Welcome to the 21st Century: How to Plan for the Post-Covid Future

Re:Welcome to the 21st Century: How to Plan for the Post-Cov... by throwaway0a5e on Wednesday June 10, 2020 @09:42AM (#23476895)

The federal government is set up to allow minority positions to roadblock majority positions unless you have an overwhelming majority (look at basically every big social issue of the past century and you will see this is how it has played out). The purpose of this is to prevent people from moving fast and breaking things at the federal level. This is all fine so long as states have decent autonomy. CA can have all the weed and abortions they want and KY can have all the guns and christian values they want and neither has to bother the other. Unfortunately we've put of a hell of a lot of authority at the federal level over the last 120yr or so and as a result government's ability to do things is handicapped because more of the doing things necessarily has to happen at a level where the system was designed to only allow things to be done when practically nobody could disagree with them.

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Re:Welcome to the 21st Century: How to Plan for the Post-Cov... by dundarious on Wednesday June 10, 2020 @09:56AM (#23477029)

I agree there can exist a tyranny of the slight majority. But we’re talking about the EC, which is used to choose the President. Given the enormous power of the executive branch (relative to most parliamentary democracies, for example), this actually causes a minority to gain positive power over the majority. Positive power here meaning power to direct action through executive orders and (most importantly) military action, not merely to veto law. But the executive also enjoys some veto power!

The EC and 2 senators per state system that the US uses seems to lead to a tyranny of the minority, especially if you consider that senate “rules” regarding filibustering, simple, absolute majorities are almost all conventions rather than laws or immutable procedures.

However, I do agree with your line of argument as it relates to constitutional amendments.

Edit: I said the executive could create law, when I meant to say they can direct action.

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Re:Welcome to the 21st Century: How to Plan for the Post-Cov... by throwaway0a5e on Wednesday June 10, 2020 @10:11AM (#23477180)

The people getting shafted by the EC deal should tell their congressmen and senators to take back some of that legislate authority they've dumped on the executive bureaucracy.

We're holding a knife by the blade and trying to cut with the handle and complaining it hurts. Of course it does. We're not using the tool properly.

We could also massively increase the number of states which would make the two points that all states get just for existing much less relevant (and have other benefits). Even if you just look at the house the number of people represented by any given person is massive compared to what it was 100yr ago let alone when the system was designed.

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Re:Welcome to the 21st Century: How to Plan for the Post-Cov... by dundarious on Wednesday June 10, 2020 @06:22PM (#23482879)

I agree to a large extent. I think EC should be part of a larger set of changes, but it is understood by a reasonable amount of the public, so it’s arguably the best starting point.

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