LL condemn the recent Executive Order on Immigration

[Pussycat Catnap]

It was intended to preserve the power of states - which itself was done to preserve slavery.

This was a way of allowing states that violently disenfranchised a signifigant if not majority of their population into chains, to still have a say. Similar to the 3/5th of a person rule in those same states - letting them count other people for purposes of congressional seats and electoral power, while still subjecting them to violently barbaric brutality.

It really doesn't matter whether or not results would differ, and if so in what way - were the system done away with. The mere legacy of that system is enough to justify abolishing it.

 

[Paul Hexem]

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Amethyst Jetaime wrote:

My biggest problem now with the Electoral College now is that all states. except two, award the votes of their electors using the winner take all method.  So if you live in a state where the majority of people vote for another candidate than the one you want, your vote essentially doesn't count.  If states apportioned electors based on the portion of votes each candidate received it would be much fairer and also reflect more of what the true majority of voters wanted.  This is important in a national election where the elected candidate is supposed to represent

all

the people which is the reason that I think the electoral college should be repealed.  But if that's not possible, then apportioning electors is better than nothing. 

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Pussycat Catnap wrote:

It was intended to preserve the power of states - which itself was done to preserve slavery.

This was a way of allowing states that violently disenfranchised a signifigant if not majority of their population into chains, to still have a say. Similar to the 3/5th of a person rule in those same states - letting them count other people for purposes of congressional seats and electoral power, while still subjecting them to violently barbaric brutality.

It really doesn't matter whether or not results would differ, and if so in what way - were the system done away with. The mere legacy of that system is enough to justify abolishing it.

 

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I'm not saying the system couldn't be improved. All I'm saying is, it's false to say "the electoral college is wrong because slavery!"

Saying it doesn't matter if the results would differ is also bad- ignoring consequences because feelings leads to all sorts of problems. Abolishing it without a good replacement is a terrible idea.

[Phil Deakins]

This is a general comment, and not addressed to you, Gadget. The reply button on your post was was convenient, that's all.

As an outsider, it seems to me that the U.S. differs from other countries in that it still operates as a sort of group of countries (self-governing states), which it was originally, with each 'country' having its own laws. I can understand it, even though it's become a very outdated concept, imo. With instant worldwide communications these days, it looks to me that the electoral college system is so antiquated that it's positively laughable, to the point of being derisible. It just seems so unnecessarily backward when the population is asked to make a choice of who will lead it. And, of course, the benefit of a balance between slave and non-slave states disappeared a very long time ago. That's just my view as an outsider.

[Derek Torvalar]

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Pussycat Catnap wrote:

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Luna Bliss wrote:

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Klytyna wrote:

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Luna Bliss wrote:

I'm embarrassed to be an Amercian.

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Pretend you are Canadian... Then you can indulge in those amazing Canadian only things, like, proper bacon, better beer, and of course, their unique hobby.

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Yes believe me, there are quite a few Americans dreaming of moving to Canada!

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Random news story that I heard only a few seconds of stated that, I think, since Il Trumpe became the new Feurer, 22 people had crossed the border between the USA and Manitoba, Canada and requested Asylum there.

Now there's a LOT of important details missing in that...

Like... were they Americans or refugees denied in the USA or random people from perhaps New Zealand that got lost or what?

But it's a great little factoid by itself. If they were Americans... as much as people always say they flee to Canada with every US election, I don't think anyone actually has since the VIetnam War...

Interesting. Wish I knew the details.

On the other hand... that's 22 les votes next election to stop Trump...

 

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http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/manitoba-refugees-border-crossing-1.3972374

This started before Trump.

[Klytyna]

Until comparatively recently (historically speaking) the electoral college system did have a use, that wasn't perhaps the one intended when it was created... the illusion of unity.

 

So some candidate gets 60% of the votes cast, the EC kicks back that he 'won' with "85% support from the nation", disemminating the results of the EC was simple, collating the total votes and diseminating that via telepgrah and wireless, and weekly newsreels in kinematograph palaces, wasn't so easy, so it helped people accept defeat,

 

"Oh 85% gee it must be only my town where 55% of us hated the swine, ah well Hail to the Chief"

 

Now modern media, and things like the internet, Splatter, Arsebook etc, mean everyone knows that El Presidente didn't win the vote before Faux News can triumphantly announce is victory, and...

 

Division... 

"We were cheated, we demand recounts and lynchings in the streets booooo hissssss"

[Innula Zenovka]

I think part of the problem is that the Constitution of the USA was a very remarkable document for its time, but things have moved on since.    Since then, newer democracies have looked at the USA and their constitution to see how things work in practice, and thought that some parts are very important and they want to copy, some parts are a good idea but need tweaking, and some are dreadful ideas.    If you try to imagine how the UK might look were we governed according to a constitution written, for the most part, by Pitt the Younger, Addison, Steele, Edmund Burke, John Wilkes, Dr Johnson and other C18th luminaries,  I think you'll agree it would be a very strange place indeed.

