This is a terribly unfair system in the US, resulting in a voter from Texas (population 29 million) having 2% of the representation in the Senate as a voter from Wyoming (population 579000) or 5% of the representation in the Senate as a voter from Hawaii (population 1.4 million)
The system has its origins at a time when only land owning white men (by definition a minority at the time) had the right to vote, and senators were chosen by state legislators, not residents.
Only under that backward system could the current Senate seat allocation be seen as remotely rational, although it can in no way be viewed as just.
There was only 1 order of magnitude difference between the voting eligible population of the smallest state (Delaware) and the largest state (Virginia).
Today, that difference is 2 orders of magnitude, which is massive in comparison to what it was when the Senate seat allocation was designed.
Arguments for the preservation of that system are nothing more than shallowly disguised arguments for the continued selective erosion of voting power of individuals in high population states.
I have little doubt they would, and in doing so start a war. After all, it's happened before, and many people are plainly agitating for it now.
It's the "my enhanced privilege or your destruction, choose one" argument, which is a clear demonstration of one way the system codifies structural inequality and is transparently anti democratic. In a similar way, corporate lobbying distorts democratic representation, and by all appearances, they overlap quite a bit, differentiated only by the industry sector and which Senator they support.
Doesn't this goes against your argument then?
At a time where most of the voting population was at its peak uniformity, the 2-senator-per-state model was invented to ensure that the bigger states could not bully their way in federal legislation.
It was invented at the time where it was the least needed, since as you said, voting population was very uniform, so they mostly want the same things.
No. It was also anti-democratic at that time, but because the distribution of the vote was an order of magnitude less divergent, and the only people who could vote were landowning white men, it was able to succeed politically as a compromise.
Since then, its anti-democratic effects have magnified as the population divergence between states has magnified.
Why should 5 million people in a particular boundary have the same say as 50 million people living in another boundary. It makes no logical sense..
In fact it is anti-democracy as all citizens’ votes are not equal. In fact this applies to the electoral vote system also.
And even then, it was highly debated against, if I remember correctly even James Madison himself was against it, to say nothing of the anti-federalists.
In the end Madison saw it as a compromise towards the States, but after 200+ years I think the anti-federalists were right on this, it ended up like an aristocracy-like thing with too much power vested in its members.
It's a net zero increase in the people's representation. It is a redistribution of representation toward smaller states, which has accelerated as state populations have diverged.
By contrast, a single-house legislature fulfills the desires of a national majority population the most quickly, which is what you are advocating for. This is at the expense of more careful consideration.
In other words, we do not agree on the definition of representation as you see it as maximizing activity and I see it as maximizing consideration.
The only thing it maximizes today is the continuation of hereditary and tribal concentrations of political power. It's a hostage situation, as the secessionists honestly will tell you.
The house represents the people, the senate the states. In fact, allowing the direct election of senators was one of the worst decisions ever made.
This is an argument that the Senate - a part of the federal government - should have less power than it does today, much as the House of Lords' power has diminished in the UK.
Random, but this is also why adding Puerto Rico as a state is extremely threatening to the political paradigm today. It would add 2 extra senators, who would most likely be democratic.
The concept of marriage in a tradition-based society like India has a completely different meaning than "let's voluntarily have a contract, and we can break it off any time we feel like it."
In order to protect the sanctity of marriage (straight or gay, I support both), the government must resist calls to make it easy to divorce. Divorce must be a painful, punishing process if society is to continue to take marriage seriously. (It must nevertheless be possible for either party in the marriage to initiate a divorce to completion. That's non-negotiable.)
Just my view on this subject. And I accept that others with different experiences than mine may have different views.
This might increase unhappy people stuck in a marriage, which likely won’t make the society take marriage seriously; the opposite seems true.
I understand the concept of having different views of how serious of a commitment marriage should be, but I don't understand why "I want things to be this way" automatically means "the government should make things this way". They're the scariest institution that exists because of the overwhelming power they wield. Hell, they're largely defined by it. Bringing the government in to play for every little thing seems to me like buttering your bread with a scimitar.
