Reply #41: once more into the breach

[kodi]

Kodi: "Oh lordy. The Constitution does balance things out, but obviously not to your liking. Clearly you don’t like democracy when it is applied to states in relation to each other."

Saying so doesn't make it true. I heard that saying somewhere. Even if a case can be made that things balanced out in 1787... which I would not agree with... demographics have made the state-based formula more anti-democratic. Where once about 7-8% of the US population held a theoretical check on amendments... it's now about 4%. As for the Senate... when there were 14 states... the smallest 7 had 23% of the population... now it's down to 15%... heading to 10%. As for your claim that the US federal system merely allows for democracy amongst states... that's laughable. By you logic if China and Taiwan ever formed a federation... they would be equals.


Blah blah blah…..You are referring to populations when the reference is the intra state equality of the components of a federalist democratic republic. You insist on mixing population percentages with states when each has its place in federalism.

Talk about red herrings: what the hell has China and Taiwan to do with federalism? The claim is on equal partners that compose a federation, because they are equivalent entities, not that they have equal populations and even there the example of the US legislative branch includes representation based on population.

Kodi: "As does democracy without restraints, which is the purpose of a federal democratic republic."

RED HERRING ALERT. Back to your old strawman? What next... that I have proposed something akin to mob rule? What I HAVE in fact said... is that rights of minorities are BEST protected by the Bill of Rights approach... NOT by granting some US citizens more power at the expense of others. But then you claim to believe in democratic principles. So you should have figured this out on your own.

It appears it is you who are throwing the smelly fish. No one is “granting some US citizens more power at the expense of others” in a federal democratic republic. They don’t have more Representatives or Senators, They are represented by the identical number of them. It is those legislative officers who make the decisions. So how do some citizens have more power? It’s not the citizens making the decisions in the legislature.

Stating that citizens of small states have more power is inaccurate. They don’t. They are not represented by more legislators. Your continually specious argument that their power is magnified is the red herring here.

All citizens have an equal number of representatives in the legislative branch of the federal government. No one is less represented at the level of the legislative branch in this form of government. No one is less represented than any one else.

Republics are not democracies. They have constitutions that are the fundamental law and protect minority rights from the vicissitudes of majority rule, and yes there are times majority rule certainly has devolved to mob rule. And its possibility is only tempered by the checks and balances that constitutional protections afford to minorities.


There's no moral justification for ANY group to be given a bigger vote than others. Where does it stop? Oh... that's right... with what the Framers decided... Right? Yup... they were very adept at protecting the rights of those invited to attend the Constitutional Convention. No others need apply for the right to have a bigger vote.

No one is being given a bigger vote. There is no fundamental inequality. All citizens have a right to vote for an equal number (3) of representatives in the legislative branch, regardless of the state they reside.

Your other remarks are tangential to this topic. They serve no purpose to clarify. If you have a problem with men dead 200 years, get over it. They are not the issue here. You have repeatedly demanded that because one vote out of a million is 0.0001% of those cast, it means less than one vote out of 500,000. That is just not correct. The voter in each case has the same opportunity to be served by the same number of representatives. Your dwelling on the percentage of “power” each voter holds in an election is meaningless, because they have the same number of representatives to express their desires at the legislative level.


Kodi: Prove it.

Prove what? That voter turnout is low in the US or it's low as consequence of our dysfunctional and anti-democratic system?

As for the first... we have not broken 60% voter turnout since 1968. Source http://www.idea.int/vt/country_view.cfm compare that some of the other advanced industrial democracies such as the UK or France. Between 1945 and now... France has NEVER had voter turnout less than 60%. As for the effects of our system on voting participation here's an intro into the unintended consequences of our voting system http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/polit/damy/BeginnningReading/why_are_vot... One of those consequences is that third parties common in democracies that try to IMPROVE their systems, never take root here. According to the book How Democratic is the American Constitution, author Robert Dahl maintains that a two party system is a natural consequence of our first past the post election system. Political minorities simply can't muster a victory when all elections are based on set districts or states... even though they make up a sizable minority nationally.


Yes, the latter. And there is much more to lower voter turn out in the US than that the US is not a parliamentarian form of government like the UK and France, or that low voter turn-out is a result of disenfranchisement due to elections based upon districts or states.

Both the UK and France also vote by districts in their parliamentary elections. The same “Political minorities (that) simply can't muster a victory” in the US also can not muster victory in the UK or France.

Gracious and just where did the Republican Party come from? They were initially a third party. And in the US, third parties are the incubators for fringe ideas that eventually find their way into one or both of the two major parties. You cant have it both ways by demanding the fundamental feature of the democratic process, viz., majorities rule and decry that “Political minorities simply can't muster a victory”

Of course they can’t, they are minorities. But to say that citizens of these parties are shut out of affecting the political process is evidently not true. They do and have had impact on the process.

Look it, Einstein. I know damn well what sort of system we have. What you seem incapable of comprehending is that someone might think it's time to RETHINK a government that was designed in 1787.... that this system has set in cement the politics of that era... and it's time to move on to make the system more democratic... ESPECIALLY since it can not guarantee morally legitimate government. It's OUR nation now. Enough with placing the will of the dead over that of the living.

Wow, are you capable of discourse without relying on insults?

You stated that you knew the type of government we live under, even having boasted that we have never had a change in our Constitution that lead to more democracy. When I showed your remark to be utterly false, you attack me personally? What the heck is that supposed to prove?

Your last remarks allude to a position I do not hold, viz., a literal, original intent philosophy of the Constitution. If that is not a straw man argument against my position I do not know what is.

I am completely capable of having an intelligent discussion with anyone, even you, if you act civilly and readily comprehend that changes in the present system are to be examined to improve upon it. I have toiled with third party political activism for more than a decade with the Natural Law Party and understand well the stranglehold the current system has on election politics. Yet I have patiently engaged you over several posts while repeatedly you have attacked me personally as one whom, because I do not buy what you are selling vis a vis your pet theory of the anathema of “weighted” voting is accused of being anti-democratic. I do not believe that what you are selling is accurate either from a historical perspective, a philosophical perspective of representative democracy and human nature, nor that you have articulated a reasonable alternative to the present system that I feel will work in this country at this time.

Ciao baby, its time to play with my doggies.