4 ms·

The United States can't be a functioning democracy not because of it's size but because our actual political rules are awful. The electoral college, built in ge

by coltonv 10y ago

The United States can't be a functioning democracy not because of it's size but because our actual political rules are awful. The electoral college, built in gerrymandering, weak restrictions on lobbying, the rules of our democracy are immensely undeomocratic when compared to other first world nations.

ArkyBeagle 10y ago
Arguments for a plebiscite - a full-democracy - were pretty much shot down in the Federalist Papers and haven't been entertained seriously since.
astrodust 10y ago
It's also difficult to get consensus when you have several large demographic groups with radically different cultures. To take the South as but one example, the average African-American lives in a world that is completely different than your average white Southerner. The interaction on political, social and even geographic levels is extremely limited. They may as well live in different countries. Then there's regions like New England that don't interact with the Southern group, and the West Coast which does its own thing as well. You're left with these quasi-independent groups of states that are thrown together under a single national banner and forced to pick who gets to drive every four years. Spain has a similar problem, as does Belgium, and in more extreme cases such as Iraq where stark religious and tribal differences make conflict very difficult to reconcile. It's not population, it's consensus, and that gets harder and harder to achieve when you have large, demographically incompatible groups. No amount of fussing with the rules is going to fix this. Weakening the Federal government and empowering the states could alleviate some of the pressure, but it also puts a lot of people in a very bad place: They have to pick between living with their family in the place where they have a lot of roots, or cutting loose like some refugees for another state that will treat them better.
- Diederich 10y ago
  This is related to an observation I've made before. Name any country that's been as functional as the United States has been, given our size, and especially given the enormous amount of diversity we have? We've been doing the grinding, painful and hard work of real national diversity, at scale, for hundreds of years. We've gotten it wrong a lot; we're still getting a lot of it wrong. But here we are, perhaps the most vibrant, large population in the world. We have a lot of problems...more problems now than we had 10 or 15 years ago. But damn it, looking back, it's really an amazing thing we've accomplished. Trump seems to be, more than anything, an agent of chaos. I suspect his presidency will harm us. But we've handling a lot worse in the past, from within and from without. Indeed, I like to think that the beautiful and painful results of our centuries long diversity have made us exceptionally strong.
  - astrodust 10y ago
    The United States is an anomaly. It's a series of lucky breaks that resulted in an exceptional country being created and maintained. It started as a series of colonies that could have agreed to disagree. It grew through lucky aquisition: Florida from the Spanish, Alaska from the Russians, Louisiana from the French, Texas and California from Mexico. It split up, the Confederate States left, and was unified at great risk and even greater cost. If any one of those things hadn't happened the very concept of America would be fundamentally different. It's also a country flanked by two relatively agreeable nations, Canada and Mexico, so there's little risk of armed conflict. This gives the country disproportionate control over its home turf. Even regional powers like Germany still have to answer to their neighbours, squabbles have gotten ugly and expensive. It was also extremely lucky to have such a ridiculous abundance of natural resources. With perhaps the exception of Canada, and to a degree Russia no other country in the world has massive reserves of fresh water, prime agricultural land, lumber, fish, coal, copper, iron, oil, nuclear fuel, and a long list of other things. Name a resource and the US probably has it in a massive quantity. I don't think most Americans realize how blessed their country is. It's amazing how much political cohesion you can have when resources are abundant, cheap, and there's no reason to fight over them. This could change as fresh water becomes more scarce and states start to bicker over who gets what. When there's not enough to go around things could get very, very ugly and America's entire character could change.
    - Diederich 10y ago
      I agree with everything you said. We have been exceedingly lucky. At the same time, we have gone through the hard and painful process of trying to make diversity work as I described, though it has been slow, incremental and still incomplete. I don't know of any other nations that have done that. Our luck has certainly enabled it!
      - astrodust 10y ago
        Compared to some nations the US is extraordinarily diverse: Ireland, Norway, Fiji. Compared to others it's practically homogeneous: India, Papua New Guinea. For an example closer to home: Canada is probably more ethnically diverse than the United States and, Quebéc aside (which is sort of our lone-star province) has a lot more political cohesion. Toronto is vastly more ethnically diverse than New York City today despite New York having representation from every country in the world. Similar factors are in play, though: Generally there's enough resources for everyone, so there's no need to fight for scraps. The US has a lot of work to do to bring itself truly together. I just worry that things are going in the opposite direction now with infighting being encouraged to divide and conquer all those opposed to the current administration.

