The Political & Philosophy Thread

[rms]

The electoral college was actually designed for a very different reason than you think, and that reason is no longer relevant at all.

I hope you realize how shit this post was for the rest of your life

 

[Elric of Melniboné]

I feel good knowing that my highly accurate post makes you so upset.

 

[Dak]

We can only hope the country ultimately balkanizes at this point. Would make things much simpler.

 

[rms]

I feel good knowing that my highly accurate post makes you so upset.

you said nothing and now force someone else to ask you to expand on your statement. It's lazy and douchey, but you do you

 

[Elric of Melniboné]

Do I really need to tell adults who live in the United States that our ability to collect and disseminate information has improved since the colonial era and that we don't have slaves in the South that could be used to manipulate the popular vote? Those were the fears that the electoral system was founded on.

 

[Baroque]

are you for balanced population #'s for rep's or just populated States will now entirely control the nation?

I think each person's vote should be worth the same amount regardless of where they live.

 

[Baroque]

you said nothing and now force someone else to ask you to expand on your statement. It's lazy and douchey, but you do you

You do the same thing all the time

 

[Baroque]

In addition, why be ok with a representative voting on your behalf? In 2000, there was an electoral college voter who declined to vote for who the state decided upon, basically making hundreds of thousands of votes worthless. The potential for widespread abuse is there, and it takes away your presidential voting power.

 

[rms]

I think each person's vote should be worth the same amount regardless of where they live.

how do you handle this belief while we as a country value the idea of state's rights?

In addition, why be ok with a representative voting on your behalf? In 2000, there was an electoral college voter who declined to vote for who the state decided upon, basically making hundreds of thousands of votes worthless. The potential for widespread abuse is there, and it takes away your presidential voting power.

I vote for said representative, there are issues with a direct democracy but at least the illusion of choice is there.

It's a check and balance. If we abandon everything and go to a strict and country wide popular vote, that check is then gone. It should be a legitimate question to ask said representatives why they did or did not back Trump (for example), but no one asks that question of them.

Don't see how either minimizes abuse, quite honestly. Don't think either the Trump-ees for the Clinton+ (aka Bernie's/Warren's) are the right answer for the future. I don't want either running away with power. Liberals decide to congregate in Urban areas which has been 'used' against them. I don't know if there is equal representative power between an urban area and a rural one, but their location has led to this becoming an issue today and will probably exacerbate for the near future.

 

[Dak]

I think each person's vote should be worth the same amount regardless of where they live.

I'd prefer as many boundaries as possible between myself and the ignorance of others. The last thing the US needs is a bunch of magical-thinking insulated urbanites making direct decisions about serious things outside of their concrete skinner box.

 

[Baroque]

I'd prefer as many boundaries as possible between myself and the ignorance of others. The last thing the US needs is a bunch of magical-thinking insulated urbanites making direct decisions about serious things outside of their concrete skinner box.

We get it, you hate cities. But care to elaborate on how you oversimplify a city down to a fucking skinner box? If you mean the process with which they gather goods is "do X, receive Y" then how is that different from country living? They simply do a different X to get the same Y. Do you even farm bro? you're not exactly a typical country boy as a grad student in psychology.

 

[Dak]

We get it, you hate cities. But care to elaborate on how you oversimplify a city down to a fucking skinner box? If you mean the process with which they gather goods is "do X, receive Y" then how is that different from country living? They simply do a different X to get the same Y. Do you even farm bro? you're not exactly a typical country boy as a grad student in psychology.

Obviously you need some cities of a certain size for critical functions of trade and innovation. But for the majority inhabiting modern cities there's such an extreme disconnect from all productive processes that everything is essentially "magic". Paycheck shows up on time, you go in a store and stuff is there, order food it's there, tap your phone, shit shows up at your door. I'm not saying that it's not a reasonably appealing life, but what I am saying is this disconnect renders any decision making on the processes that produce "problematic".

I'm not a country boy, but I have worked on a farm for just a little bit, just as I drove OTR for a little bit. I've done a little bit of all kinds of things. I appreciate how fragile complexity is, and how insulated and ignorant the average urban american is from and of this fragility and complexity.

 

[Elric of Melniboné]

Yeah, I'm not sold on the idea that less people should have more decision power than more people because the smaller number of people anecdotally feel that their experiences mean more. It totally ignores the possibility that people who have had the same experiences but now live in urban areas will have reduced value in elections, among many other issues.

 

[Dak]

Yeah, I'm not sold on the idea that less people should have more decision power than more people because the smaller number of people anecdotally feel that their experiences mean more. It totally ignores the possibility that people who have had the same experiences but now live in urban areas will have reduced value in elections, among many other issues.

Maybe people in urban areas should have little to no say over things regarding people in rural areas and vice versa......

