[ExI] Electoral College

[spike at rainier66.com]

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of John Clark
Sent: Saturday, August 18, 2018 7:43 AM
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Subject: Re: [ExI] Electoral College

 

On Fri, Aug 17, 2018 at 4:45 PM, <spike at rainier66.com <mailto:spike at rainier66.com> > wrote:

 

>>> Article 9 and 10 are just words on paper… 

 

>> …Not to the military. 

>> …Articles 9 and 10 are part of the law of the land, which they have sworn to defend.

 

>…Most in the military are not lawyers and could not tell you what article 9 and 10 were if you put a gun to their head, to them the law of the land is whatever their superior officer says it is…

 

John I do think this comment seriously underestimates the military.  Those guys are not mindless killer-bots.  I know and worked with a bunch of military ossifers in my career.  I know of none of them who I think would go along with a coup against the constitution.  I know plenty of them would I think would be willing to refuse an illegal order, which is what it would be if framed as a sudden declaration of martial law used to cancel or postpone (even for an hour) an election.

 

 

>…Andrew Jackson once thundered "The Supreme Court has made its decision now let them enforce it!" 

 

Good, so you already know that Andrew Jackson was an example of a POTUS who would have grabbed power if he could have.

 

>…and I think Trump will say much the same because Trump commands an army and the Supreme Court doesn't… John K Clark

 

I am betting with the Supreme Court on this one.

 

That being said, there are risks.  The scenario I have long worried over is that we have verifiable widespread cheating by (for instance) voting machines are hacked.  Then a POTUS attempts to deny the EC votes of the states where widespread cheating was found.  That could lead to a constitutional crisis.  The worst part is that we did it to ourselves.

 

spike

 

 

 

 

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