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skybytch

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8 hours ago, RobertMBlevins said:

I'm not hot on the Electoral College, either. But remember a few points about that system. 

  • If we didn't HAVE it, the top four, five, seven/eleven states would make all the choices for president.

Well, no.  The PEOPLE would make all the choices for president.  Where they live would be immaterial.  If they all moved to Texas, then the people would still make the decisions.  If they were evenly distributed over all 50 states, then the people would still make the decisions.  States would have no role in a popular election, whatever form it takes (instant runoff, majority, most votes etc)

(Of course you could draw whatever lines you like around those people - state borders, religious/ethnic divisions, income level etc.  But that would be your artifice that you are imposing on it, not anything real.)

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5 hours ago, RobertMBlevins said:

I don't remember saying all that stuff, and I'm not that easily brainwashed. B)

So what? You will admit that you said it, that you are easily brainwashed, and also admit that you are one of those guys who cannot admit you were wrong or jakee will be unhappy with you.

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(edited)
34 minutes ago, kallend said:

What you call "hindsight" was foresight in a number of nations.  That's why entire nations like New Zealand have fewer cases right now than Trump's White House.

The reporting indicates that the US leadership actually did have foresight and understood what was going to happen. The only place "hindsight" would seem to apply is in Trump himself failing to anticipate the consequences for himself and his campaign.

Edited by gowlerk

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1 hour ago, Coreece said:

Hindsight's 20/20.  At that time there wasn't much knowledge or emphasis on asymptomatic carriers.  I'll admit tho that even back then it felt a bit like wishful thinking to hope that travelers would self-quarantine, but there really didn't seem to be an acceptable/practical alternative at the time.

It may only be hindsight for you but not for the rest us. This is exactly what you were being told at the time. The fact that you appear to be conceding that the travel ban was useless, while you're still trying to bash us for not supporting it is frankly baffling.

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(edited)
10 hours ago, RobertMBlevins said:
  • If we didn't HAVE it, the top four, five, seven/eleven states in population would make all the choices for President

Hi Robert,

I do get really tired of telling people again & again that this is not how it would work.

Consider when you vote for Patty Murray or her opponent.  King County has no greater power than does Pacific County.  Each voter within Washington state has the same 'power' as any other voter.

You simply have to abandon all consideration of 'states' when you discuss the elimination of the EC.  That seems to be what people cannot get into their heads.

As others have mentioned, without the EC, each voter is as powerful as any other voter.  And, that is how it should be.

Jerry Baumchen

Edited by JerryBaumchen

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1 hour ago, JoeWeber said:

So what? You will admit that you said it, that you are easily brainwashed, and also admit that you are one of those guys who cannot admit you were wrong or jakee will be unhappy with you.

Lol, do you need a hand carrying that grudge? So you got caught talking shit, just man up and move on.

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8 minutes ago, JerryBaumchen said:
10 hours ago, RobertMBlevins said:
  • If we didn't HAVE it, the top four, five, seven/eleven states in population would make all the choices for President

Hi Robert,

I do get really tired of telling people again & again that this is not how it would work.

He seems to be making an assumption that in states that lean one way or another all the votes would go the same way. Of course that is a complete falsehood. Even in CA, that seemingly most D of states, Trump got 4,483,810 votes in 2016. None of them counted for anything in the electoral college. But they certainly would count in the popular vote. I fail to see why democracy loving people have such a hard time supporting having their leader elected by the people rather than the states.

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14 minutes ago, gowlerk said:

 I fail to see why democracy loving people have such a hard time supporting having their leader elected by the people rather than the states.

Hi Ken,

It does seem strange to me also.

I think that the only two people in this country not elected by popular vote are the Pres & the Vice-Pres.

Strange, weird, take your pick.

Jerry Baumchen

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5 hours ago, JerryBaumchen said:

Hi Robert,

I do get really tired of telling people again & again that this is not how it would work.

Consider when you vote for Patty Murray or her opponent.  King County has no greater power than does Pacific County.  Each voter within Washington state has the same 'power' as any other voter.

