3 ms·

It's not academic, but perhaps the founding fathers were onto something. The original constitution set the number of House Representatives to 1 for every 30,000

It's not academic, but perhaps the founding fathers were onto something. The original constitution set the number of House Representatives to 1 for every 30,000 citizens. It was not until 1911 that the House capped the number at its present 435. [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_United_States_House_of_Representatives#Number_of_Representatives https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_United_States_H...

aaron-lebo 9y ago
Yeah, well those guys thought only land-holding males should vote, so maybe they didn't. Did the men designing a system of government for a nation limited to the eastern coast have special insight in what governing 300 million people would look like?
- dcow 9y ago
  Okay yeah fuck the patriarchy too but they weren't idiots. What they did was no small task and it's.. disrespectful.. to ignore that because they weren't progressive enough for your taste. We could appreciate the fact that they created a system that lets us change the rules as it evolves because they themselves admitted it would be impossible to forsee all the future context needed to make a perfect government. IIRC we've abolished slavery and granted women the right to vote and redefined marriage--we've corrected the issues you mentioned and more. What really kills the whole thing is when we feel the need to circumvent the rules in order to push an agenda down other people's throats. The system was designed to balance a plurality of of factions by preventing abuse of localized powers while at the same time reaching concensus for majority rule.
  - aaron-lebo 9y ago
    You mistake criticism for disrespect. I've read Federalist 10, as well. Yes, it's a marvel. That we've corrected issues over time is evidence that they didn't have all the answers, as wise as they were.

3 ms·

It's not academic, but perhaps the founding fathers were onto something. The original constitution set the number of House Representatives to 1 for every 30,000

by secondbreakfast 9y ago

aaron-lebo 9y ago
Yeah, well those guys thought only land-holding males should vote, so maybe they didn't. Did the men designing a system of government for a nation limited to the eastern coast have special insight in what governing 300 million people would look like?
- dcow 9y ago
  Okay yeah fuck the patriarchy too but they weren't idiots. What they did was no small task and it's.. disrespectful.. to ignore that because they weren't progressive enough for your taste. We could appreciate the fact that they created a system that lets us change the rules as it evolves because they themselves admitted it would be impossible to forsee all the future context needed to make a perfect government. IIRC we've abolished slavery and granted women the right to vote and redefined marriage--we've corrected the issues you mentioned and more. What really kills the whole thing is when we feel the need to circumvent the rules in order to push an agenda down other people's throats. The system was designed to balance a plurality of of factions by preventing abuse of localized powers while at the same time reaching concensus for majority rule.
  - aaron-lebo 9y ago
    You mistake criticism for disrespect. I've read Federalist 10, as well. Yes, it's a marvel. That we've corrected issues over time is evidence that they didn't have all the answers, as wise as they were.