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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM

Kostya (Unlucky Thirteen)
#173876: Feb 11th 2017 at 7:32:05 AM

[up]The problem with proportional EC proposals is that Republicans are only implementing them in blue states to rig the system.

edit: I should note that I'd also care more about the complaint that rural areas wouldn't be listened to if they didn't constantly vote against their interests. In my opinion not listening to them would probably be beneficial in the long run.

edited 11th Feb '17 7:34:53 AM by Kostya

Heatth (X-Troper) Relationship Status: In Spades with myself
#173877: Feb 11th 2017 at 7:42:05 AM

Its not that small states will have no say under a national popular vote, its that they would have less say than under the current system, and there is no reason for them to agree to that.

The silly thing is the EC don't quite protect the small states either. Most swing states are big and, because of the winner take al system, they are the ones who decide elections.

And, anyway, again, that is why local representation exist. If the worry is about one group holding more power than another in the presential election, why only divide by rural vs urban (or small state vs big state)? These are not the only groups that divide the country. It is kinda arbitrary to decide rural votes must have more representation but not, say green party voters, native Americans or 5th generation immigrants. Why do the rural, and only the rural have the priority?

PS:The distinction between small states vs big state is even sillier than the rural vs urban as it is almost literally just a matter of imaginary lines. Why isn't Texas 4 smaller states instead of a big one? Despite the answer being mostly "because", if Texas was 4 states it would drastically change the political situation.

edited 11th Feb '17 7:46:00 AM by Heatth

Silasw A procrastination in of itself from A handcart to hell (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
A procrastination in of itself
#173878: Feb 11th 2017 at 7:45:38 AM

I think it's worth remembering that Republicans are NOT implementing proportional allocation of electoral votes, they're implementing (or trying to implement) district based allocation of electoral votes. That's an entirely different thing and can still easily result in one side winning all but one electoral vote with less than half the cast votes being for them.

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#173879: Feb 11th 2017 at 7:52:10 AM

<yawn> Didn't we have this conversation dozens of times already?

edited 11th Feb '17 7:52:18 AM by SeptimusHeap

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
NativeJovian Jupiterian Local from Orlando, FL Since: Mar, 2014 Relationship Status: Maxing my social links
Jupiterian Local
#173880: Feb 11th 2017 at 8:13:22 AM

[up][up]This is a very important point. If elections have districts, then they can be gerrymandered. Any proportional presidential vote should be taking the combined popular vote of the entire state and assigning votes based on that, not using districts.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#173881: Feb 11th 2017 at 8:23:02 AM

@Tactical and Elle: Parliamentary systems are by no means perfect, but they have a built in resolution method for executive-legislative deadlocks, namely the fact that the head of the executive branch can be voted out of power by the legislature. The lack of such a mechanism can completely paralyze a presidential system, as has been the case for the past 6 years or so, and historically speaking, Presidential systems have been more prone to constitutional crises than comparable parliamentary systems.

In exchange for those drawbacks, there's a lack of any readily apparent advantages to a presidential system over a parliamentary one, which is what my point was. It's obviously quite unlikely to ever be implemented in the United States unless there's a complete breakdown of constitutional democracy and we're forced to rewrite the constitution from scratch, but an ideal political system would be parliamentary and proportionately allocate votes; Germany's system being a good example of the kind of system I'm talking about.

@Angelus: Several of those insults are used by people irrespective of political leaning due to a sort of reverse Pop Culture Osmosis, most notably BTFO, triggered, and occasionally cuck.

edited 11th Feb '17 8:27:00 AM by CaptainCapsase

CenturyEye Tell Me, Have You Seen the Yellow Sign? from I don't know where the Yith sent me this time... Since: Jan, 2017 Relationship Status: Having tea with Cthulhu
Tell Me, Have You Seen the Yellow Sign?
#173882: Feb 11th 2017 at 8:30:26 AM

Well, the US system makes sense in context if you realize the Continental Congress was revolting against Parliament. They fully intended for a weak legislature and their closest model for an independent Presidency was the theoretical reserve powers of the king.
No one really thought it through, despite what elementary school teaches...

edited 11th Feb '17 8:32:08 AM by CenturyEye

Look with century eyes... With our backs to the arch And the wreck of our kind We will stare straight ahead For the rest of our lives
CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#173883: Feb 11th 2017 at 8:32:47 AM

