Tuco

I said the US is a democracy. That is true. I did not say it was a pure democracy. I did not say the President was elected by a direct election of the public. You took issue with me calling the US a democracy. Which it is. There are many deviations that from being a pure democracy that the US has adapted, either for practical or stability reasons. But, in the end, we believe in the people elect the government, rather than the government being decided by birth right, or religious fiat, or despotic control. This seems like a minor point, but it's actually one that conservatives have been trying to whittle away at. The US is a democracy. That's an important statement. The UN, doesn't make any such claim.

So, the progressive course of action would be to shut out the former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus? (Cedric Richmond) And to clarify, he is going to lead the White House Office of Public Engagement. It's not specific "serving as a liaison between the business community and climate activists."

You're the one who thought the UN Security Council was relevant. We can circle back to you denying that the United States is a democracy later. I want to hear more about how Andorra has equal representation in the UN. Please, continue.

Apparently you want to continue with this analogy. A few points: 1. The UN SC is not the democratically elected government of a country. The US government is. 2. Any permanent member of the UN SC can veto any substantial resolution in front of the Security Council. It doesn't really matter how many votes China has. 3. The permanent members of the UN SC were selected because they were considered the most powerful countries at the time. Nobody thought it was a good idea to give Liechtenstein equal representation on the Security Council. Because it would have been fucking stupid. Should we continue with this analogy?

Yes, they do have more representation per capita. That's not political philosophy, that's math. You can keep talking about how the states are represented in the Senate, but the reality is the states are proxies for the population. It is, or at least should be, the people who are being represented by the Senators. The Senate votes on the same shit the House does. The states - the number of them and how they are split - does not conform to any moral, ethical, or political ideology. When you are basing a system on how the states are split, you are creating a system that lacks any moral, ethical, or political ideology on how representation is established. You think the current system just magically evolved in to how you would have done it? Ok. I have a hard time believing that. No more states. No fewer states. West Virginia should be separate than Virginia. Rhode Island should have equal representation to Texas, despite the vast differences in land area and population. Etc. This is how you would have devised it? Ok. No, I don't think China should have 4 UN SC votes. I also don't think the UN is analogous to the US. Is there any confusion on that? Do we really need to dive into the differences?

So, your belief is that rural states should have more representation per capita at the federal level? Are you cool with Delaware, or would you roll that into Pennsylvania? Why not break Wyoming up into two states, that way "minority" protection is even greater? It worked for the Dakotas. I really don't understand your rationalization of "...especially in a vast land area where essential goods and services will necessarily be provided by local jurisdictions that are less populated than others." Sure, rural states have their own challenges. So do states with large cities. So do states with bad winters, or bad hurricanes, or historic poverty issues. I'm not sure why you think that rural states would require any additional (per capita) representation than other state. To me, it just seems like a rationalization. Arguing for democracy is a lot easier.

1. Was President Obama able to do this under the old system? 2. Would President Biden be able to do this under your proposed system? 3. Is that a) expanding, b) reducing, or c) not changing the power of the President? You can argue it is in line with the intent of the Constitution, and you'd get no disagreement from me, but it would obviously increase the power of the President from where it is today.

No, I asked would you intentionally create a system where 800k people in the middle of the country would have the same representation as 39M people on the coast. I didn't say we needed to start with the existing states. To create this system from scratch would obviously be undemocratic and arbitrary. The fact that it evolved this way makes it less arbitrary, but still undemocratic.

That's not really responding to the question. You are just focusing on what you think the positive is without acknowledging the negative. It would undoubtedly expand the power of the President.

But counties should?

So, if you were creating a system from scratch, you'd draw a square in the middle of the country with 800k people and say, yep, they deserve as much say in the Senate as 39M people on the coast? Because the small state advantage has some inherently beneficial value to our system?

The Epoch Times is frequently used as a conservative source. They were pushing that BLM is communists, likely because they wanted to make sure "communists" continue to be the boogey man.

