[ExI] Electoral College

Thu Aug 16 10:55:49 UTC 2018

Bravo Stuart. Well said.

On 2018. Aug 16., Thu at 9:41, Stuart LaForge <avant at sollegro.com> wrote:

> John Clark wrote:
>
> > I don't care who framed it, the Electoral College has proven itself to be
> > a disaster.
>
> Not if your goal is to remain 50 sovereign states united in a common
> wealth under a federal government limited by the decentralization of power
> afforded by multiple branches with checks and balances between one another
> and between the states themselves.
>
> >> it is a feature and not a bug.
>
> > That's what every programer says when defending his crappy software, and
> > slavery wasn't the only bug in the constitution software.
>
> Except that the constitution is not crappy software. No crappy software
> boasts over a one million well-armed and highly-trained killers waiting to
> defend it at a moment's notice.
>
> Don't you see what makes the USA so special is that the constitution
> limits and decentralizes governmental power in this country by spreading
> it out? That you can simply choose which laws you want live under just by
> moving from one state to another?
>
> The balancing of state and federal powers is one of the things that make
> the USA such a unique experiment in governance and you owe all of that to
> the Constitution. It represents the distilled consensus of hundreds of
> learned men analyzing and debating the successes and failures of Athens,
> Rome, and other historic powers.
>
> That nobody, not even Trump, a billionaire and POTUS, can throw people in
> prison for bad-mouthing him and must resort to silly flame wars over
> Twitter is testament that the Constitution is working precisely as
> advertised.
>
> And don't blame the constitution for slavery. Slavery was the way of the
> world long before the constitution was penned and regardless the 13th
> Amendment fixed that error.
>
> > Yes the exact same boneheaded rationale was given for both. A voter in
> > Wyoming has 68.3 times more influence over what happens in the US senate
> > than a voter in California, and that's just nuts.
>
> No what is nuts is that 12% of the U.S. population would willingly choose
> to live asshole to elbow in a state that burns for 3 months out of the
> year and will put them in jail over a soda straw. If you envy Wyoming's
> senatorial influence, then move to Wyoming. For the price of a 3-bedroom
> house in the Bay Area you could have a thousand acres of land.
>
> >> It was to express the egalitarian concept that the various states of
> >> the union were in some sense peers or "equal partners" in the United
> >> States and were of similar standing in the eyes of the federal
> >> government.
> >
> > But in any rational system all the states should NOT have equal standing
> > in the eyes of the federal government because neither the state of
> > Wyoming nor the state of California is a rational being, but individual
> > voters are. A Wyoming voter has 66.7 times as much influence over who the
> > president should be than a California voter, and that's just nuts.
>
> Both states and voters are rational beings, but they are emergently
> manifest at different scales of complexity. There might very well be some
> abstract thought-space analogous to your mind that emerges from the
> network of people within groups such as cities and states, just as your
> own mind arises from the network of neurons in your brain.
>
> Of course, I can't prove the state of California is conscious but I can't
> prove you are conscious either. All I see are two entities, one much
> larger than the other, acting in their own self-interest so I deem them
> both rational.
>
> As far as Wyoming goes, once again, if influencing elections is important
> to you, then move to Wyoming.
>
> >> The alternative is to have the interests of coastal mega-cities
> >> completely dominate the interests of the farmers, miners, and
> >> factory-workers of the entire interior of the country.
> >
> > The coastal mega-cities SHOULD dominate if that's where the people live!
> > If the number of cows or wheat fields you own determine how powerful your
> > vote is why not the value of your stock portfolio or the square footage
> > of your penthouse apartment?
>
> First off, it isn't about how much land you have, its about the
> sovereignty of that land and the people that thereon dwell. The Electoral
> College and Constitution protect the sovereignty of the individual states.
>
> If you have a penthouse apartment and a sizable stock portfolio, then
> write a substantial check to presidential candidate of your choice. I
> think every dollar spent on campaign funding and lobbying is worth
> hundreds of votes in this country.
>
> > And its not as if the cow owners have
> > displayed exceptional wisdom, in recent years the Electoral College laid
> > turds in our laps in the form of Donald Trump and George W Bush, and they
> > are the 2 worst presidents in my lifetime. Trump has only been working on
> > it for 2 years but is already well on track to become the worst president
> > not just in my lifetime but in American history.
>
> Well maybe if a presidential candidate that can't find common ground with
> the farmer who feeds the nation doesn't deserve to be president.
>
>
> >> If you want to condemn the Electoral College, then you have to come up
> >> with a better, more rational reason than "it allowed Trump to mobilize
> >> the vote in the fly-over states and get elected".
>
> > Why? The people picked Clinton but they don't count, the Electoral
> > College picked Trump and they do count. That reason alone is more than
> > enough to condemn the Electoral College.
>
> No it is not. I think part of the problem is that you think there is, or
> should be, but a single election for the POTUS but that is not the case.
> There is in actuality 51 separate and independent elections for the POTUS,
> one in each state and DC. This decentralization means added security from
> voter fraud. Because of this, the election for the POTUS is hard to steal
> as opposed to election by popular vote which has but a single point of
> failure.
>
> Diversity is a hedge against extinction and the Electoral College allows
> all 50 states to be beautiful diverse sovereign entities rather than
> cookie cutter provinces of California or New York.
>
>
> >> Otherwise, you are talking about amending the constitution over the
> >> election of a president that you
> > don't like
> >
> > Trump is far more than just another president I don't like. In its
> > history America has had good presidents and bad but never a creature like
> > Donald Trump, he is unique. I'm really worried about 2020, and not just
> > about what will happen if he wins reelection, I am even more worried
> > about what will happen if he doesn't. In 2016 Trump won but was a sore
> > winner and bizarrely claimed the election that he won was fake,  if he
> > looses in 2020 does anybody really think he will be a good sport about it
> > and say it was a fair election?
>
> If the democrats win the midterms, there is a chance they might be able to
> impeach him. If not his opinion of the election won't matter one way or
> the other. If he loses, then there might be recounts, lawsuits, and what
> not but come January the new president will be sworn in regardless. After
> that, if Trump refuses to leave, he just becomes a nut job squatting in
> the White House and will be forcibly removed by the secret service.
>
> > I don't know if Trump has the ability to
> > make himself President For Life but if he thinks he does there is not a
> > doubt in my mind he will try for it. Trump is not very smart and is known
> > to vastly overestimate his ability so he might fail, but even a failed
> > attempt will be extremely ugly and dangerous.
>
> When the time comes, he will have no choice but to step down. The armed
> forces of the USA are sworn to be loyal to the Constitution and not to a
> man, not even the president. Without the support of the military, he has
> no chance of staging any kind of coup d'etat. He is but a draft dodger in
> the hotel business, not Napoleon Bonaparte or Julius Caesar.
>
> Stuart LaForge
>
>
>
>
>
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