3 ms·
You're judging a system by standards it was never intended to meet and declaring victory. If you're going to argue that small states are over-represented, do i
by scottLobster 10y ago
You're judging a system by standards it was never intended to meet and declaring victory. If you're going to argue that small states are over-represented, do it well. Plenty of examples of Gerrymandering as well as the electoral college itself.
If you want to debate whether the Senate should exist or not, or whether it serves a purpose or not, or whether how senators are allocated should be changed or not, then fine. But that's a whole other thread.
I'd also argue that the Senate serves the important purpose of preventing abuse-of-the-majority, a problem known as far back as Ancient Greek democracy and well-considered by the founders.
Getting rid of the Senate or making Senator allocation population-based with no further structural modifications would simply turn us into the United City-states of America. Which is great... if you live in a city and aren't a regional political minority.
- CalChris 10y agoThe Senate is of Roman origin and definitely not Greek. The form of government it emulates is republican and not democratic. Et cetera.
- narrowrail 10y agoGiven your comments, I believe you should read some of the Federalist Papers. Specifically, #10, #39 and #45. The states were designed to be the democracies, but the federal governments was designed as a republic; this was very deliberate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_No._10 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_No._10 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_No._39 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_No._39 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_No._45 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_No._45
- CalChris 10y agoUmmm. No. Federalist 10 does not design states to be the democracies. Indeed, it is positively hostile to democracy. From this view of the subject it may be concluded that a pure democracy, by which I mean a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction. Also, states were formerly colonies with assemblies that stretched back 150 years already when the Articles of Confederation were written. And the big C didn't design states; it recognized them since they already existed both in the Colonial era and during the Articles decade.
- scottLobster 10y agoI said the Senate solved a problem present as far back as Ancient Greek democracy, not that it originated there.