Visual example...
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@freemo@qoto.org
@freemo The map might be more interesting if the color intensity would be according to the size of the population. Maybe the reds will be terribly washed out compared to the blues.
@trinsec @freemo This one sort of does that. A "dot for every vote".
https://carto.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=8732c91ba7a14d818cd26b776250d2c3
@LouisIngenthron @trinsec @freemo One person, one vote. This map best represents the voting make up of the country.
Land don't vote!
@thegonzoism @LouisIngenthron @trinsec
We have electorial colleges in the usa, so no it isnt one person one vote. We do this to ensure the interest of all groups and cultures must be considered and grouos that respresent minorities are less likely to be abused. Makes sense to me.
@freemo @thegonzoism @trinsec The electoral college only matters for one vote every four years. The popular vote matters the rest of the time, especially on local matters.
@LouisIngenthron @thegonzoism @trinsec
As well it shoukd be. The oresident resides over all regions and as such should be accepted by all cultures and regions. He should be discouraged from throwing minority cultures under a bus.
A congressman only has to represent his one district, he is local in nature, so he doesnt have to consider diverse cultures across different states and regions as he covers a small local area.
@freemo @thegonzoism @trinsec
(A) The electoral college seems to break in favor of the GOP, who minorities overwhelmingly vote against, so your theory there doesn't really match reality.
(B) Though a congressperson may only represent their district, they vote on legislation that affects the entire country, so that logic doesn't work. I don't want to elect someone who doesn't want to fund snowplows on northern highways just because he's from Florida.
We arent talki g racial minorities, we are talking american cultures. Southern culture, amish terretories, mennonite terretories, etc. Its not about race, wrong sort of minority in this context.
The logic works fine, there are senators that represent those other areas and their culture, so its fine. We also balance that out in a different way, by adding a fixed number of sentators as a base and then addind more due to population. This evens out the densities in a similar way.
@freemo @thegonzoism @trinsec Funny, I didn't say "race"...
The senators are elected with the exact same popular vote system as the house members. How is that different?
The senate doesn't "even out the densities". If anything, it makes the representation far more lopsided than it should be by, again, correlating arbitrary geographic boundaries with voting power.
@LouisIngenthron @thegonzoism @trinsec
No they arent elected the same.
In the house the number of seats per stste is based on population, bigger get more. The senate is fixed with each stste getting 2 and only 2. This ensures states that have low populations and are mostly red states in this case, get more representstion per person.
@freemo @thegonzoism @trinsec ...and do you think that's a good thing?
@LouisIngenthron @thegonzoism @trinsec
As ive stated, if balanced correctly (the numbers need twesking sometines) then yes. It prevents a tyranny of the minority as discussed. It ensures the various cultures we have who are small isolated groups (like the amish) dont get thrown under a bus for the whims of the majority
@freemo @thegonzoism @trinsec I gotta say, living in a country where we literally enslaved people, I'm much more concerned about the tyranny of the majority than the tyranny of the minority.
@LouisIngenthron @thegonzoism @trinsec
Sorry the phrase i meant to use was tyrwnny of the majority.
@freemo @thegonzoism @trinsec Well, I gotta say, if that's the goal, then weighting human beings' votes based on arbitrary, archaic geographic borders seems like an especially poor method of achieving it.
As America's population grows, new cities will bloom in currently-vacant states. Once there's a metropolis in every state, how well will this system prevent that "tyranny" you're concerned about?
@LouisIngenthron @thegonzoism @trinsec
Thats why we tweak the numbers as populations change to balance it again. Weve done it a few times iirc.
@freemo @thegonzoism @trinsec We do in the house, which is actually somewhat representative, yes. But there's no tweaking in the senate. The boundaries of the states are fixed and there are two senators per state.
Which means that a person from Wyoming's vote is about 68x more powerful than a person from California in the Senate.
@LouisIngenthron @thegonzoism @trinsec
Yes but in the house the vote strongly favors california. It makes sense to me that the house shoukd be balanced for population and the senate flat. It ensures there must be both a majority acceptance, and a state-majority acceptance to pass new laws...
@freemo @thegonzoism @trinsec California has 30% more people than the second most populous state. For a vote to favor California is a sign that people are being properly represented. (And I don't like it any more than you; even living in the land of Florida Man, I think California is bonkers.)
Honestly, the better answer, in my opinion, would be to break up both California and Texas into into about three states each. That would allow better representation of the people in their local areas, instead of being lumped in with 40 million others.
