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The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

newyorker.com

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Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#191

Post by johnnyanmac »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #46
johnthuss wrote: post #15

"Seventy-two per cent of Republicans think that the Constitution is basically fine as is; seventy-two per cent of Democrats disagree." Of course this has nothing to do the actual Constitution. It's a statement about each party's (dis)satisfaction with the current success of their party. The optimist in me wants to believe that even in this polarized culture politicians could compromise and find a middle ground on man…

> It's a statement about each party's (dis)satisfaction with the current success of their party. This requires clarification. If our government was elected based on a "one person one vote" principle, Republicans would be nearly guaranteed to lose the presidency and Congress. Since 1992 there have been 8 presidential elections. Republicans only won the popular vote once (2004) but also won the presidency in 2000 and 2…

>The fact is that our Constitution reduces voting rights for those that live in populous urban areas and gives outsized voting rights to those that live in rural/sparsely populated area

yup, that was by intention. That's also exactly why the senate was erected; they didn't want smaller states to be ignored by campaigns that could ultimately just focus on enough electoral votes to win the election.

>This rationale/compromise may have made sense in the late 1800s, but it's difficult for me to see how this is a good thing now. I wonder how many presidential elections we can go where the "winner" receives fewer votes than the "loser" before people seriously question what the purpose of our democracy is.

I'm not sure. the exact same gaming would work today if we aboloished the Electoral College tomorrow. The same gaming could happen today; you focus on CA, NY, TX, and FL and you have a large chunk of the population talked to in one swoop. But that leaves 40+ states de-prioritized. figuring out how to solve that without putting the fate of the country in Ohio's hands is a delicate balance to seek.

I'd personal prefer for spillover voting to help ease off the polarization of it all, but that would be an even more uphill battle. Obviously both parties would not want to lose any potential power.

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#192

Post by prewett »

abigail95 wrote: post #157
jaybrendansmith wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. The propaganda of the media, both intentional and accidental, is impacting our Democracy more than I would have thought possible. Being a critical thinker, I made the classic error of assuming that others could not easily be duped, and would actually do their own research on the issues. Boy was I wrong. We are all entitled to our own opinions, but we cannot survive as a Democracy if the citizenry believe they a…

Democracy is majority rule. Democracy is nothing about facts or opinions. You are the one impacting democracy by saying we cannot survive if we keep current democratic rules. You can have the best argument for improving society by limiting who is allowed to vote, what things you're allowed to vote on, and what facts you are allowed to talk about. It can even be a true argument that would make everyone better off. But…

Well, you can also loose a democracy by governing so ineptly that the country falls apart or gets invaded. Also, Plato foresaw democracy descending to the point where people elected a dictator to bring order to the chaos, although that's covered in your post. If the population cannot/will not distinguish reality from what they wish were reality (a disease afflicting both the American left and the right, although in different areas), then the chances of inept leadership or believing the lies of leftist authoritarians or rightist authoritarians increases.

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#193

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

tptacek wrote: post #33

It's an interesting article and if you bounced off it because you had a visceral reaction to the premise, like I did at first, I'd recommend taking another whack at it. Jill Lepore, if you're not familiar with her work, is a historian with a reputation as a more rigorous version of people like Howard Zinn. I don't think it's a good article though. In particular, I don't think it coheres. It's about how the modern Con…

I agree. Could you imagine if it were easy to amend? There would be a thousand amendments where every party in power amends to undo the last party's amendments.

It's the supreme law of the entire country. Amendments shouldn't come easy.

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#195

Post by ninkendo »

rg2004 wrote: post #175
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a statement about each party's (dis)satisfaction with the current success of their party. This requires clarification. If our government was elected based on a "one person one vote" principle, Republicans would be nearly guaranteed to lose the presidency and Congress. Since 1992 there have been 8 presidential elections. Republicans only won the popular vote once (2004) but also won the presidency in 2000 and 2…

> If our government was elected based on a "one person one vote" principle, Republicans would be nearly guaranteed to lose the presidency and Congress. They are playing a game to win the electoral college, expect if it were popular vote they would play a different game with different policies

> expect if it were popular vote they would play a different game with different policies

Right, and that different game would look nothing like the current Republican Party, hence why it’s a totally fair statement to say that the Republican Party as we know it today would never stay in power in such a system. They’d have to change, and that change would probably make them look a lot more like Democrats.

Put differently, the current politics and policies of the Republican Party only yield electable candidates in a country that gives outsized power to rural voters.

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#196

Post by midoridensha »

Arainach wrote: post #147
midoridensha wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It is how virtually every other representative democracy with a presidential system elects their executive leaders. And which countries are those? Russia Turkey El Salvador Philippines Not exactly paragons of democracy. Face it: the Presidential system itself is a disaster. A Parliamentary system is what you want if you want a democratic country with high-quality governance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_system_of... The list is far longer than that.

Yeah, I just picked some representative examples out of that list. Check out the others: Brazil, Ecuador, Kenya, Liberia, Mexico, Paraguay, Venezuela, Zimbabwe for a few. None of these are what I'd consider stable, prosperous, well-run nations.

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#197

Post by johnnyanmac »

dragonwriter wrote: post #110
tastyfreeze wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Senators were meant to represent each state's government not the people directly. The Senate, by being once removed from the people, was supposed to take a longer more measured view on issues. The 17th Amendment[1] broke that and made senators elected by the people. The people have the House. The House has also been broken over time. In 1929 the House was capped at 435 members. Since then the number of people that a…

> Direct democracy does not work on a large scale. It maybe could with smart use of modern technologies, revocable proxies, and..., but that’s irrelevant because “adopt direct democracy for the US” is not even among the top 10 proposed alternatives to the current setup of the Electoral College.

I'm curious on what the current popular alternatives are. It does seem like most conversation focuses on direct democracy since it's fixated on respecting the popular vote.

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#198

Post by jakeogh »

smitty1e wrote: post #136

Call an Article V Convention per https://conventionofstates.com/ and belie The Famous Article. Americans will line up behind fiscal reform and a rejection of our globalist overlords.

I'm not excited about it (and I agree with your last 5 words). It's too easy to subvert. We have so much history, see the SC link I put in the thread.

The states are a much safer venue.

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#199

Post by scarface74 »

WalterBright wrote: post #180
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a statement about each party's (dis)satisfaction with the current success of their party. This requires clarification. If our government was elected based on a "one person one vote" principle, Republicans would be nearly guaranteed to lose the presidency and Congress. Since 1992 there have been 8 presidential elections. Republicans only won the popular vote once (2004) but also won the presidency in 2000 and 2…

The answer is, it is a Republic, not a Democracy. It's set up to make it difficult for the majority to trample on the rights of the minority. More colorfully, having two wolves and a sheep vote on what's for dinner. It's still a good thing.

> It's set up to make it difficult for the majority to trample on the rights of the minority

Two words: Jim Crow

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#200

Post by lupire »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #193
tptacek wrote: post #33

It's an interesting article and if you bounced off it because you had a visceral reaction to the premise, like I did at first, I'd recommend taking another whack at it. Jill Lepore, if you're not familiar with her work, is a historian with a reputation as a more rigorous version of people like Howard Zinn. I don't think it's a good article though. In particular, I don't think it coheres. It's about how the modern Con…

I agree. Could you imagine if it were easy to amend? There would be a thousand amendments where every party in power amends to undo the last party's amendments. It's the supreme law of the entire country. Amendments shouldn't come easy.

The issue is more that the lack of amendments proves that we are no longer a "United" States.
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