Matador
Well-known member
I'm happy to see you are starting to reject originalism.I love all this mind reading stretching back centuries into the past.
I'm happy to see you are starting to reject originalism.I love all this mind reading stretching back centuries into the past.
Nothing catastrophic occurred as a result of those elections. Like most results it was a mixed bag. Among the good would the Sherman Antitrust Act. Or maybe you think it was not "fine" because Republicans won or something. But "the parties were switched" back then or something.It was "fine" because for most of those 200 years the winner of the Electoral College was the candidate who got the most votes. (The exceptions were 1824, 1876 and 1888. Look them up to see how "fine" they went.)
"The votes" are cast in the electoral college. We are the United States of America and the states effectively elect POTUS with a mostly proportional vote (# of allocated House members + 2 Senators). It is a simple and elegant way to balance proportionality and the individual states while avoiding the tyranny of the simple majority. Interestingly I don't hear any of you whining about the UN which has a completely non-proportional vote (and whose "representatives" are not elected at all). Same with screwed up proportionality in the EU.In our current age, of the past 4 presidents HALF came to office while losing the popular vote. It turns out "what they want" first and foremost is for the guy with the most votes to actually win.
The "tyranny of the majority" arguments against the popular vote ignore that the remedy is enumerations of rights and separation of powers, not simple minority rule.
So, again, tyranny of the majority. And what poll shows those results? It is clear that there are an awful lot of Americans who have not had meaningful civics and US Gov education. That is on display in the Brewery regularly.Everyone gets that the Founding Fathers didn't want the President elected by popular vote. They also get that 65% of Americans today do want it. No mind reading necessary.
No, but I am not a supreme court jurist either.I'm happy to see you are starting to reject originalism.
I have seen the migration of big blue states into my home state of Texas. They gather in specific spots like Austin. This is because lord knows they wouldn’t last out in the sticks, the part of the state where I am from. It’s interesting to watch them try and make Tx exactly like the state they moved from. They don’t understand that their decisions which changed their state is what caused them to move to Texas. Don’t California my Texas is a running theme across the state.Yet the neo-left want to also reduce or remove those same rights you mention in addition to having "majority rule" which is a recipe for disaster. We don't have anything approaching "simple minority rule," whatever that is. One solution that about 5M American citizens have taken in the last decade is to move to a state that matches your beliefs wrt government. As a result we see a huge outflow of people from big gov/high tax blue states (CA, NY, IL, NJ) to smaller gov/low tax states like FL, SC, TX, NC, GA, etc.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/one-biggest-mass-migrations-american-113000683.html
With a 2/3 (actually 66% not 65%) majority of both houses of congress you could get an amendment "proposed", or a constitutional convention where 2/3 of the states approve it but so far no amendments were ever done that way. Constitutional Amendment ProcessEveryone gets that the Founding Fathers didn't want the President elected by popular vote. They also get that 65% of Americans today do want it. No mind reading necessary.
go ahead and change it using the amendment process....What is interesting is the current way the electoral college operates would be abhorrent to the founding fathers.
So do we keep the electoral college and go back to the intent of the fathers? That's a reasonable logical position.
Do we eliminate the electoral college so as to better reflect the will of the people in modern society? That's a reasonable logical position.
Or do we keep the current version of the electrical college system, which reflects neither the will of the founders or the will of the people? There is no reasonable logical justification for this.
go ahead and change it using the amendment process....
But then isn't is still the opinion of a simple majority of judges? If the Constitution didn't require interpretation in the first place, we wouldn't have all that much need for judges' opinions. Seems to me what you (or the article you read) are proposing is simply that the only judges whose opinions matter at all are the opinions of the ones sitting on the bench right this moment. How convenient for you & the author that the court right now is ultraconservative. The reasoning here is extremely unsound, but it's really just excusing an ultraconservative court's ignoring of precedent, facts, and good jurisprudence to achieve what their sponsors desires--why would I expect anything well-reasoned?vs. a simple majority of some later panel of judges.
"California leads the way." Why don't they start apportioning electors by congressional district (and the other two by some other mechanism)? Huh.No amendment needed to implement as founders intended...
No law written in any human language will be 100% unambiguous, nevermind a collection of hundreds, thousands, and ever more overlapping and conflicting laws. Smaller gov is better. Less power and fewer laws given to gov helps mitigate this very real problem.But then isn't is still the opinion of a simple majority of judges? If the Constitution didn't require interpretation in the first place, we wouldn't have all that much need for judges' opinions.
Blah blah. Leftwing talking points with no logical basis.Seems to me what you (or the article you read) are proposing is simply that the only judges whose opinions matter at all are the opinions of the ones sitting on the bench right this moment. How convenient for you & the author that the court right now is ultraconservative. The reasoning here is extremely unsound, but it's really just excusing an ultraconservative court's ignoring of precedent, facts, and good jurisprudence to achieve what their sponsors desires--why would I expect anything well-reasoned?
Correct. Just like for a long time women were denied suffrage because there weren't enough votes. Turns out "really hard" doesn't preclude "possible" or "morally right".I don't believe you have enough votes....
Did I mention that amending the constitution is really hard?
false equivalency fallacy....Correct. Just like for a long time women were denied suffrage because there weren't enough votes. Turns out "really hard" doesn't preclude "possible" or "morally right".
Everyone gets that the Founding Fathers didn't want the President elected by popular vote.
I am not a fan of the 17th amendment for direct election of Senators, that IMO shifted power from states to the federal government.It's important to consider the intent of the founders. It wasn't to avoid a popular vote for president, it was to avoid the people deciding altogether. The government is a represenative system where the people elect those supposedly more studied and thus better suited to make the best decisions on their behalf.
The decision for president is no different. The electoral college is essentially a temporarrily elected independent House and Senate type group, whose sole purpose is to get together and select the best qualified person for president, regardless of party, special interest, or other affiliation.
That is not at all the system in place now. The founders would be mortified by what it's become.
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