I accidentally posted prior to finishing this post: 1. Is the current system fair/just/logical/good/etc.? Is there anyone here that would choose the current system if they were drawing it from scratch? Would you create one house of Congress with that is equally represented by 39M people on the coast and 800k people in a square in the middle of the country? Would you set up a system where the majority of the Supreme Court Justices have been selected by the party who has only won the plurality of votes in one Presidential election in the last 30 years? Devoid of any history, background, obstacles to change, etc., is this the system you would choose? Because, to me, it is objectively stupid. And it's an important question that should not be overlooked. Does this system work as intended? We can't fix something if we don't recognize the problem. And if you think it's a good system, there is no impetus to reduce the small state advantage by expanding the House. 2. Should we change it? 2a, This is where practicalities are important. There are barriers of change which are very high to changing any of this. The practical costs of making a change may be worse than continuing the system. I have acknowledged this several times. I am not saying that changing the Constitution is high on priority list right now. But that doesn't really affect my answer on point #1. 2b, But, one of the things that drives me nuts is this sense of deference we give to the old way because it is old. It is entirely unAmerican. We hold more reverence for the founding fathers than they held for each other. Pretty much the only mindset they had in common was a willingness to change something that no longer worked for them. Being a British colony wasn't working for them, so they changed it. Just about every argument that has been made against me on this thread, could easily be made against American independence. What, violating contracts? Yeah, we did that. Being willing to dissolve a country? Yep. Now, it took a Revolutionary War and the risk of being tried for treason, so there were certainly practical obstacles to change that were considered. It wasn't easy, and I'm not looking for a Revolutionary War 2.0, but let's stop pretending that a reverence for tradition is a goal. And after the founding fathers won, they formed a nation under The Articles of Confederation. That shit didn't work, so they scrapped it. They then formed a more perfect union (not a "perfect union", a "more perfect union) under the Constitution. If I recall Jefferson thought it would be eventually scrapped, and that we would go through constitutions every generation or so. They included the Second Amendment with the idea that people should overthrow the government under this Constitution if need be. They put in an amendment process so it could be changed in a less violent manner. At no time did they say "this was handed down from the heavens to be followed forever." They were just making shit up, failed the first time, and then created a pretty fucking awesome document their second time...for its time. A failure to reevaluate the structure will ensure that we continue to become less democratic as time goes on. "Drive your plow over the bones of the dead." - William Blake, Marriage of Heaven and Hell "...leaping over it as silly sheep leap over a vacuum, because their leader originally leaped there when a stick was held. There's your law of precedents; there's your utility of traditions; there's the story of your obstinate survival of old beliefs never bottomed on the earth, and now not even hovering in the air! There's orthodoxy!" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick

There are two basic questions here: 1. Is the current system fair/just/logical/good/etc.? 2. Should we change it?

Break out the popcorn. This dark comedy is just starting.

The counterpoint is that lowering the barriers to entry, by making the races smaller, will encourage greater participation and draw more people. More people means better choices.

Contracts shouldn't last 100s of years and they really shouldn't span generations. Nobody alive signed that contract. I am not bound by anything my great, great, great grandfather signed. Even if you talk about the states, most of the small states were US property prior to being a US state, so it's not like they needed that assurance. You're talking a few small eastern states that had to agree to join the union. So, the idea that there is some nobility in it because we are honoring an ancient bargain doesn't do much for me. If you really want to side bar, we can talk about whether the Reform Act of 1832 was a bad idea. I mean, it reversed some ancient agreements.