You simply have to abandon all consideration of 'states' when you discuss the elimination of the EC.  That seems to be what people cannot get into their heads.

As others have mentioned, without the EC, each voter is as powerful as any other voter.  And, that is how it should be.

Jerry Baumchen

One of the rolls of the EC is to prevent the tyranny of the majority.  We have a federalist system for a reason.  A solution that may work for 51% of the population living in cities may be awful for the 49% who don’t.

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1 hour ago, brenthutch said:

One of the rolls of the EC is to prevent the tyranny of the majority.  We have a federalist system for a reason.  A solution that may work for 51% of the population living in cities may be awful for the 49% who don’t.

So fuck 'em. Maybe they'll enjoy it, who knows? As it is, the EC has caused the majority to suffer the will of the minority. Haven't heard Fox news decrying that as unfair. 

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1 hour ago, brenthutch said:

One of the rolls of the EC is to prevent the tyranny of the majority.  We have a federalist system for a reason.  A solution that may work for 51% of the population living in cities may be awful for the 49% who don’t.

Hi Brent,

It is only a 'tyranny' if your side loses.  Also, known as 'the will of the people.'

In other words, it's all about whose ox is getting gored.

Jerry Baumche

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(edited)
33 minutes ago, JerryBaumchen said:

Hi Brent,

It is only a 'tyranny' if your side loses.  Also, known as 'the will of the people.'

In other words, it's all about whose ox is getting gored.

Jerry Baumche

Hi Jerry,

Would you prefer that we would govern via plebiscite?  Anything less would be ignoring “the will of the people”

BH
 

Edited by brenthutch

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2 hours ago, brenthutch said:

One of the rolls of the EC is to prevent the tyranny of the majority.  We have a federalist system for a reason.  A solution that may work for 51% of the population living in cities may be awful for the 49% who don’t.

1.  The EC has given us a tyranny of the minority for 12 of the past 20 years.  How is that better?

2. Federalist paper #68 explains the reason.  It isn't what you seem to think.

3. And if the solution works for 49% but is awful for 51%?  How is that any better?

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11 minutes ago, kallend said:

2. Federalist paper #68 explains the reason.  It isn't what you seem to think.

It had been quite some time since I read that, so I reread it today. I think the founding fathers would have been aghast at the idea that in todays world, it is illegal to be a "faithless elector".

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4 hours ago, brenthutch said:

One of the rolls of the EC is to prevent the tyranny of the majority.  We have a federalist system for a reason.

No, we have laws for a reason - to prevent the tyranny of the majority.  That's why (for example) you need to get something like 80% of the people in the US to support a change to the Constitution.   The reason you can't own slaves?  It's not because of voting; you can't vote for (and get) a slave.  It's because we have a constitution that says you can't get one.

If you want to prevent the tyranny of the majority, support the rule of law for everyone - not just for the little people.

If you want to support democracy and a representative government, support a popular vote.

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5 hours ago, brenthutch said:

One of the rolls of the EC is to prevent the tyranny of the majority.  We have a federalist system for a reason.  A solution that may work for 51% of the population living in cities may be awful for the 49% who don’t.

That simply makes no sense whatsoever, as an argument. If you are against the tyranny of the 51%, you'd be against the tyranny of the 49% (or 45%), no? 
The EC does not solve anything in this regard. (The constitution may, by saying that there are certain things that are non-negotiable, no matter if a majority wants them or not--but that's a different matter.)

The only rational argument for the EC would be that states (or localities) are actually important,--rather than just people--and that rural areas, for example, may not get enough power, compared to population centers, because fewer people live there, and that may make it so that the concerns of these areas (which may be different than those of large cities) won't get enough play. (That may be what you meant, but it has nothing to do with the 51%)

However, that really should already be taken care of by the proper division of powers between local, regional, state and federal governments.
When you are electing one person (and their team) for the entire country, I don't think that should play a role at all.--but at least that could be a logical argument.
There is also the fact that it's somewhat outdated, as so many people move around, and why should the power of their vote have anything to do with where they happen to be living at a given time?

