of you to be able to represent and speak for all of Breitbar's audience for us.  I was really worried about how they felt about butterbump's comment.  Too bad they know what to expect from people like me, because that's funny too!   

[butterbumps!]

1 hour ago, Altherion said:

It is absurd to you, but not to the vast majority of Breitbart's audience. I see what Hamilton is trying to do, but most of them either do not understand or do not care -- the critique is irrelevant to them and they see only something offensive.

And yes, this is a good distraction. After all, Pence being insulted has no effect on people in positions of real power whereas something like Sessions becoming Attorney General does. Every story about Pence and Hamilton means less attention to Sessions and the like.

 

34 minutes ago, Altherion said:

It doesn't matter at all whether you upset Breitbart's audience -- they fully expect it of people like you and will reply in kind. My point was that Breitbart was playing to its audience and not to people like butterbumps.

Oh, ok, yea, I didn't want to argue too vigorously against the Brietbart view you provided, since I wasn't clear on whether it was also your stance, or at least a stance you were looking to argue.   You're not taking the contra position to mine on Hamilton and Pence, but are speaking to the way the Brietbart audience sees things, and commenting on how effective the Brietbart way seems to be in terms of getting its followers on board and believing nearly anything thrown at them.    

I think knowing the argument you're making a bit better now, I'd have used the word "incorrect" rather than "absurd" to characterize it more precisely-- that I get where the Brietbarters are coming from, and I think they are plain wrong in their assessments.   

idk how far from my views you stand on the Pence thing, or whether you believe the Brietbarters' view is the wrong one too.   If you do believe they are in the wrong on something like this, and that Brietbart is very good at catering to this audience and effective at riling them up toward increasingly more "wrong" views in this vein, what do you see as something that might effectively convince them to see it our way?