the electoral college a middle ground

[dogs4thewin]

Again, those in the country are just as dependent as us clearly morally inferior city folk, logistics fail and they starve like anyone else.

I am not sure how logistics food wise would matter now as it relates to medication that makes sense, but food I cannot seem to figure out how that would make sense seeing as ho if you eat what you grow, raise, hunt or gather you really FOOD wise could do OK

Now as it relates to medical care yes no city awe would tend to lose a LOT more people.

 

[Desk trauma]

I am not sure how logistics food wise would matter now as it relates to medication that makes sense, but food I cannot seem to figure out how that would make sense seeing as ho if you eat what you grow, raise, hunt or gather you really FOOD wise could do OK

Fuel stops, trucks stop moving food stops coming every starves. That's the logistical failure you get if the "machines go out" like you said. Farmers and rural folks starve like the rest of us this isn't the frontier days where farms are feeding their owners and selling the excess. They are commercial ventures focused usually on a single crop and are using machines not mules and 12 kids to tend the farm. That deer they shot or garden plot supplement their diets for part of the year, they are not the basis of it.

 

[dogs4thewin]

Fuel stops, trucks stop moving food stops coming every starves. That's the logistical failure you get if the "machines go out" like you said. Farmers and rural folks starve like the rest of us this isn't the frontier days where farms are feeding their owners and selling the excess. They are commercial ventures focused usually on a single crop and are using machines not mules and 12 kids to tend the farm. That deer they shot or garden plot supplement their diets for part of the year, they are not the basis of it.

I am confused because as someone who grew up right next to my grandparents' farm ( while he did use equipment) they pretty much grew (in the summer anyway most of what they eat. ( still living though not as active on the farm as they once were as they are in their 80s. ) They have had deer hunters come down for years ( they still do though now it is my mom's land that part) We also have a pond on our land which while we do buy our fish yes that pond does have fish in it and yes my mother has granted permission for certain people to fish in the past ( meaning we have a no trespassing sign up so we expect people to respect that. This was my take on the farm rural living was that Now, I will say my grandparents bought/buy certain things .

 

[comana]

why should people in he country not have control over our rights and life? This is the issue. The lifestyle is different and really the cities could not be there without the country. In fact, until the late 18 or early 1900s more people lived in rural areas than urban. It takes both for society to run.

Rural areas elect representatives to represent their interests on State and Federal levels. That is the same as city areas. Is that not fair?

 

[dogs4thewin]

Rural areas elect representatives to represent their interests on State and Federal levels. That is the same as city areas. Is that not fair?

It would make sense

 

[Desk trauma]

I am confused...

Yep.

 

[Desk trauma]

It would make sense

That's what happens, what's the issue with it?

 

[dogs4thewin]

That's what happens, what's the issue with it?

It seems to me that the cities have too much control

 

[dogs4thewin]

Yep.

I have now explained to you where I got that from maybe I should think more about BIG farms instead of the small ones where they mostly just feed the family/ local area.

 

[Desk trauma]

It seems to me that the cities have too much control

Yeh, can't have the majority of the population having the majority of the say. They clearly need their moral superiors from the rural areas to tell them how to live.

 

[Desk trauma]

I have now explained to you where I got that from maybe I should think more about BIG farms instead of the small ones where they mostly just feed the family/ local area.

It's a fantasy from our fetishization of rural life that's imbedded in our culture due to our founding myths.

 

[dogs4thewin]

It's a fantasy from our fetishization of rural life that's imbedded in our culture due to our founding myths.

You mean everyone thinks rural life is better?

 

[Desk trauma]

You mean everyone thinks rural life is better?

No.

 

[Lukaris]

If the electoral process is to be changed it must be done in accordance with article 5 of the US Constitution. This is to be done in accordance with the 10th Amendment of the US Constitution.

Personally, I believe some plebiscite form of electing a president is an invitation to mob rule that creates an imbalance of popular will of the people on the state level. The electoral system usually reflects the popular will nationally but sometimes a couple of big states votes can disproportionately affect the popular total vote. That is a neutral outcome but to use it to override the will of the people on the state level could actually lead to totalitarian rule.

The middle paragraph is my opinion but I also provided the basic means of change for those who feel otherwise in the first paragraph. I would think any opinion opposed to mine will still respect the constitutional means of changing the status quo since I would be bound to abide by a new constitution amendment.

If an opinion can’t hack what I said then it might be proto totalitarian by delusion or intent.

The Constitution of the United States: A Transcription

[get-content name="print-page-left" include-tag="false" /] Note: The following text is a transcription of the Constitution as it was inscribed by Jacob Shallus on parchment (the document on display in the Rotunda at the National Archives Museum.) The spelling and punctuation reflect the original.

www.archives.gov

 

[Desk trauma]

Personally, I believe some plebiscite form of electing a president is an invitation to mob rule that creates an imbalance of popular will of the people on the state level. The electoral system usually reflects the popular will nationally but sometimes a couple of big states votes can disproportionately affect the popular total vote. That is a neutral outcome but to use it to override the will of the people on the state level could actually lead to totalitarian rule.

Yet again, were the EC to rightly be put away as the relic it is no states would get any vote, only US citizens would and all their votes would be of equal value in determining who will hold our only truly national office.

...but i have zero hope of the EC is going away as it's the only way that one of our major parties can win the presidency now.

 

[SimplyMe]

But more electors doesn't make anyone's ballot more powerful, because all the states would be getting about the same increase, percentage-wise, in number of electors. It'd be like making goals in Soccer/Football be worth 6 points instead of 1... it doesn't make any difference, because all of the goals are still worth the same amount. You might make the numbers bigger but it'd have no effect on the game. And that's the same thing with simply increasing the number of electors. Because they'd be increased in all states equally (or close to equally), it doesn't change the power of anyone's individual ballot.

