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September 17, 1787: "A Republic, If You Can Keep It"

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Re: September 17, 1787: "A Republic, If You Can Keep It"

#61

Post by anigbrowl »

mmooss wrote: post #32
jmyeet wrote: post #10

Spoiler: we could not in fact keep it. The US "experiment" is touted as a success but it demonstrably is not. Less than 80 years after this utterance, the country descended into a Civil War, then the most deadly war ever fought. The US was founded on white supremacy and chattel slavery. Chattel slavery may be gone but slavery is alive and well in the form of convict leasing. And of course white supremacy is resurgent…

> There is no opposition. Nobody is coming to save us. Of course. It depends on the people - either we oppose it and save us, or nobody will. That's the nature of democracy. If you expect someone else to do it, that is, in a way, 'neofeudalism' - you are docile while some powerful person does things.

Realistically, virtually every revolution in history involved some degree of foreign assistance, and more organization than spontaneous popular action.

Re: September 17, 1787: "A Republic, If You Can Keep It"

#62

Post by MisterBastahrd »

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #46
vkou wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reps actively seek bribes, because they need campaign warchests. Whether there are 8,000 of them, or 400, that dynamic isn't going to change. Also, at the moment the problem isn't bribes, the problem is that the tail is wagging the dog, and the Party will destroy anyone in it who dares to push back on the glorious leader.

Using the 14th Amendment to give corporations free speech rights combined with the belief that campaign contributions are a form of speech is a big part of the problem. The intention of the 14th Amendment had nothing to do with corporations but someone wanted that hack and the consequences have been immense. If we went back to campaigns being funded by individuals, the pandering to mega-corporations would be signific…

Corporations are just groups of people, and the Constitution says that people have the right to associate. Restricting corporations from donating to campaigns just shifts the donations to wealthy individuals.

A proper constitutional amendment would ban corporations from political speech and donations and ban individuals from using more than X dollars towards a political campaign or PAC or commercial, dollar adjusted by year. That way, corporations are out of the picture altogether and the rich can't just self-fund political campaigns and ads.

Of course, that'll never get past Congress much less a bunch of state houses.

Re: September 17, 1787: "A Republic, If You Can Keep It"

#63

Post by koolba »

mmooss wrote: post #29
yibg wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately people as a mass, don’t tend to learn from history. Or at least forget the lessons from history fairly easily. Maybe we are doomed to repeat the same historical lessons.

The US has been a 'democratic republic' for almost 250 years, so many generations have learned. Such government has thrived in every culture and place, from East Asia to South Asia to almost all the Americas, many parts of Africa, Europe of course. Somehow, democracy works exceptionally well - far better than any alternative ever has - and is resilient. ... unless the people are somehow convinced that it is not, that…

Representative democracy only works when the people of the nation actually drive the formation of said government. The last 70+ years have shown that it explicitly does not work when imposed by third parties. Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, China, and Vietnam are all examples of this failure.

It’s not that those people should not have a say in their government. It’s that they clearly don’t have the coordinated will to organize it sustainably.

Maybe the rest of us just lucked out to have society form at just the right sweet spot of information spread without information control. But there’s clearly something different about all those places that it didn’t quite end up the way the rest of us would consider acceptable.

Re: September 17, 1787: "A Republic, If You Can Keep It"

#64

Post by rascul »

jmyeet wrote: post #10

Spoiler: we could not in fact keep it. The US "experiment" is touted as a success but it demonstrably is not. Less than 80 years after this utterance, the country descended into a Civil War, then the most deadly war ever fought. The US was founded on white supremacy and chattel slavery. Chattel slavery may be gone but slavery is alive and well in the form of convict leasing. And of course white supremacy is resurgent…

> the country descended into a Civil War, then the most deadly war ever fought.

By what metric was that the most deadly?

Re: September 17, 1787: "A Republic, If You Can Keep It"

#65

Post by School-Cotton »

unethical_ban wrote: post #58
School-Cotton wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is how every functioning democracy already works. The blocs are called political parties. Almost everyone chooses who to vote for based on which party best matches their ideology, not based on the individual candidate who happens to be endorsed by the party in their congressional district. So it’s not obvious why it’d be bad to decrease the influence of these individuals and increase the influence of parties.

Agreed. Political parties are natural; what is not natural is our voting system that limits is to two realistic options.

Definitely. In functioning systems, parties splitting and merging is very common, and there are many different parties represented in parliament.