That is no more "true" democracy than any of the other many forms of voting that exist that arent that simplistic... nor does it address a tyranny of the majority as well, so no, id rather it not.
@freemo @thegonzoism @trinsec Right, because they have more people. If you're measuring a vote by both number of people and breaking it down by geographic regions, then a fair vote should logically "favor" the geographic region with the most voters. That's simple statistics, not a problem to be solved.
Yes its about balancing the two... States each have their own laws, their own governance and their own cultures (to an extent)...A state is more like a country in some ways.
Its a bit like saying the USA should be able to dictate what the middle east can do in the UN simply because we have more people... If a state wants to keep its population down, and its people are **responsible** enough to keep a low population which is healthier for the people and environment, they shouldnt be penalized for it... It makes a great deal of sense that each state gets its own vote that is only partly weighted by population, and partly flat.
@freemo @thegonzoism @trinsec I strongly disagree. Weighting votes by population density doesn't seem that far off from weighting votes by skin color. It gives unfair preference to certain people just because they were lucky enough to be born into a certain culture.
Having your vote be worth the same as your fellow countrymen's isn't a "punishment" just because you don't have enough like-minded people around to win.
There needs to be a way to protect states rights, to ensure larger states cant bullt smaller states into changing their laws... I am ok with any solution that does this, what we have is the best I know of so far.
@freemo @thegonzoism @trinsec Why should states' rights override humans' rights?
They shouldnt, which is why within a state every person should have an equal vote for representation in that state. Therefore everyone has equal rights, and each state has fair representation as well without being overhelmed by the will of other states.
This is hardly a new concept, it is the way virtually every union of member states operates, with each state fairly electing its own governnance and then those respected governments each representing themselves in the greater union.
@freemo @thegonzoism @trinsec That's not how it works though. The state governments don't represent themselves to the feds. We elect federal representatives. And some of us have 68x more voting power than others of us in the name of "states rights". That seems like a pretty obvious sham to me that ensures tyranny of the minority.
No we dont.. the state picks the representatives, the members of the state pick who those people will be. This is clear because each state gets to pick the rules for how their own representitives are voted for, this isnt determined federally...
@freemo @thegonzoism @trinsec The number of reps is determined federally, and those numbers determine how well represented each voter is. The fact that there exists a 68x spread in representation tells me that the system is deeply broken.
@freemo @LouisIngenthron @thegonzoism @trinsec I don't understand your first sentence. What's the difference between "the representatives" and "those people?
Also, doesn't every state elect their representatives by popular vote within each district? (I believe the Constitution technically says it's up to the states, but don't all of them do it this way?)
"those people" is a reference to the represenatives they are voting for.
No not every state is a simple popular vote per person.. depends on what represenative we are talking about (house, senate, electorate, mayor, governor, etc) and what state.
For example in some states it is common that each representative is just voted on via popular vote directly... in other states, particularly with the electorate, there is an all-or-nothing vote at play where all electorates pledges to the same person will win if a majorty of those electorates win. We also have some states that use first-past-the-post voting and yet others that use ranked-choice voting... It very much is a per-state thing and it varies a great deal from state to state
@freemo @peterdrake @thegonzoism @trinsec All states use popular votes. Two use ranked-choice, two use majority vote, and the other 46 use plurality votes.
@freemo @LouisIngenthron @thegonzoism @trinsec
["those people" is a reference to the represenatives they are voting for.]
This is why I'm confused by your previous sentence:
[the state picks the representatives, the members of the state pick who those people will be]
So the state picks the elected representatives, the members of the state picks the elected representatives? Are these two was of saying the same thing, or are they meant to contrast in some way I don't understand? I'm literally having trouble parsing the sentence.
Back to content, let's focus on federal congressional representatives. Does any state do anything other than "all voters within the representative's district get equal votes in choosing their representative"? (I see runoffs for majority, ranked choice, approval voting, etc. as variations within this.)
They are saying largely the same things.. first the members of the state pick the state representatives, then those representatives go on to represent the state.
@freemo @thegonzoism @trinsec Also, it is not the "way virtually every union of member states operates". It is, in fact, the way very few of them operate.
Thats a link to democracies, not unions, so not related... UNIONS all operate this way whether its the EU, the UN, or NATO.
@freemo @thegonzoism @trinsec All non-tiny countries are unions of subdivided geography and culture.
