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The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

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Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#461

Post by UncleMeat »

johnthuss wrote: post #65
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…

Clearly Republicans have benefited greatly from the electoral college lately. Whether that is good or bad depends on your political leaning. As a centrist I appreciate that the USA California. I don’t know that it is possible to judge this issue in an unbiased way.

Direct election of the president would not make the USA = California. California would have about 13% of the impact on the presidential election, matching their percentage of the overall population.

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#462

Post by int_19h »

floxy wrote: post #141
int_19h wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Constitution requires 3/4 of state legislatures to ratify any amendment. Given the extreme disparities between states in terms of population, it's entirely possible for something to be supported by >80% of the people - I'd say that reasonably qualifies as "consensus" - but still unable to be ratified. Conversely, it's possible for the small states representing less than 25% of the overall population to band toget…

>it's possible for the small states representing less than 25% of the overall population to band together and ratify any constitutional amendment I took the 2020 Census population figures from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ... ...and came up with the 38 smallest states (75% of 50) had a total population of 134 million or 40.5% of the U.S. population; the largest 12 states had a combined…

I'm accounting for indirection via state legislatures, since it's the latter who ratify by simple majority - so the MPs in the state legislature who vote to ratify don't necessarily represent all the residents of that state (in fact, given the quirks of FPTP and tricks like gerrymandering, things can be ratified against popular majority in the state).

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#463

Post by WalterBright »

HaZeust wrote: post #448
WalterBright wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The nation building after WW2 for Germany & Japan worked out rather well.

Both were by committee and not the US unilaterally, for one.

Well, in Germany we saw what happened when one of the "committee" members decided unilaterally to run East Germany a bit differently. Each of the 4 powers ran their zone as they saw fit.

Besides, what committee ran Japan? McArthur ran it as he saw fit.

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#464

Post by thenewthotness »

pavlov wrote: post #460
refurb wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Supreme Court rulings are not a popularity contest. It’s intended as an independent (as independent a nominated body can be) that interprets the laws the Congress passes within the confines of the Constitution. I for one would fear living in a country where the courts were swayed by public sentiment.

It’s hardly an independent body when 67% of members are lifetime political appointees from a party that hasn’t represented a national majority in several decades.

The entire structure of the US government is meant to guard against rule by a “national majority” amongst other things.

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#465

Post by HWR_14 »

lettergram wrote: post #340
pasquinelli wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the ussr and china both developed from feudalism without capitalism and lifted a huge number of people out of poverty. not advocating their system, (not not-advocating either), but they are counter examples.

hmmm arguably capitalism was still required. Both the USSR and China both went through (at different times!) great famines due to their collectivization of agriculture. Further, their agricultural practices in general were learned from the capitalist countries and neither produced / produce enough. Both the USSR and China did / currently rely heavily on food imports. Arguably, they only escaped feudalism because capi…

I thought the USSR went through famines because of the natural conditions, (drought and unusual coldness).

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#466

Post by raydiatian »

voltaireodactyl wrote: post #377
raydiatian wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> voting machines are banned I’m interested to hear your take on how voting machines are “less secure” than by-hand tallying. I’m unfamiliar with the process, so this goes contrary to what my intuition would tell me goes on

In the same way that email is easier to silently spoof/alter/discard than a handwritten letter. Voting machines without paper backup suffer the same vulnerabilities, with much greater cost, and significantly less money being put toward securing them. A better question is: “what do digital only voting machines do BETTER than paper ballots?” I’m interested to hear your take!

> I’m interested to hear your take!

Don’t really have one, I’m more interested in a study of which protocol is more secure, higher integrity. Gut instinct is that voting machines have a longer/stronger audit chain, are automated & don’t get tired. But of course, auditors get tired and aren’t automated, then again, is voting software “really that hard?”. But then again that audit chain could be stupid and expensive and outweigh the benefit.

In either case, machine or human, I hope that there is some kind of consensus algorithm at play.

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#467

Post by [deleted] »

wincy wrote: post #345
dylan604 wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because it was tried and "failed" once before doesn't mean that people don't still believe that it can be tried and made to work the next time. The concept of a split US is not unattractive to a much larger number of people than you might be willing to give credit. There's also the people that will support a movement not because they fully support it, but mainly just because it's screwing the "system" and watchi…

Could a state democratically elect to secede from the union? What if a National vote was held and a majority agreed to split up the USA? At what point could we democratically all agree we think the other side is crazy, and ask to peacefully take our ball and go home?

[deleted]

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#468

Post by thenewthotness »

jjtheblunt wrote: post #387
StanislavPetrov wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A conspiracy theory is, by definition, a secret. That the government routinely ignores the Constitution isn't a conspiracy, just a sad fact. How many wars have we been in over the last 70 years? Vietnam? Korea? Iraq? Afghanistan? Just to name a very few. Read Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution. How many times has the Congress voted to go to war? Is this just a conspiracy, or another example of our government's d…

> A conspiracy theory is, by definition, a secret. conspiracy just means (Latin etymology) breathing together, i.e., being coherent...there's nothing about secret in the general case.

I think the implication is a bit more literal. When you conspire with someone you communicate secretly with them in order to plot and coordinate your actions. You do this by being in very close proximity to them and whispering, so close that you are sharing breath i.e. breathing together.

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#469

Post by biztos »

sosull wrote: post #454
CGamesPlay wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Supreme Court is, in no sense of the word, ignoring the law. They are interpreting the laws in ways you disagree with and in ways which have historically not been how it was interpreted by the same court, but this is not what ignoring means. Further, the objections of the population have nothing to do with the judicial branch and everything to do with the legislative branch. The courts are not and have never been…

Watching this play out (as a non-US person), there’s very little comfort in the distinction between court ignoring the law and the court interpreting the law in a way that is different to historic precedent. The act of interpretation infers that the court is making some kind of justification – backing these changes up by explaining them. Typically this would happen via written decision or at least by stare decisis. B…

> The fire in a crowded theatre standard was overturned…

According to Wikipedia that standard was explicitly upheld as the example of speech that would be prosecuted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio

Re: The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

#470

Post by tibbydudeza »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #331
nyokodo wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These are dark times for US democracy The US system has little d democratic aspects but it is not a democracy. It was intentionally setup to protect the minority from the majority in critical respects like constitutional amendments. Also, population shifts are ongoing and the coastal blue populations are the most rapidly aging in the country and the increasingly red US born Hispanic populations are the most rapidly…

> population shifts are ongoing and the coastal blue populations are the most rapidly aging in the country But they also have longer lifespans by a couple of years. > increasingly red US born Hispanic populations are the most rapidly growing. A lot of those US born Hispanics are in California and very blue (thanks to Pete Wilson).

Amazing how California shifted from reliable Red (Ronald Reagan era) to reliable blue. What was the factor in this seemingly quick shift - population shifts ???.
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