Re: September 17, 1787: "A Republic, If You Can Keep It"

#66

Post by Amezarak »

ctrlp wrote: post #59
Amezarak wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Washington was mad about political parties because his federalist-aligned coalition was collapsing. He resigned because of his declining health and because it was no longer obvious he could win if be ran again, and he feared the resulting reputational damage. There was extreme political contention at the time and Washington’s administration was becoming increasingly controversial. This very deeply bothered him, becau…

[flagged]

I don't mind (and dang, I hope you don't mind me responding to this post.) I think many people tend to reflexively downvote things that seem contrarian or contradict what they know, and that it's probably generally a good thing. Lies My Teacher Told Me gets into some of the issues with the way American history is taught, and even though we recognize that the cherry tree story is a fable now, people are generally taught a mythologized view of Washington and the other founders in school, and that's partly the basis for our civic religion. So when you come across a comment like I wrote, I think it's easy to dismiss it. And that's by design! Even back then, people knew they were consciously creating a myth surrounding Washington and other figures. Take this letter from Benjamin Rush to John Adams:

> The venerable Charles Thompson now above 80 years of Age, now and then calls to see me. I once suggested to him to write secret Memoirs of the American Revolution. “No—No said he I will not.—I could not tell the truth without giving great offence. Let the World admire our patriots and heroes. Their supposed talents and Virtues (where they were so) by commanding invitation will serve the Cause of patriotism, and of Our Country.” I concur in this Sentiment, and therefore I earnestly request that you will destroy this letter [largely about Washington's failings] as soon as you read it. I do not even wish it to be known that General W: was deficient in that Mark of true Greatness which so preeminently characterized Julius Cæsar, Henry the 4th: of France, and Frederick the 2nd: of Prussia,—the talent to forgive.

https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-02-02-5755

I think this is true of a lot of history, really - anything "important" we've assumed a mythologized view of, mediated by schools and Hollywood. Myth is more powerful than reality, so I think until you bury yourself in primary and contemporary sources, it can come across as almost conspiratorial. And of course, I am not saying that Rush, or the antifederalists, were correct in all their criticisms or all they said: only that Washington's comments must be understood contextually, and that's almost always missing when people refer to the Farewell Address, or at best they have a very simplified view of the situation that preserves the mythologization of Washington.

Re: September 17, 1787: "A Republic, If You Can Keep It"

#67

Post by rv3392 »

klooney wrote: post #45
eszed wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. However, parliamentary democracies have a better track record of stability than federal structures (modeled after that of the US). Adjust for cultural and historical differences as you see fit, but the US has heretofore been an outlier.

Matt Yglesias wrote a great summary of this awhile back- https://www.vox.com/2015/3/2/8120063/american-democracy-doom...

Very interesting read as an Australian. Helped me with understanding why US politics feels so different to Australia despite the cultural similarities.

Re: September 17, 1787: "A Republic, If You Can Keep It"

#68

Post by piva00 »

klooney wrote: post #45
eszed wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. However, parliamentary democracies have a better track record of stability than federal structures (modeled after that of the US). Adjust for cultural and historical differences as you see fit, but the US has heretofore been an outlier.

Matt Yglesias wrote a great summary of this awhile back- https://www.vox.com/2015/3/2/8120063/american-democracy-doom...

Thanks for sharing, that was a great and prescient article.

Re: September 17, 1787: "A Republic, If You Can Keep It"

#69

Post by EasyMark »

ianburrell wrote: post #36
bobthepanda wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right now it’s not even one for every 40,000. The size of the house is capped at 435 by an act of Congress. One for every 40,000 might be overkill given that would result in 8,500 reps in the House.

There has been observation of the number of representatives in many legislatures follow cube root of population. For US population, the ideal number would be 693 representatives. That would be close to 500,000 people per district.

~1000 would seem like a logical next step, would take out some of the money too.

Re: September 17, 1787: "A Republic, If You Can Keep It"

#70

Post by EasyMark »

BuyMyBitcoins wrote: post #26
kiba wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure why you think thousand of representatives are inherently difficult to manage.

Consider that for each representative you add, each individual representative becomes less influential and has fewer opportunities to affect change. While I do believe the house should be larger, perhaps 600 representatives, once the house gets too large you simply won’t be able to allocate speaking time on the floor in a reasonable way. The house would organize itself around voting blocs and certain representatives…

they aren't supposed to be influential, they are supposed to vote on laws.
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