And the EU, UN, and NATO, aren't comparable to the US. Those are alliances, not sovereign countries.
A union is a very specific thing... having lots of cultures and geography is not a union.. a union is a collection of nation-states.. I listed the three examples of unions that are most noted, there arent oo many others (the UK can be considered one but it is so irregular many of its members are barely treated like members, like canada, so its just not a good example).
@freemo @thegonzoism @trinsec Then the US doesn't qualify as a union. Our states are not "nation-states". They are not sovereign, they do not have their own militaries, they do not engage in their own diplomacy.
We very much are a union of states. This has been well established since the earliest days of the USA.
There are also tons of countries that font follow your criteria (for example countries with no military, and which dont engage in their own diplomacy). None of that is required to be considered a state.
@LouisIngenthron @thegonzoism @trinsec
Oh and states in the USA **are** considered to have their own sovereignty.
@freemo @thegonzoism @trinsec No, they absolutely do not. By definition, they gave that up to join the union.
@freemo @thegonzoism @trinsec As much as they might want to, Texas can't ally with Russia and declare war on Ukraine.
Texas cant declare war or send soldiers, but they could ally with russia in the sense of choosing to send weapons or aide to russia.. at least I think so, I'm not complete sure on this point.
Regardless sovreignty is **not** defined by your ability to form allys anyway.
Nope state soverignty is explicitly recognized by the supreme court of the united states. It is said to be garunteed by the 10th amendment.
One such quote:
"But the Court found that “there are attributes of sovereignty attaching to every state government which may not be impaired by Congress, not because Congress may lack an affirmative grant of legislative authority to reach the matter, but because the Constitution prohibits it from exercising the authority in that manner.”
@freemo @thegonzoism @trinsec That term, "state sovereignty", describes what sovereignty is left to the states after the rest has been taken by the feds, as defined in our constitution. It describes the *limits* of their sovereignty. It is not a declaration of their sovereignty, which would require them to be wholly independent, by definition.
No you are thinking of a specific type of sovereignty called "Westphalian sovereignty".. not all sovereignty means that there is no other authority or no complex hierarchy... that is the colloqual use of the term, but int he case of unions it is more nuanced.
@freemo @thegonzoism @trinsec All sovereign countries engage in their own diplomacy, and the only ones without their own military are protectorates of states that do have a military.
@freemo @thegonzoism @trinsec Is Canada then a Union of provinces? If not, what's the difference?
Generally Canada is not considered a union in the same sense. They are part of the commonwealth of england but have effectively complete independence... But that aside no canada is just a bunch of prooviences.
The difference is in the very thing your arguing, the fact that states are self governing and can decide their own rules as to how they vote and participate int he union. The very existance of the mechnisms we are discussing, along with states having their own soverignty is what defines the difference. In short our states have much more indendence and self determination than a province does.
@freemo @thegonzoism @trinsec I disagree. Can you give me some examples of forms of independence you think US states have that Canadian provinces do not?
I posted one earlier, They have complete sovreignty to do anything they want so long as it doesnt violate the rights of the federal government. They have legal sovreign status unlike provinces.
Another quote fromt he legal link I gave earlier that might be more clear:
Under Garcia, states retain their sovereign authority “only to the extent that the Constitution has not divested them of their original powers and transferred those powers to the Federal Government.” 15
@freemo @thegonzoism @trinsec Right... limiting their sovereignty in order to join the *actually sovereign* union.
@freemo Unrelated: Shouldn't I stop getting notifications if a convo is muted? I still get pestered even though this whole conversation's been muted. Or how does this shit work?
@trinsec Im not sure, I have heard people complain about this before to be honest.... it has worked for me though.
@freemo @thegonzoism @trinsec Wait, do we need to address the definition of "sovereignty"? Because "do anything that doesn't violate the laws of a higher body" is not sovereignty, by definition.
Yes it very much is a **type** of soverignty.. there are many forms and it isnt as simple as "not accountable to anyone).
We actually can see the sovreignty of states in how the cannabis laws go down.. The federal government has made it illegal, yet states have denied the federal government and choose to make it legal... While technically the federal government should have the legal superiority since their agends cant act within the state (they cant actually send military in to arrest people because the state is sovreign) they get away with it anyway.
@freemo @thegonzoism @trinsec But the real better answer is to stop weighting votes by arbitrary geographic boundaries and just count one vote for one adult citizen. That's true freedom and democracy.