No, it wouldn't give all states the same increase. It has been pointed out to you that states like Alaska, Wyoming, Montana, both Dakotas, low population states with only a single representative, their votes are worth roughly 3x than a persons vote in California or Texas. If you triple the number of representatives, suddenly California and other large states get a huge boost, where the votes of citizens in those states now have a vote much more equal to those in a state with a single representative. Don't get me wrong -- the small states still have more power (because they still get three electoral votes despite only having 1 representative) but suddenly California and Texas get over 100 Electoral votes.

That is the point, it does not benefit all states equally; instead it largely benefits the states that are underrepresented in current Presidential elections and brings it closer to what it would be with "1 citizen, 1 vote" -- though still giving priority to small states (since all get 2 votes for their senators, regardless how small the state). And before you complain about the loss of power for smaller states, recall that if we went by representation "guidelines" from the time of the Founders, at that time there was roughly 1 representative for less than 60,000 citizens. As the nation grew, that number dropped to 1 Representative for less than 40,000 citizens. The cap, leaving the House at 435 Representatives, was only passed in the 1930s -- and the country more than tripling in size since that time means that, as of 2018, we have roughly 750,000 citizens per US Representative in Congress. So increasing the number of representatives -- even making it so we have 4,000 members of the House of Representatives -- only brings us more in line with what the Founders envisioned. It makes it so we don't see the huge vote disparity where you have votes from rural states counting as 3 votes each, compared to the votes from large states counting as only 1 vote.

 

[JSRG]

No, it wouldn't give all states the same increase. It has been pointed out to you that states like Alaska, Wyoming, Montana, both Dakotas, low population states with only a single representative, their votes are worth roughly 3x than a persons vote in California or Texas. If you triple the number of representatives, suddenly California and other large states get a huge boost, where the votes of citizens in those states now have a vote much more equal to those in a state with a single representative. Don't get me wrong -- the small states still have more power (because they still get three electoral votes despite only having 1 representative) but suddenly California and Texas get over 100 Electoral votes.

That is the point, it does not benefit all states equally; instead it largely benefits the states that are underrepresented in current Presidential elections and brings it closer to what it would be with "1 citizen, 1 vote" -- though still giving priority to small states (since all get 2 votes for their senators, regardless how small the state). And before you complain about the loss of power for smaller states, recall that if we went by representation "guidelines" from the time of the Founders, at that time there was roughly 1 representative for less than 60,000 citizens. As the nation grew, that number dropped to 1 Representative for less than 40,000 citizens. The cap, leaving the House at 435 Representatives, was only passed in the 1930s -- and the country more than tripling in size since that time means that, as of 2018, we have roughly 750,000 citizens per US Representative in Congress. So increasing the number of representatives -- even making it so we have 4,000 members of the House of Representatives -- only brings us more in line with what the Founders envisioned. It makes it so we don't see the huge vote disparity where you have votes from rural states counting as 3 votes each, compared to the votes from large states counting as only 1 vote.

I know it wouldn't be completely equal. Some states would get more of an increase than others if there was an increase in the size of the house, like the Wyoming Rule. But there wouldn't be any kind of huge differences compared to what we have now, and the states would still all have about the same number of electors in relation to each other. That's why I said, in the post you were responding to, "But more electors doesn't make anyone's ballot more powerful, because all the states would be getting about the same increase, percentage-wise, in number of electors." Note the usage of "about the same increase, percentage-wise".

Also, let's remember what the claim was that I was responding to originally where I made the argument. This was the post:

We could amend the Congressional Reapportionment Act of 1929 so that instead of needing 270 Electoral College votes being needed to secure the Presidency, there’d be in the neighborhood of 1200-1500 votes.

Forming a electoral consensus at such numbers would force candidates to the MIDDLE.

The claim was that if we had a lot more electors, then it would force candidates towards the middle because you need to get a lot more electors. But since this would be done by increasing the total number of electors as much as you increase the required number of electors, you still have to get the same percentage of electors (actually, you could win with a slightly smaller percentage of electors than before, e.g. 1201/2400 is 50.04%, but 270/538 is 50.2%).

It wouldn't have any effect on that, any more than making goals in Soccer/Football worth 6 points instead of 1 point would affect the way the game is played.

There could be a few slight shifts in some states. But nothing particularly big, and more importantly, nothing that would cause the change claimed, because the bottom line is that the requirement to get more electors wouldn't mean anything if there's an equally larger amount of electors to begin with.

 

[comana]

It seems to me that the cities have too much control

Representation is based on population so of course more densely populated areas will be split into more districts and have more representatives than sparsely populated areas.

 

[Hans Blaster]

Let me asks you this if the machines went out who would have an easier time ( in most cases) In terms of the very basics? How many city folks have prepared food for example and no I do not mean cooking it,

Preparing food *does* mean cooking.

The term you are looking for is growing (plants) or raising (animals) their own food. Lots of people of "city folks" have grown a garden (I do) and increasingly keep chickens (for eggs, not so much meat).

 

[keith99]

99% of all farmers buy their seeds each year. Over 90% have never used seeds from one year to start next year's crop. Most likely a greater percentage of urban gardeners have saved seeds than modern farmers.

I have, but just for cucumbers. Nasty little problem is that the process can be very different for different crops.

How many of those self sufficient hunters could bag anything once they run out of ammunition? Not many. Sme of my second cousins could as they also bow hunted. But even retrieved arrows eventually get ruined and I have yet to meet anyone who can make arrows from scratch.