The "tyranny of the 51%", while a true concern, is not addressed by the EC whatsoever (as someone else pointed out, you could divide the population into many other arbitrary groupings, rather than location--and say that the majority should not freely govern the minority--are we going to assign electors based on race or sexual orientation, now? Or based on people who prefer Netflix versus Amazon Prime? However you divide up population, there will always be majorities and minorities. Location is not unique in this regard.)

...and in fact "the tyranny of the 51%" is beautifully addressed in parliamentary systems that have a relatively low bar for entry into parliament (5% or less), and in almost all cases the need to build coalitions between multiple parties in order to govern.

Also, another way this problem should usually be addressed, is that, whoever is governing, should govern "for all Americans" and not just the ones that voted for him. Biden at least said that's what he wanted to do, in his speech at Gettysburg. That Trump isn't even pretending to have that intention, is one of the things that makes him so hard to accept for those that are not voting for him.

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(edited)
13 hours ago, jakee said:

It may only be hindsight for you but not for the rest us. This is exactly what you were being told at the time.

No it isn't.  Back in March you were saying that we "don’t face any additional risk from people coming in from the outside," and how we'd pose more of threat to travelers coming in than they would on us, and how some unnamed expert  "seems to say"  that the travel ban isn't an effective strategy - that there are economic concerns and the additional strain on businesses.

And then you say I'm the one that wasn't ok with real measures to stop covid?  I mean would you have seriously been ok with it if Trump didn't restrict international travel and allowed businesses or whoever to just come and go as they please, without quarantine?

 

13 hours ago, jakee said:

The fact that you appear to be conceding that the travel ban was useless, while you're still trying to bash us for not supporting it is frankly baffling.

You baffle yourself.   I never said it was useless - and practically everyone here has expressed the importance of travel restrictions/quarantine, with the main objection being that they weren't implemented sooner.  The only reason we're even talking about this right now is because olof is just trolling again and tried using it as a lame example of how trump supposedly tricked me, somehow.

Edited by Coreece

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7 hours ago, brenthutch said:

One of the rolls of the EC is to prevent the tyranny of the majority.  We have a federalist system for a reason.  A solution that may work for 51% of the population living in cities may be awful for the 49% who don’t.

That is absurd prima facie nonsense which can only possibly make sense if you consider that having a President at all is tyranny. In which case the only thing the EC does is sometimes substitute tyranny of the minority for tyranny of the majority.

 

Yay.

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13 minutes ago, Coreece said:

No it isn't.  Back in March you were saying that we "don’t face any additional risk from people coming in from the outside," and how we'd pose more of threat to travelers coming in than they would on us, and how some unnamed expert  "seems to say"  that the travel ban isn't an effective strategy - that there are economic concerns and the additional strain on businesses.

And I (among others) also questioned exactly what we're talking about now - how the thousands of incoming travellers from places that had been "banned" were supposed to be screened and where they'd be quarantined if they were. You (or someone) said that was all going it work perfectly. 

Quote

And then you say I'm the one that wasn't ok with real measures to stop covid?  I mean would you have seriously been ok with it if Trump didn't restrict international travel and allowed businesses or whoever to just come and go as they please, without quarantine?

You literally just said you weren't ok with either a real travel ban or quarantine for incoming travellers. In what way are you in favour of effective measures to stop covid from entering the country?

I would have been ok with not restricting international travel and I would have been wrong - but Covid was already embedded in enough places inside the borders by then that domestic social distancing measures to control the spread of the virus within the country were already hugely more important than trying to stop the virus fom getting in. That battle had already been lost.

Quote

You baffle yourself.   I never said it was useless - and practically everyone here has expressed the importance of travel restrictions/quarantine, with the main objection being that they weren't implemented sooner.  The only reason we're even talking about this right now is because olof is just trolling again and tried using it as a lame example of how trump supposedly tricked me, somehow.

Well, apparently he's tricked you into thinking it wasn't useless.

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