101 replies to this topic

[ᗅᗺᗷᗅ]

[jedimindtrick]Yes.  You WANT to be part of Jorost's fantasy world.[/jedimindtrick]

[Shokkou]

No, I don't! And what, do you think you are some kind of Jedi waving your hand around like that? I'm Shokkou! Mind tricks don't work on me. Only money. Wait, that doesn't work on me either.

 

I have my own fantasy world. With blackjack anime and hookers catgirls!

[*Anastasia]

That works all fine and dandy until one of the Lords claims he has a primary residence in Maine and has a secondary residence in DC, and then charges the taxpayers for travel to and from Maine that he never actually uses, because really, he works in DC and so he lives in DC most of the year. Of course, he does go back to Maine in the winter, but it turns out his primary residence is a cottage that's snowed in during the winter, and so obviously he has to charge taxpayers to stay in a hotel in Augusta the whole time Congress isn't in session. Then of course someone gets wise to what he's doing and outs him to the House of Lords budget oversight committee. They then have hushed discussions with the head of government, because it turns out this Lord is a strong political ally whose friends had donated an awful lot of money to the government's election campaigns in the past. By now it's all starting to hit the media, but this Lord, he knows the government needs him, so he plays it all cool, and just ignores the media's pesky questions. Then suddenly, all his superfluous travel expenses - to the tune of $70,000 - are paid back with a countersigned cheque issued by the head of government's most trusted advisor, with the implication that the money came from the party itself! Suddenly the public is outraged! He needs to be made an example of, and quickly! But you know what's better than making an example of him? Blaming the opposition for everything he did! Yes, clearly, they're in a precarious position: either they support you in ousting him from the House of Lords, which is unconstitutional, or you can attack them and say they don't support transparent, accountable government! Ha! That'll show 'em! For added measure, cast suspicion on some of the Lords that they appointed, too! Make lip service towards abolishing the House of Lords entirely, even though you've appointed so many of them that now it's nothing more than a tool to get your bills passed, and you have no intention of abolishing it no matter what you say! Go to Australia and give their parliament, with an elected upper house, a speech where you make penis envy jokes about how Americans see an elected upper house! Sing bad covers of John Lennon and Lady Gaga songs to make yourself seem personable while all the while making good on your election promise that when you were through with America, the American people won't recognize it! Commit election fraud to win yourself a majority government and then amend the elections act to disenfranchise people who don't vote for you! When remote communities full of ethnic minorities you don't like get flooded, send them body bags instead of emergency relief! AND IN THE END IT WAS ALL PART OF AN ELABORATE PLOY TO ENSLAVE THE AMERICAN POPULATION TO THE WHIM OF MULTINATIONAL CORPORATIONS! MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA! MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! UNLIIIIIIIIIMIIIIIIITTED POOOOOOOOOOWWEEEEEEEEEERR!











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So, uh, what I mean to say is, if you're going to go ahead with this, don't appoint this jerkoff to your upper house.

[ᗅᗺᗷᗅ]

Well, honestly, the real problems are as you say: the presence of money in politics.  The rest is all just geek fanboy roleplaying.  I mean look at where we are having this conversation.  Heh.

 

I'd like to see a constitutional amendment saying money is not speech and corporations are not people.  Amendments are tough, and we haven't passed one in a while.  But it's not outside the realm of possibility.

[ᗅᗺᗷᗅ]

Also, Anna, no one in America knows what a "cheque" is. 

[Shokkou]

[*Anastasia]

Also, Anna, no one in America knows what a "cheque" is. 

Yeah, yeah, shout it from the rooftops.

But seriously, this all happened in Canada. Well, except the enslavement to multinational corporations. Maybe.

[Shokkou]

ITT: Jorost refutes my American citizenship.

[Redezra]

I understand none of this .-.

 

Although, I must ask, are female lords "ladies"? or lords under your model?

[ᗅᗺᗷᗅ]

Haha.  Well the lords stuff was all just my own spin on it.  Obviously it's not very American.  The point is that I think the way we elect our leaders is screwed up.  Some of the problems, like the Electoral College, could only be eliminated by a constitutional amendment.  But a lot could still be done short of that.  A few states, like Nebraska and Maine, allocate electoral votes based on proportional representation, which is a big improvement over winner take all, if still imperfect.  That's a solution that could be implemented right now in every state if the political will existed.

[Thrash]

cheque, lol

[*Anastasia]

Haha.  Well the lords stuff was all just my own spin on it.  Obviously it's not very American.  The point is that I think the way we elect our leaders is screwed up.  Some of the problems, like the Electoral College, could only be eliminated by a constitutional amendment.  But a lot could still be done short of that.  A few states, like Nebraska and Maine, allocate electoral votes based on proportional representation, which is a big improvement over winner take all, if still imperfect.  That's a solution that could be implemented right now in every state if the political will existed.