It's significant, I think, that the constitutions of neither Germany nor Japan, which were written with much US involvement after WW2, are nothing like that of the USA,and that both of them are, rather, parliamentary democracies (as are most other newly democratic countries, at least ones that have stayed democratic for very long).

If someone were to write a new constitution for the USA today, the final document would probably look a lot more like that of the Federal Republic of Germany than the existing US Constitution, but I am not sure that would happen, particularly as people who do very well, thank you, from the present structures have such a vested interest (politically and financially) in keeping things as they are.

[Phil Deakins]

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Innula Zenovka wrote:

If you try to imagine how the UK might look were we governed according to a constitution written, for the most part, by Pitt the Younger, Addison, Steele, Edmund Burke, John Wilkes, Dr Johnson and other C18th luminaries,  I think you'll agree it would be a very strange place indeed.

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You mean like the Magna Carta?

[Innula Zenovka]

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Phil Deakins wrote:

You mean like the Magna Carta?

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[Phil Deakins]

Nice one

[Klytyna]

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Phil Deakins wrote:

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Innula Zenovka wrote:

If you try to imagine how the UK might look were we governed according to a constitution written, for the most part, by Pitt the Younger, Addison, Steele, Edmund Burke, John Wilkes, Dr Johnson and other C18th luminaries,  I think you'll agree it would be a very strange place indeed.

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You mean like the Magna Carta?

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See, Magna Carta was written by a group of oppressed rich people dealing with a mad tyrant, to guarantee them certain rights, and by ACCIDENT they happened to right it so it applied to us peasants as well...

 

By comparison, the US constitution was commissioned from a "professional smart guy who can write things down proper using long words" by a group of very un-oppressed old money new england petty-aristocrat-wannabe country squires, who were distressed at being asked to pay tax on their imported luxury goods to pay the war debt incurred saving their indentured slaves and land holdings from the French & Hurons, and who responded by forming a very un-democratic cabal, whose goal was to keep poorer people in their place while avoiding paying money to richer people than themselves, and they certainly didn't want Magna Carta style accidents in the document.

 

That's why colonial rebels STILL pledge aliegance to a document rather than to a nationality, a place or even a leader, it's all about upholding an out of date text designed to create a pipedream agrarian utopia, where almost everyone would live in "The Little Hovel on the Praire" except Squire Washington, Squire Jackson, Squire Maddison and their crew, and a small number of skilled artisans who made nice furniture clothes and so on for said squires who would be allowed to live in unpleasant but useful towns.

 

It's purpose was to guarantee the continued supply of designer furniture by that nice Mr. Chippendale, designer crockery from that nice Mr. Wedgewood, designer glassware from Waterford, designer cutlery from Solingen, and designer clothes from the fashion houses of London, Paris, and Milan, while keeping 'Jonothon Yank' toiling in the fields for no wages on a 7 year indenture.

 

It was written for the benefit of Georgama bin Washington and the leaders of his Al Republica Insugrant Cabal...

[Pussycat Catnap]

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Klytyna wrote:

That's why colonial rebels STILL pledge aliegance to a document rather than to a nationality, a place or even a leader, it's all about upholding an out of date text designed to create a pipedream agrarian utopia, where almost everyone would live in "The Little Hovel on the Praire" except Squire Washington, Squire Jackson, Squire Maddison and their crew, and a small number of skilled artisans who made nice furniture clothes and so on for said squires who would be allowed to live in unpleasant but useful towns.

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The fact that we swear allegance to the Constitution and not the Feurer is perhaps one of the greatest saving graces our system has.

Can you imagine if Americans had to swear fealty to Trump?

Instead I can tell him to kiss my Chicana butt, and point out openly all of the horror and illegality of his actions because he is NOT my sovereign.

He's just a bloke with a better paying job than most of us, and free frequent flyer miles.

Swearing loyalty to people, ethnicities, or pieces of dirt is for fools. I swear my loyalty to ethics and ideals. That makes me a citizen, not a subject.

I have a whole lot of issues with the status quo in the USA - but it is my right, in fact my duty, to voice them, and to fight to fix them. Because I am no subject to any in-bred trailer-trash living in any palace. I am a citizen.

This nation may have been made to commit a genocide against my northern cousins, and to enslave my African ancestors - gut it made the mistake of making it's people citizens - and that is why we who it was created to destroy, have managed to find power in using its very ideals to stop its worser intentions (this is why so many Native Americans started joining the US military after the "Indian Wars" - because those so-called "illiterate savages" read the document of their conquerers and found a weapon for freedom buried within).