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Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

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Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#111

Post by giantg2 »

whimsicalism wrote: post #84
giantg2 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The Senate is fundamentally a ridiculous way of representing 350 million people" They are intended to represent the states. The whole point was so that smaller states aren't overpowered by the larger states. We simply moved from the governors selecting them to the people selecting them.

I understand the motive, I think it is far outweighed by the harm it does, and it fundamentally undermines the modern American compact. We simply do not live in a federation of states in the way that the EU, this was much less clear and more contested in the late 18th century.

"I think it is far outweighed by the harm it does"

But do you think the people in the less populous states feel the same? If we do remove the senate or make it population based, do you think people in those areas will feel represented if they're steamrolled by the urban areas? The point of democracy is to have some say (or the illusion of it) in how the government acts. If you're never sided with but have a large number of like minded people, how do you think they will respond based on what history shows us?

Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#112

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote: post #94
whimsicalism wrote: post #4

The Senate is fundamentally a ridiculous way of representing 350 million people and we’re going to continue to get absurd unrepresentative outcomes for as long as it remains a relevant body. There’s no getting around this and it will structurally just get worse and worse. Simply no way something like it exists 200 years from now, it is probably the biggest flaw in the US political structure right now.

The insane thing about the US is that 350M people are being represented. The government needs to represent a minority of people in order to become functional again. That said I bet the Senate exists in 500 years.

The US will not see its quadricentennial without a new constitution.

Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#113

Post by giantg2 »

whimsicalism wrote: post #107
giantg2 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are from a smaller state, you would think it would still make sense. Otherwise the rural concerns just get steamrolled by the urban concerns. The point still stands about trying to level out concerns between smaller and larger states, which is why it was created with years of debate and a majority even if it wasn't consensus.

I'm from an even smaller political entity than Wyoming, although we don't get any Senate representation at all. It would be beyond absurd to grant us equal voting power to California and obviously not a sustainable way of constructing a political system.

DC?

Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#114

Post by dismalpedigree »

tehjoker wrote: post #44
NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Senate was absolutely one of the best features of government. Unicameral legislatures are uniformly godawful. In as much as it is imperfect, it is only so because Congress has become more unicameral-like... senators are little more than representatives that stay in office six years instead of two.

The senate was explicitly designed to provide a brake on the democratic aspirations of the lower classes by the founders. American government is a system of baffles designed to frustrate democratic will and preserve the property and political control of elites. The senate should be abolished along with the undemocratic supreme court (as currently constituted with lifetime appointments and the ability to overrule cong…

Lets hear it for Tyranny by the Masses!

Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#115

Post by mothballed »

nerdjon wrote: post #85

I feel like I am missing something here, and it is around it being called "hemp". Does this actually have any impact on legal dispensaries, their products, farms, etc? Does this make it harder to eventually de-schedule pot.

Yes, in the sense that now it will be illegal to ship cannabis seeds interstate. Under current law, which doesn't expire for a year, cannabis seeds can be shipped legally interstate across the US as they don't exceed the THC content. Doesn't matter if it's a hemp seed or marijuana seed as both are hemp under the old definition in seed form as long as they're under 0.3% THC.

The passed legislation outlaws any seeds that can produce a plant that doesn't satisfy the new definition of hemp. It completely destroys the white market seed industry, on which the legal weed industry partially operates.

Also, prices will go up and quality will go down in the 'legal' weed market, as previously the hemp industry was a check on prices because you could get better product for cheaper than going to a dispensary and with nice lab tested COAs to see what you were getting.

Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#116

Post by mjamesaustin »

giantg2 wrote: post #71
whimsicalism wrote: post #4

The Senate is fundamentally a ridiculous way of representing 350 million people and we’re going to continue to get absurd unrepresentative outcomes for as long as it remains a relevant body. There’s no getting around this and it will structurally just get worse and worse. Simply no way something like it exists 200 years from now, it is probably the biggest flaw in the US political structure right now.

"The Senate is fundamentally a ridiculous way of representing 350 million people" They are intended to represent the states. The whole point was so that smaller states aren't overpowered by the larger states. We simply moved from the governors selecting them to the people selecting them.

Yes, what's more fair is for the smaller states to overpower the larger ones. Hooray for the Senate!

Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#117

Post by giantg2 »

whimsicalism wrote: post #106
giantg2 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Political power should absolutely be proportional to population represented though." That's your opinion. The opinion of people in Wyoming is likely different. What the facts would show if you look into the history of why the Senate was necessary, it would show that smaller states wouldn't have joined, and would be justified in leaving. The real problem is that the scope of decisions at the federal level has gotten…

Yes, in case you didn't notice, everything we are stating is opinions. I absolutely reject the notion that the senator from Wyoming should have equal political power to the senator from Texas or California, I think it is absurd, I don't doubt that some people in Wyoming disagree. I think Wyoming joining the US as a state without equal representation as the most populous state would still be a massive win for them and…

But would they continue to take the deal is the real question.

Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#118

Post by whimsicalism »

giantg2 wrote: post #111
whimsicalism wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand the motive, I think it is far outweighed by the harm it does, and it fundamentally undermines the modern American compact. We simply do not live in a federation of states in the way that the EU, this was much less clear and more contested in the late 18th century.

"I think it is far outweighed by the harm it does" But do you think the people in the less populous states feel the same? If we do remove the senate or make it population based, do you think people in those areas will feel represented if they're steamrolled by the urban areas? The point of democracy is to have some say (or the illusion of it) in how the government acts. If you're never sided with but have a large num…

> The point of democracy is to have some say (or the illusion of it) in how the government acts.

People from small states will have a say. They will oftentimes be crucial votes. The point of democracy is not that some people get 10x voting power than others. The point of democracy is not that you are entitled to the swinging vote or disproportionate voting power.

I am from a place smaller than Wyoming that never got representation in congress in the first place. I understand how it feels to be unrepresented. Suggesting that every US citizen ought to have an equal voice is completely different from disenfranchisement and I'm not sure why you are trying to muddy the waters here.

Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#119

Post by danudey »

Y-bar wrote: post #73
potato3732842 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The senate kind of makes more sense the bigger the country is. You need something that essentially represents each whole state as a unit. This is also why they originally weren't directly elected. When you consider that the OG federal government mostly dealt in issues that were common to the states or very clearly interstate the reason they chose the architecture they did for the senate seems even more sensible. They…

(Non-American here). Couldn’t it also work by guaranteeing each state X seats and then the rest Y seats are set according to census data on population? For example a single house with 100 reserved seats, and on top of that one seat per 500k citizens?

The goal isn't about guaranteeing that all states have X number of votes; the house and the senate vote separately on things. For a bill to pass the house and the senate requires:

1. A majority vote by the house whose members are allocated by population and therefore (ostensibly) represent the general population

2. A majority vote by the senate whose members are allocated by state and therefore (ostensibly) represent the will or needs of the states themselves.

As an example of why that distinction is relevant, consider Rhode Island. With a population of 1.1 million people, 100 reserved seats plus one seat per 500k would give Rhode Island 4 votes. Meanwhile, California's population of 38.9 million would give it 70 votes. That prohibits effectively representing Rhode Island as a state in any meaningful way.

As it is now, vote-by-population could allow a small number of states with the majority of population to out-vote the entire rest of the country, passing a law that states that all healthcare should be made free and the states have to pay for it themselves. Large states with strong economies and large tax bases might be in favor of that, but smaller and less populous states with weaker economies would go bankrupt.

Thus comes the senate, where a majority of states can decide that the law is inappropriate or against their interests and vote against it.

The distinction I think that most people from outside of the US probably don't fully understand is that, unlike in a lot of countries, each state is its own economy, government, politics, etc. rather than one sort of unified government that covers the whole country. Many of them see the federal government as not much more than a necessary evil to help the independent-but-united states coordinate themselves and prosper together. I remember someone once saying that it used to be "The United States are..." and not "The United States is..." and that kind of gives you an idea of the separation.

The best comparison might be the EU, where you could imagine the large, rich countries with large populations wanting to pass a vote that the smaller, poorer countries might chafe against. Imagine an EU resolution that said that all countries must spend at least 70 billion euro on defense; fine for large countries like Germany which already do, but absurd for a smaller country like Malta. The senate exists to prohibit that sort of unfairness in the US federal government.

Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#120

Post by dehrmann »

dangus wrote: post #64
dehrmann wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But 5,000 representatives can't run a country, either.

China has almost 3,000 house members. The UK has almost 1,500 parliament members with a far smaller population. The US also has state representatives in every state. This idea that a large amount of representatives can’t govern is plainly false. Even a modest increase in representative count would go a long way to make America more democratic and lessen the impacts of gerrymandering.

> This idea that a large amount of representatives can’t govern is plainly false.

Design by committee is a well-known failure mode. I'd argue that once the size of the house (or maybe one party's seats) gets past Dunbar's number, the house becomes less effective.

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