As a Canadian, my mind is always boggled by how much say the states have over the way federal elections are carried out. States set their own individual rules for primaries and caucuses (which themselves make very little sense to a Canadian, admittedly). States decide how their electoral college votes are allocated, as you pointed out; Maine and Nebraska actually don't award votes proportionally, however, as this analysis shows. States set regulations relating to requiring identification to vote, and whether those with a criminal record (or those who are incarcerated) can vote. States are in charge of redrawing their electoral districts, even! Because that's not a terrible idea at all. As the debacle in Florida in 2000 showed us, states set their own regulations about how ballots are designed and how voting booths even run.

This makes no sense whatsoever, considering these elections generally have nought to do with the states. Well, I suppose Senators are elected to represent the states, but truth be told, it seems that if you really want Senators to represent the state, the state governments should just appoint them and bypass the election altogether. That's another can of worms, though, and it just seems to me everything would run a hell of a lot smoother if the federal government set its own election law. Too many cooks spoil the broth, after all, and in this case, your fifty cooks haven't even decided what kind of soup they're making.

[ᗅᗺᗷᗅ]

It makes more sense when you consider that the individual states were more like small countries when they were colonies and then, later, when the United States was first conceived.  Fun fact: before the Civil War Americans said "the United states are...", referring to the country as a collective entity.  After the Civil War we started saying "the United States is...", singular.

[*Anastasia]

Yes, it may very well've made sense at the time of Confederation. But y'all've come a long way since then. This is the same reason in general I don't get why Americans put so much stock in word-for-word interpretations of the Constitution (though I suppose this is also from a country with a strong tradition of word-for-word interpretations of the Bible, so... ).

The Supreme Court case which accorded women the status of personhood in Canadian law also instituted a legal doctrine known as the living tree doctrine: it states our constitutional documents are not a static, frozen set of words which must be interpreted exactly as they are written, but that the spirit of the law is more important: in other words, as Wikipedia succinctly describes it, '[A] constitution is organic and must be read in a broad and progressive manner so as to adapt it to the changing times.'

I have a feeling many Americans would shit themselves if such an idea was ever to be applied to their own constitution.

[Locke]

I have a feeling many Americans would shit themselves if such an idea was ever to be applied to their own constitution.

Many wouldn't too. There are plenty of constitutional liberalists, just like there are constitutional literalists.

[ᗅᗺᗷᗅ]

The reverence with which Americans hold the Constitution is both a strength and a weakness.  A strength because it has embedded the concept of rule of law as a fundamental premise of governance, a weakness because we so venerate it that we cannot see its weaknesses.  There are lots of things about our Constitution that are very undemocratic.  In fact there is a very good book about that very subject.  I would point out that in the original, un-amended Constitution, for example, only white, landowning males could vote and and that each black person was, in fact, only 3/5 of a person.  Even the really tall dudes.  So maybe the intentions of a group of wealthy, aristocratic landowners whose ethnic diversity ran the gamut from English to Scottish shouldn't necessarily be taken as gospel 200-plus years after the fact.

[Justavictim82]

I would be less worried about electoral college and more worried about campaign finance reform, congressional gerrymandering, and breaking the lobby control in Washington.

[*Anastasia]

Not that the three-fifths clause really had anything to do with assessing personhood, though. For all intents and purposes, slaves had very few rights of personhood at all. This was just the South's way of wrangling more Congressional representation than they had persons to vote for it and the North's push towards a compromise so they couldn't have their slaves and eat them, too.

Wait, what?

Anyway, the amount of wrangling over cultural differences at the time of confederation, through the drafting of the Constitution, up to the Civil War, and right through to the present day really makes me wonder why America wasn't split into north and south right from the go. But I suppose my Québécois neighbors would ask me the same thing about Canada.

[ᗅᗺᗷᗅ]

What a wonderful, wonderful world it would have been if America had been divided between North and South right from the beginning, and evolved into two separate countries.  My guess is that you and I would be sharing a country, Anna. 

[Haflinger]

'One person, one vote' is also the mantra behind which first-past-the-post proponents hide. And look where that gets us; 37% of the popular vote went to the Conservatives in the last election, who won 54% of the seats in parliament. How is that any more democratic than the electoral college?

The electoral college is just first past the post writ large. It takes all the problems with FPTP and adds a second layer of FPTP for more of them. Of course it was designed to operate in this fashion by Alexander Hamilton who wanted as little democracy as possible in his republic.

Personally, I'm beginning to lean towards direct democracy. IMO one of the biggest problems with modern governments is overlegislating. Because legislatures sit all the time and need to show results, they are constantly ... passing legislation. As a result of which we have abominations like the US Tax Code in existence. Imagine if all legislation had to get passed by referendum. It would in one step completely eliminate the possibility of passing incomprehensible and pointless laws.

 

And secret ones, too.