<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">On Mon, Aug 13, 2018 at 2:43 AM, Stuart LaForge </span><span dir="ltr" style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><<a href="mailto:avant@sollegro.com" target="_blank">avant@sollegro.com</a>></span><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"> wrote:</span></div><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote">
<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">> </div><i>Yes, that is called the Electoral College and by my reckoning and the<br>
deliberate framing of the constitution by Hamilton, Jefferson et. al.,</i></blockquote><br><div>
<font size="4">I don't care who framed it, the Electoral College has proven itself to be a disaster.</font><p class="gmail-p1">
</p><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><i><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">> </div>it is a feature and not a bug.</i></blockquote><div><br></div><font size="4">That's what every programer says when defending his crappy software, and slavery wasn't the only bug in the constitution software. </font><div><br></div></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><i><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">></div>The Electoral College was implemented with the<br></i><i>same rationale of giving every state two senators.</i></blockquote><div><br></div><font size="4">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. <br></font><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><i><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">></div>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.</i></blockquote><div><br></div><font size="4">But in any rational system all the states should <b>NOT</b> 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.</font><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">
</blockquote><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><i><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">></div>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.</i></blockquote></div><div class="gmail_quote"><br></div><font size="4">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? 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.</font><br><div class="gmail_quote"><br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><i><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">></div>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". </i></blockquote><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">
</blockquote><div><br></div><font size="4">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.</font><div><br></div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><i><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">></div>Otherwise, you are talking about amending the constitution over the election of a president that you<br>don't like</i></blockquote><div><br></div><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline"></div><font size="4">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? 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.<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline"> </div></font></div><div><font size="4"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline"><br></div></font></div><div><font size="4"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline"> John K Clark</div> </font></div><div><font size="4"><br></font></div><div> </div></div></div></div>