• National Popular Vote bill in Congress could allow each vote to matter for Presidential elections
    70 replies, posted
I hope this goes through. Last year, some Republicans in Pennsylvania wanted to make the congressional districts equal so they were each worth one electoral vote instead of having a statewide winner that takes all of them. So usually the Democrat wins a small number of highly populated districts like Philadelphia, and the Republican wins all of the rural areas which we will call bumblefuck, so it's possible for a Democrat to fairly win the popular vote with only a few districts. Under the new bill, Obama would win the popular vote by far and receive maybe 3-4 electoral votes for those few urban areas, while the Republican would win the other 17 for the less populated bumblefuck districts.
[QUOTE=yawmwen;34517649]Democracy would be regression, not progression. Democracy is a form of tyranny, and isn't to be admired by any free person.[/QUOTE] Democracy is only tyranny if you assume the average human being is unintelligent scum incapable of making rational decisions. That's the root of the old systems, the assumption that people are glorified apes and need to be shoved into particular courses of action under explicit or implicit threat of punishment, economic or military. Only the enlightened (executives, representatives, dictators, whatever) are [I]actually[/I] intelligent rational creatures and thus only they deserve to make decisions. We've reached a point where those asinine assumptions are becoming increasingly inapplicable and do more harm than good. Democracy today isn't what it used to be- people don't have to be uninformed douchebags and the mechanisms that allow them to inform themselves (heyo, you're on it) already exist. They just don't bother on the whole because we've effectively said, as a state, "you do not need to be an informed, knowledgeable citizen because you will never make use of that skillset". So they don't. Can you really blame them? Meanwhile the privileged few who [I]do[/I] have a say make a profession of sidestepping the controls in the system meant to contain them and abuse it for all they're worth. In any realistic system of rule, there's always a little "tyranny" from something. [I]Someone[/I] always limits your right to do [I]something,[/I] the question is to what degree. I find it difficult to believe things would be worse if we gave Joe Citizen a little bit of credit for once.
Guys in the history of the electoral college, its only failed twice. Andrew Jackson(He totally didn't abuse his power in a militaristic way at all) and Al Gore(This one was bullshit) [editline]2nd February 2012[/editline] [QUOTE=Xenocidebot;34520997]Democracy is only tyranny if you assume the average human being is unintelligent scum incapable of making rational decisions. That's the root of the old systems, the assumption that people are glorified apes and need to be shoved into particular courses of action under explicit or implicit threat of punishment, economic or military. Only the enlightened (executives, representatives, dictators, whatever) are [I]actually[/I] intelligent rational creatures and thus only they deserve to make decisions. We've reached a point where those asinine assumptions are becoming increasingly inapplicable and do more harm than good. Democracy today isn't what it used to be- people don't have to be uninformed douchebags and the mechanisms that allow them to inform themselves (heyo, you're on it) already exist. They just don't bother on the whole because we've effectively said, as a state, "you do not need to be an informed, knowledgeable citizen because you will never make use of that skillset". So they don't. Can you really blame them? Meanwhile the privileged few who [I]do[/I] have a say make a profession of sidestepping the controls in the system meant to contain them and abuse it for all they're worth. In any realistic system of rule, there's always a little "tyranny" from something. [I]Someone[/I] always limits your right to do [I]something,[/I] the question is to what degree. I find it difficult to believe things would be worse if we gave Joe Citizen a little bit of credit for once.[/QUOTE] Andrew Jackson ring any bells?
[QUOTE=Xenocidebot;34520997]Democracy is only tyranny if you assume the average human being is unintelligent scum incapable of making rational decisions. That's the root of the old systems, the assumption that people are glorified apes and need to be shoved into particular courses of action under explicit or implicit threat of punishment, economic or military. Only the enlightened (executives, representatives, dictators, whatever) are [I]actually[/I] intelligent rational creatures and thus only they deserve to make decisions. We've reached a point where those asinine assumptions are becoming increasingly inapplicable and do more harm than good. Democracy today isn't what it used to be- people don't have to be uninformed douchebags and the mechanisms that allow them to inform themselves (heyo, you're on it) already exist. They just don't bother on the whole because we've effectively said, as a state, "you do not need to be an informed, knowledgeable citizen because you will never make use of that skillset". So they don't. Can you really blame them? Meanwhile the privileged few who [I]do[/I] have a say make a profession of sidestepping the controls in the system meant to contain them and abuse it for all they're worth. In any realistic system of rule, there's always a little "tyranny" from something. [I]Someone[/I] always limits your right to do [I]something,[/I] the question is to what degree. I find it difficult to believe things would be worse if we gave Joe Citizen a little bit of credit for once.[/QUOTE] There are plenty of people that voted for Obama just because he was a "black chiller" and various other inane things like "He's gonna give us all some money from his secret stash or something!" A lot of people also voted for McCain because they thought Obama was a Muslim terrorist. If that doesn't show you what's wrong with democracy then I don't know what will
[QUOTE=yawmwen;34516380]The solution is like the system we have in place now. A combination of proportionate representation and unproportionate representation.[/QUOTE] And what about on a smaller scale, like Congress? What do you plan to do to stop "tyranny of the majority" in Congress? As it stands, any issue that divides the parties is determined by who holds the majority at the time. What do you plan to do to fix that?
So who here, when an issue of national security comes up, likes to cite Ben Franklin? For those who don't know what quote I'm talking about: [QUOTE= Benjamin Franklin]They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.[/QUOTE] Most people here agree with that right? And while people here have said, quite rightly, that blindly following the founding fathers' ideals is foolish, they would find Ben Franklin an overall pretty agreeable guy right? [QUOTE= Benjamin Franklin]Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.[/QUOTE] Now, what does this quote mean? Well, to me it means that purely popular votes and direct democracy are shit. We are a Republic, in which the rights of the minority can be protected from the majority. I'm not saying that the majority is always an ignorant pile of shit, but they're hardly infallible. For example, referendums are a state level form of pure popular voting. Proposition 8 was one such referendum, in which the Majority in California voted to take away the marriage rights of the minority. The wolves voted to eat the lamb, and that's why popular democracy is not the greatest idea. Like others in this thread have said, the Electoral vote has only disagreed with the popular vote twice, it's not the part of the electoral process that's flawed. If any part of it's flawed (and I personally don't think so but I'm not trying to start that debate here) it's the first pass the post system that others have mentioned. So just bear that in mind before you wave the flag of popular vote support.
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