 

[zabu of nΩd]

I still disagree with the electoral college.

I'm actually annoyed that liberals are using this election result to attack the electoral college. I think federalism is one of America's strengths, and that geographic diversity should have its own influence in elections.

I do understand some of the more well reasoned concern about racism on the part of employers and so on, I suppose and the idea of a kind of trickle down legitimization that might come from research. However, I still don't see it as being more important than understanding humankind more accurately and it isn't inherent that doing so would harm people.

I already said this, but I'll say it another way: there is value in dignity and self-esteem, and people can be harmed by spreading knowledge which threatens those values. Considering that there are already other kinds of knowledge in this world which clearly should not be made widely known (i.e. nuclear weapon designs), I don't see the problem in confining the knowledge you describe to an inner circle of academics.

Surely it isn't that hard to see why someone would see things like intelligence and neurological differences between people as being of such paramount importance?

Yes, I see why you would think that, but I don't see why you would consider it a "paramount" value at the expense of other values like diversity, tolerance, and self-esteem. Market economies already favor people with certain cognitive advantages anyway, so I don't see the point of institutionalizing a system of inequality on top of that.

Maybe it's based on IQ, jobless numbers, and YouTube videos.

Is this a serious reply?

I'm curious as to why it's proof of ignorance of the choice and/or choosers that whites without college degrees voted Trump - but the same doesn't hold true and/or isn't mentioned in regards to an equivalent percentage of non-college educated blacks voting for Clinton.

People of any race can make ignorant voting decisions. You're free to discuss the ignorance of non-college educated black voters all you want - I simply chose to point out the ignorance of white voters, since it was relevant to the article you posted.

Dunno. Bad personal experiences? Use of racial statistics in other matters? Let's say they are more racist for the sake of the argument. How do you definitively link that to the election results? Presumably, most of the people that voted for Cruz and Kasich (also in your poll) in the primaries still voted for Trump in the end. Less white people as a percent of the voting populating went Trump than went Romney in 2012. Most of the numbers indicate that Clinton lost because Democratic turnout was incredibly low; the total amount of people voting for Trump did not change significantly. For example, in the surprise swing of Wisconsin, only 2000 more people voted for Trump than Romney. It was Clinton losing hundreds of thousands that cost her.

My point is that racism played a direct role in the result of the Republican primary. Even if the general election result was not directly impacted by the racist vote, it was still indirectly impacted by the result of the primary.

 

[CiG]

I think the voting system wouldn't matter so much if both parties weren't utter shit and didn't push assholes like Trump and Clinton on the populace, but then again you get the politicians you deserve.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

My point is that racism played a direct role in the result of the Republican primary. Even if the general election result was not directly impacted by the racist vote, it was still indirectly impacted by the result of the primary.

You didn't prove that point though. Any advantage of racism failed to turn off non-white Republicans significantly, based on the poll results. Any advantage of racism failed to bring Trump's turnout significantly above Romney's. You could poll Republicans vs Democrats at probably any time since the 1970s or so and find that Republicans have larger support from racists, but it doesn't mean those people are a significant part of the election.

 

[CiG]

Unless you count non-white racists, then the democrats would win handily.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

You didn't prove that point though. Any advantage of racism failed to turn off non-white Republicans significantly, based on the poll results. Any advantage of racism failed to bring Trump's turnout significantly above Romney's. You could poll Republicans vs Democrats at probably any time since the 1970s or so and find that Republicans have larger support from racists, but it doesn't mean those people are a significant part of the election.

Why are you bringing up Romney if I'm only talking about the impact of racism on the primary?

And I don't know how you define "significant", but to me Trump supporters being 10% more likely to discriminate against black people than supporters of the other Republican candidates is pretty significant.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Your original point was not specifically about the primaries as far as I can tell

"2016: uneducated white people get tired of living like uneducated non-white people, and blame their problems on non-white people instead of their lack of education. "

"Due to demographic and economic trends, white people are losing their political dominance, and that combined with centuries-old racism created the conditions that made Trump appealing. "

"Of course it was an oversimplification. I only wanted to make one observation about the article Dak posted, not write an essay on it. I know there was more at stake in this election than race, but racism was clearly a distinguishing factor among Trump supporters:
http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/USA-ELECTION-RACE/010020H7174/USA-ELECTION-RACE.jpg"

And your poll doesn't mention discrimination, it mentions prejudice. Discrimination usually lacks as much of a bias in practice, with studies often showing that minorities discriminate against other minorities as much as white people do, when it comes to sales, hiring, etc. What the poll tells me is that the David Dukes of the world rally behind the more controversial and outsider candidate as they often do, but if those same types will ultimately vote Republican no matter what because they will never vote for a candidate that supports, say, affirmative action, then there is no real difference.