[up] It makes sense from a historical perspective why the American system is the way it is, but that doesn't mean it's well designed; it was a necessary compromise to implement the electoral college to get the southern states on board. By 18th century standards the American system was in some regards revolutionary, but in the modern day it's archaic and backwards. Trump would never have gotten into power if the American political system worked like that of Germany.

edited 11th Feb '17 8:34:53 AM by CaptainCapsase

Ramidel Since: Jan, 2001
#173884: Feb 11th 2017 at 8:45:54 AM

@Native Jovian: Which is why it will never happen, since it'll require the agreement of the party who would gain advantage from the gerrymandered version.

AceofSpades Since: Apr, 2009 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
#173885: Feb 11th 2017 at 8:46:56 AM

Pointing out that if we had the parliamentary system it would have enabled an increasingly regressive right to vote out a Democratic president that was fighting to bring us healthcare and supportive of important moves in regards to LGBT rights does not exactly fill me with confidence in the concept of the parliamentary system. I mean, if you're arguing we should have a parliamentary, you just literally pointed out how that could go very wrong in that a party that doesn't like the president could literally vote out the guy we like or just vote in someone who will rubber stamp their agenda without input from the public. There's not really any advantage I see here that makes it demonstrably better than a presidential system.

CenturyEye Tell Me, Have You Seen the Yellow Sign? from I don't know where the Yith sent me this time... Since: Jan, 2017 Relationship Status: Having tea with Cthulhu
Tell Me, Have You Seen the Yellow Sign?
#173886: Feb 11th 2017 at 8:52:39 AM

It might be more the benefit of avoiding frequent and potentially fatal constitutional crises, while carrying the risk that the one effective branch of government temporarily falls to regressives...

[down]Actually in a parliamentary system, Mc Connell or Ryan would be the PM...(How does one add "nightmare fuel" to a sentence?)

edited 11th Feb '17 8:55:26 AM by CenturyEye

Look with century eyes... With our backs to the arch And the wreck of our kind We will stare straight ahead For the rest of our lives
TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#173887: Feb 11th 2017 at 8:53:21 AM

Parliamentary systems are by no means perfect, but they have a built in resolution method for executive-legislative deadlocks, namely the fact that the head of the executive branch can be voted out of power by the legislature. The lack of such a mechanism can completely paralyze a presidential system, as has been the case for the past 6 years or so, and historically speaking, Presidential systems have been more prone to constitutional crises than comparable parliamentary systems.

Because our political system would be vastly improved by giving Mitch McConnell the power to fire Obama on the spot eight years ago.

edited 11th Feb '17 8:54:05 AM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
AmbarSonofDeshar Since: Jan, 2010
#173888: Feb 11th 2017 at 8:56:47 AM

Now, the response to [up]this would be to note that parliamentary systems don't usually see that happening, but of course that's in systems that have existed for a long, long time. Try to turn the USA into one and you'd no doubt see exactly this scenario play out.

CrimsonZephyr Would that it were so simple. from Massachusetts Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
Would that it were so simple.
#173889: Feb 11th 2017 at 8:57:31 AM

Honestly, given what's happening in Britain right now, where a gibbering moron is PM, perhaps we can acknowledge that parliamentarian government has its weaknesses? For it to work in the US, you would probably need proportional representation, or you'd get a government even worse than the one we have now.

"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."
AceofSpades Since: Apr, 2009 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
#173890: Feb 11th 2017 at 8:58:23 AM

As far as democracy goes, I'm not so sure that presidential vs parliamentary systems are a useful way of determining whether or not a country is suitably democratic in this modern era. They work differently and are subject to different pressures and failings, but I'm not really convinced either way has a substantive advantage over the other.

TacticalFox88 from USA Since: Nov, 2010 Relationship Status: Dating the Doctor
#173891: Feb 11th 2017 at 9:01:42 AM

Presidential and Parliamentary systems have glaring weaknesses and glaring strengths. No government is perfect, and it never will be.

Ideally you'd combine the best of both worlds, but I'm not even sure what that would even look like.

New Survey coming this weekend!
smokeycut Since: Mar, 2013
#173892: Feb 11th 2017 at 9:03:47 AM

Simple. Each state gets their own president, then they live in the White House together.