It's just so strange that marriage is super easy. Divorce is like several months of processes (even both sides are amicable).
I don't necessarily agree with OP on it should be complicated , however there won't be any danger of reduction in legal marriages
Yes, that's why it needs to be easy to divorce.
You can absolutely attempt improvements in one dimension while othe r more important ones are sorely neglected.
The article is unclear abot the panel, buit I guess they have little impact on the issues you mentioned.
Yes. And you will be harming yourself and your country by doing so, by prioritizing the wrong things.
Ending up "better than now" (by prioritizing the wrong things, but still improving some dimension)
is worse than
Enging up "much better than now" (by prioritizing the most important dimension to improve)
India has a functioning payments system. It has a dysfunctional tax system and a massive black market. Banning cryptocurrencies doesn’t really do any practical harm. It does take away, or at least make more difficult, a major route for illicit payments.
"House is on fire? Let's throw out the trash first! That would be a better than now house, a cleaner, better smelling, burning house!"
> 8. Give equal representation all states in the upper house as in the US senate(2 senator s from each state).
I am sorry, but we certainly do not need the worst parts of the US system. It is not just bad. It is catastrophic.
Having 2 elected houses is monumentally stupid idea that allows politicians to trap the system in blockages, while pointing fingers at each other for no repercussions.
> Codification of the law of Torts.
I hope this never happens. The super litigious part of America through civic laws leads to a lot of services getting needlessly expensive.
________
India has big problems, but almost none of them are the ones you mention.
A democratic system's main concern is not efficiency, but rather robustness of the democratic process. Authoritarian states are much more efficient in passing legislation, but at what cost?
Building structures at actively make that difficult are not democratic. They are just bad.
7. Jury system is not without its flaws. You talk about colonial era policy reformation. Juries are a commonwealth tradition! Mostly colonial countries have them. india had them till the 50-60s, it was intentionally removed as part of justice reformation.
5. In a federal or union government the state should have this power. The integrity of the state requires this power. This excerise of this power needs strong checks and balances in place , but lack of adequate controls is not a reason not to remove it entirely.
6. Elected officials always have final decision making power. Civil servants are career professionals sure have the ability to influence the decision making in what and how they present information to elected officials, abolishing civil service is basically like having a company with only senior management and no middle management. Who will execute the policy decisions?
4. Governor's power in states (not union territories or ncr) is actually pretty limited and largely ceremonial. The president and governors are artefacts of transforming from a colony. They don't have much power constitutionally by design. Electing them won't solve the problems of the office, they will just influenced by corruption by needing votes as before .
Unequal voting power doesn't just arise from unequal votes, it also arises from correlated/block votes.
Making votes unequal can counteract unequal voting power.
Unequal voting is one of the reasons that e.g. people in urban centres can't just capriciously turn the far away state of Wyoming into a poorly managed nuclear waste dump.
49% of land in Wyoming is owned by the Federal government and the federal can and will do as it pleases with the land. The two senators are not why Wyoming is a nuclear waste dump.
The Senate structure all through U.S. history is vestige of the comprise between souther slave owning and northern factions. The number of states, or what area actually should be state was never carefully planned or designed to protect any minorities, it was always political decision to keep power balanced from day 1.
It is political fiction to explain it as to give minorities rights, rural rights were never the intent, no document ( Bill of rights, Constitution etc) actually talks about any rural or minority rights being protected , they instead talk about 3/5ths instead. It was always about slaves, it was a huge part of the economy for the southern states.
1. Codification of the law of Torts.
2. No-fault divorce.
3. More devolution of powers and policy making to states.
4. Ending the practice of Unelected Governers.
5. Remove power of the central government to dismiss elected state governments.
6. Dismantle the British Era civil service designed to preserve undemocratic control over the population to a modern federal system where all decision making authority lies with elected representatives only.
7. Repeal of colonial era police and criminal codes, and moving to a more humane police and criminal justice system as in other democratic countries, including the establishment of jury system.
8. Give equal representation all states in the upper house as in the US senate(2 senator s from each state).