Frankly, a lot of the wordspeak stuff gets tedious to me, but I think you are underestimating the challenge here. "Latinx" is not about trying court the Latino vote. Just like using "work hours" instead of "man hours" is not about trying to court the union vote. Using "flight attendant", "server", and "actor" instead of "stewardess," "waitress," and "actress" is not a ploy to bring in people in those professions. The Democratic base is made up of many different segments, many of whom have come from demographics who have faced discrimination and exclusion, throughout history. When you have a segment of the base that is trying to push gender-neutral language, they aren't just going to stop with English. Why would they? Does that cause stress with the Latino community? Sure. Just like trying to switch to gender-neutral language with English terms has caused pushback with others. The black community isn't necessarily going to support Latino issues, the unions aren't necessarily going to respect LBGTQ issues, the LBGTQ community isn't going to understand what's going on with disability rights issues, etc, etc. So, that's a challenge. There are three steps I try to address that challenge: 1. Push the idea that this is a coalition, not a consensus. We aren't not going to get 50% of voters believing..truly believing..in the everything that any Democrat pushes. We can't lose feminists in order to make Latinos more comfortable. It's just not practical. 2. Ask people to prioritize what their issues are to them. It costs you nothing to have someone say "Latinx." What does the Republican agenda cost you? Frankly, if we have Latino voters voting R over "Latinx," they would have found a different reason to vote R. 3. Try to listen to your allies. It's likely you will not come to the same conclusions they did, but at least you can learn why it matters to them. If you have a better approach for holding a coalition together, I'm all ears. I guess you can just tell feminists that their issues don't matter and they should just focus on supporting Latinos. Let me know how that works out. (To me, the biggest weirdness I see are the liberal Natives. Half their effort is trying to push for progress, and half their efforts is desperately trying to preserve traditions, including traditional tribal power structures that tend to be very old man centric.)

I concur that we aren't going to change the Senate, or the Electoral College for that matter. But appreciating the practical obstacles to that change and agreeing that the current situation makes sense are two vastly different things.

States, particularly Western states, are fairly arbitrary constructs of democracy. To prioritize those constructs over democracy itself is fucking stupid. California and Wyoming having the same power in the Senate is fucking stupid. Tradition should not trump logic. An appreciation of history does not excuse the acceptance of a bullshit situation. If there is any historical characteristic that Americans should embrace it's that history does not dictate the future. If it did, we'd still be English.

Ok. Vermont has a 1.4% black population. Wyoming is 1.3% black. Alaska is 3.7%. North Dakota is 3.4%. South Dakota is 2.3%. Those are the five smallest states by population. #6 Delaware - 23.2% black (the lone outlier) #7 Rhode Island: 6.2% black #8 Montana: 0.8% black #9 Maine: 1.2% black #10 New Hampshire: 1.8% black The US as a whole is 13.4% black. Obviously Donald Trump utilized white grievance as a campaign strategy. Less obviously, the Republican Party has been doing so for years. Do you think the small state advantage rewards that strategy, or hurts it? In our current system, the average white person has a greater political voice, because white people are more likely to live in the small states than black people. That was not the intent, but that is the reality. The small state advantage is bad. The idea that 800k people in Wyoming should have equal voice in the Senate as 39 million people in California is just fucking stupid. The fact that this advantage flows along racial lines should absolutely be part of the discussion. So, we aren't going to rewrite the Constitution. We know that. But let's stop pretending that 230 years ago a bunch of slave owners were able to form a government structure that would adequately deal with these inequities. They didn't. I do not find any nobility in trying to preserve whatever flawed vision they might have had when confronted with the completely undemocratic, and racially unjust system that actually evolved.

The biggest negative I would see is that it would shift more power to the political parties. Trying to get committee positions and bills prioritized is already a challenge. If you triple the House, then access becomes more valuable, and the parties gain more strength. But, they already have a ton of power, and while philosophically it would slant things their way, I don't believe it would make a practical difference. And maybe that would be offset by reducing financial leverage the parties have. (Larger districts = more money required to campaign = more party (and lobbyist) power.) So, yeah, I favor it. There are ways to get around the other issues. Unfortunately, I wonder how many Representatives would vote to reduce their power. Tripling the size of the House means reducing the amount of influence any individual Rep has by a third.

So, just another Thursday.

We're heading to Colorado for a little fall hiking. Everyone in my family is more or less aligned politically. Frankly, to me it's more annoying when they focus on the anti-Trump stuff, just because I already know it all and it's been beaten to death. But, yeah, Covid means that I plan on doing short, outside stops with my family. Saw my sis this weekend. I will try to get in others this week as the weather is decent.

Global pandemics are also bad for business. Trade wars are also bad for business. The concern with Trump wasn't that he wants to start a prolonged widespread war, it's that he is just so fucking stupid and devoid of any moral compass that he might. He's that idiot at a bar who thinks we should have nuked Mecca in response to 911.