CenturyEye Tell Me, Have You Seen the Yellow Sign? from I don't know where the Yith sent me this time... Since: Jan, 2017 Relationship Status: Having tea with Cthulhu
Tell Me, Have You Seen the Yellow Sign?
#173893: Feb 11th 2017 at 9:06:36 AM

If you change that to each party, you get Switzerland's Federal Council

Look with century eyes... With our backs to the arch And the wreck of our kind We will stare straight ahead For the rest of our lives
3of4 Just a harmless giant from a foreign land. from Five Seconds in the Future. Since: Jan, 2010 Relationship Status: GAR for Archer
Just a harmless giant from a foreign land.
#173894: Feb 11th 2017 at 9:08:42 AM

[up][up][up]Trying to combo the best of both was one of the reasons the Weimar Republic had issues.

edited 11th Feb '17 9:08:56 AM by 3of4

"You can reply to this Message!"
ironballs16 Since: Jul, 2009 Relationship Status: Owner of a lonely heart
#173895: Feb 11th 2017 at 9:12:07 AM

Plus, due to the sheer volume of the US compared to parliamentary nations, coupled with gerrymandering leading to decades'-long incumbencies, means that the odds are pretty high that we'd always have a Republican President/PM.

"Why would I inflict myself on somebody else?"
CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#173896: Feb 11th 2017 at 9:16:24 AM

@Tobias: Without the electoral college, FPTP voting and heavily gerrymandered districts, that wouldn't be nearly as much of a problem. A parlimentary system with these things would be the worst of both worlds, but I'm already talking something that could only happen if we were forced to completely rewrite the constitution.

[up][up] Modern day Germany is more what I'm thinking of in terms of what a better political system for America would look like. France also has a hybrid of a presidential and parliamentary system, and while they may very well be about to elect a far right demagogue, the system functioned well enough for decades.

@Zephyr: Given what's happening in the United States right now, I'm not sure what your point is; parliamentary systems are of course prone to most of the same failures as presidential systems, but there are a few extremely problematic scenarios (executive-legislative deadlock being the biggest one) that are more or less precluded in such a system, and not any real areas where parlimentary system are more prone to breakdown than presidential systems, and as I said, this is something that would only be feasible if we suffered a total breakdown of constitutional democracy and had to put the system back together from scratch.

edited 11th Feb '17 9:28:22 AM by CaptainCapsase

SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#173897: Feb 11th 2017 at 9:22:59 AM

Well, a parliamentary government usually involves parliament dancing after the executive's whistle a lot of time. Unless it's Japan or somesuch where a lot of political divides are drawn intraparty.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#173898: Feb 11th 2017 at 9:23:57 AM

[up] It does, but the need to form coalitions in systems with proportional voting means that there are still significant checks on the PM's power except in a situation where one party achieves a super-majority coming from other parties within the majority coalition, and the compromises necessary for parties to agree to form a coalition.

edited 11th Feb '17 9:27:39 AM by CaptainCapsase

NativeJovian Jupiterian Local from Orlando, FL Since: Mar, 2014 Relationship Status: Maxing my social links
Jupiterian Local
#173899: Feb 11th 2017 at 9:39:45 AM

Which is why it will never happen, since it'll require the agreement of the party who would gain advantage from the gerrymandered version.
You realize that the gerrymandered version doesn't currently exist, right? The GOP is trying to implement it in some states, but it doesn't actually work that way anywhere right now.

Going from the current "winner of popular state vote takes state's entire electoral college vote" system to a "state's entire electoral college vote goes to winner of national popular vote" isn't something that any given state legislature is likely to do, but it could definitely be done via ballot initiative or the like.

parliamentary systems are of course prone to most of the same failures as presidential systems, but there are a few extremely problematic scenarios (executive-legislative deadlock being the biggest one) that are more or less precluded in such a system
Executive-legislative deadlock is a feature, not a bug. The idea is that if something isn't popular enough to get past a presidential veto, then it's probably not popular enough to be worth doing. Essentially, no legislature is better than bad legislature.

edited 11th Feb '17 9:41:58 AM by NativeJovian

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
TheWanted Since: Oct, 2013
#173900: Feb 11th 2017 at 9:43:14 AM

So I kinda missed the reaction to the Bernie Sanders\Ted Cruz debate. How did it go?


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