by coltonv 10y ago

ArkyBeagle 10y ago

Arguments for a plebiscite - a full-democracy - were pretty much shot down in the Federalist Papers and haven't been entertained seriously since.

astrodust 10y ago

It's also difficult to get consensus when you have several large demographic groups with radically different cultures. To take the South as but one example, the average African-American lives in a world that is completely different than your average white Southerner. The interaction on political, social and even geographic levels is extremely limited. They may as well live in different countries. Then there's regions like New England that don't interact with the Southern group, and the West Coast which does its own thing as well. You're left with these quasi-independent groups of states that are thrown together under a single national banner and forced to pick who gets to drive every four years. Spain has a similar problem, as does Belgium, and in more extreme cases such as Iraq where stark religious and tribal differences make conflict very difficult to reconcile. It's not population, it's consensus, and that gets harder and harder to achieve when you have large, demographically incompatible groups. No amount of fussing with the rules is going to fix this. Weakening the Federal government and empowering the states could alleviate some of the pressure, but it also puts a lot of people in a very bad place: They have to pick between living with their family in the place where they have a lot of roots, or cutting loose like some refugees for another state that will treat them better.

Diederich 10y ago
This is related to an observation I've made before. Name any country that's been as functional as the United States has been, given our size, and especially given the enormous amount of diversity we have? We've been doing the grinding, painful and hard work of real national diversity, at scale, for hundreds of years. We've gotten it wrong a lot; we're still getting a lot of it wrong. But here we are, perhaps the most vibrant, large population in the world. We have a lot of problems...more problems now than we had 10 or 15 years ago. But damn it, looking back, it's really an amazing thing we've accomplished. Trump seems to be, more than anything, an agent of chaos. I suspect his presidency will harm us. But we've handling a lot worse in the past, from within and from without. Indeed, I like to think that the beautiful and painful results of our centuries long diversity have made us exceptionally strong.
- astrodust 10y ago
  The United States is an anomaly. It's a series of lucky breaks that resulted in an exceptional country being created and maintained. It started as a series of colonies that could have agreed to disagree. It grew through lucky aquisition: Florida from the Spanish, Alaska from the Russians, Louisiana from the French, Texas and California from Mexico. It split up, the Confederate States left, and was unified at great risk and even greater cost. If any one of those things hadn't happened the very concept of America would be fundamentally different. It's also a country flanked by two relatively agreeable nations, Canada and Mexico, so there's little risk of armed conflict. This gives the country disproportionate control over its home turf. Even regional powers like Germany still have to answer to their neighbours, squabbles have gotten ugly and expensive. It was also extremely lucky to have such a ridiculous abundance of natural resources. With perhaps the exception of Canada, and to a degree Russia no other country in the world has massive reserves of fresh water, prime agricultural land, lumber, fish, coal, copper, iron, oil, nuclear fuel, and a long list of other things. Name a resource and the US probably has it in a massive quantity. I don't think most Americans realize how blessed their country is. It's amazing how much political cohesion you can have when resources are abundant, cheap, and there's no reason to fight over them. This could change as fresh water becomes more scarce and states start to bicker over who gets what. When there's not enough to go around things could get very, very ugly and America's entire character could change.
  - Diederich 10y ago
    I agree with everything you said. We have been exceedingly lucky. At the same time, we have gone through the hard and painful process of trying to make diversity work as I described, though it has been slow, incremental and still incomplete. I don't know of any other nations that have done that. Our luck has certainly enabled it!
    - astrodust 10y ago
      Compared to some nations the US is extraordinarily diverse: Ireland, Norway, Fiji. Compared to others it's practically homogeneous: India, Papua New Guinea. For an example closer to home: Canada is probably more ethnically diverse than the United States and, Quebéc aside (which is sort of our lone-star province) has a lot more political cohesion. Toronto is vastly more ethnically diverse than New York City today despite New York having representation from every country in the world. Similar factors are in play, though: Generally there's enough resources for everyone, so there's no need to fight for scraps. The US has a lot of work to do to bring itself truly together. I just worry that things are going in the opposite direction now with infighting being encouraged to divide and conquer all those opposed to the current administration.