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Yeah, I'm not talking about gender/race though. I'm talking about regions. It's a different story when you look at your literal neighbor and they have more rep

Yeah, I'm not talking about gender/race though. I'm talking about regions. It's a different story when you look at your literal neighbor and they have more representation than you. And actually, yes, most of this anger is linked to a feeling that people in rural areas have too little representation compared to major population centers, where most people live. So this illustrates what happens when you've got proportional representation but a completely unbalanced population distribution; it's fine when everything is going well, but when the mills close down and the farms go out of business, you get a lot of angry people who feel they have no political outlet.

throwawayjava 8y ago
> It's a different story when you look at your literal neighbor and they have more representation than you. Jealousy is not a particularly sound or convincing ideological justification. > And actually, yes, most of this anger is linked to a feeling that people in rural areas have too little representation compared to major population centers, where most people live. It's worth pointing out that MA is a bit of a special case nationally. In most of the Midwest, for example, the resentment (and power/money) flows the other way.
- ameister14 8y ago
  It might not be a reasonable, logical justification, but it exists. Operating on and creating a framework of laws that operate on flawed concepts of human nature leads to operational failures. It's one of the main problems with economics, traditionally. The right laws and system of government works with an understanding of human nature including jealousy, laziness, greed and other weaknesses. In fact, one of the arguments used at the constitutional convention against Madison's proposed Negative was jealousy on the part of the representatives, as the Senate would hold powers that the representatives did not. It's not an incredibly convincing argument to me, but it happened. MA isn't that much of a special case, as it's the case in the majority of states and Federally. I'm surprised that it's not in places like Iowa - especially as urban populations grow while rural decline, but maybe that's balanced by the majority of industry being related to agriculture.
  - throwawayjava 8y ago
    On the one hand, you say we need to give geographic minorities extra power so that their interests are protected. On the one hand, you say we shouldn't give other minorities extra power because without geographic distance jealousy/tension would overwhelm the political system. I can't help but point out that you're making this claim on a thread attached to a story about a violent rural rebellion against urbanites! I.e., geography doesn't defuse those tensions. So given that those tensions exist no matter what, is there any justification? > It might not be a reasonable, logical justification, but it exists. So to be clear, there's no reasonable justification for giving geographic minorities extra voting poewr that doesn't also justify giving other minorities extra voting power. The only justification is grounded in realism: a fear of jealous-inspired violence toward neighbors that geographic distance would presumably prevent. How does the very article we're commenting on not completely refute this argument? > MA isn't that much of a special case, as it's the case in the majority of states and Federally. It's a special case in the majority of land mass (this is just a tounge-in-cheek joke ;-) ) Federally, I disagree. Democrats won the popular vote in the Senate and Presidency but control neither. That's largely attributable to urban voters in states that allocated their electoral votes to (R).
    - ameister14 8y ago
      >I can't help but point out that you're making this claim on a thread attached to a story about a violent rural rebellion against urbanites! Exactly - Shay's rebellion occurred in large part because rural voters didn't feel that they were adequately represented in their government. The Federal government didn't have enough power to oversee what was happening and the State government was made up of people from other districts, who then proceeded to disenfranchise people in the rural areas in order to more completely concentrate voting power in the urban East. >So to be clear, there's no reasonable justification for giving geographic minorities extra voting poewr that doesn't also justify giving other minorities extra voting power. The reasonable justification, beyond infrastructure spending, differences in industry and geographical considerations is that other minorities don't have a history of rebellion. In a centralized power structure, rural areas DO have a history of rebellion, successful rebellion, especially when they feel their interests are not served by the central government.
vkou 8y ago
All the reasons hold, though. You discriminate based on address (and oppose discrimination among people at the same address.) You cite that different addresses have different needs, and this justifies that discrimination. That's true. The same is true for discrimination based on other mutable or immutable characteristics, though. It's all well and good to ingore minority issues, until you get a lot of other angry people with no political outlet. (Because presumably, one person, one equal vote is not good enough for them.)
- ameister14 8y ago
  >It's all well and good to ingore minority issues, until you get a lot of other angry people with no political outlet. That's exactly why the Federal government doesn't ignore them, and why States shouldn't either. But you shouldn't be able to carry discriminatory policies with you.
  - vkou 8y ago
    Rural areas getting proportionate political power, instead of disproportionate political power won't get ignored either. No more then racial and religious minority groups are being ignored, that is. Yet, here we are, with rural areas having disproportionate political power, and urbanites being discriminated against (Governments tend to take money from the cities, and give it to rural areas.) Elsewhere, you've suggested that rural areas deserve to get extra votes, because they are likely to participate in an armed revolt. In that case, why shouldn't we give men extra votes, compared to women? Most armed revolts are carried out by mostly men. Should we ration out political power to the most violent minority group of people that we can find? Maybe give the former Confederate states each an extra senate seat or two, and a handful of congressional ones?
TulliusCicero 8y ago
> Yeah, I'm not talking about gender/race though. I'm talking about regions. The point is that the same underlying principle applies in both cases. If you're going to extend extra voting power for minorities for geography, why not for {set of other personal attributes}? In practice, most people defending this setup -- it often comes up in discussions around the electoral college -- seem to support it simply because it happens to align with their own political objectives. It gives their state extra votes, so awesome! Understandable, but hardly principled. > And actually, yes, most of this anger is linked to a feeling that people in rural areas have too little representation compared to major population centers, Well yeah, they have less representation because we're in a democracy and there are fewer people there. I'm not terribly sympathetic to "I deserve extra voting power because of my lifestyle choice". > So this illustrates what happens when you've got proportional representation but a completely unbalanced population distribution What does "balanced" even mean in this context? Most people lived in rural areas when farming was most people's job, and now that we live in the information age, most people live in cities. Are both of those imbalanced? Because to me, it just sounds like in both cases, people simply adapted the needs of the time. Simply pointing out that most people live in urban areas to prove "imbalance" is like pointing out that we have far more believers than non-believers around, therefore the religious belief distribution is "imbalanced". Who exactly is deciding what "balance" looks like for things like this? > It's fine when everything is going well, but when the mills close down and the farms go out of business, you get a lot of angry people who feel they have no political outlet. There are certainly some people who feel that way, but unemployment is low, and moving to where the jobs are (in the cities) remains an option. I don't have a ton of sympathy here, given that the very same areas we're talking about usually practically worship the free market and like talking up how "self-reliant" they are (while simultaneously being heavily reliant on government subsidies from urban areas and demanding that the government protect their way of life). It would be nice to at least see a little more ideological consistency, a little less hypocrisy.
- ameister14 8y ago
  We are not in a Democracy. We live in a Republic. For a guy who's name comes from Cicero, you don't seem hot on the legal or organizational distinction. [edit] You say the point is that the same underlying principle applies in both cases; I don't agree. Geography doesn't have anything to do with personal characteristics. If you own land, you are tied to it. It's not easy to move, and we don't usually want people to move because if you stay in a place, you tend to improve it. I'm not sure why you brought up that most people arguing about something tend to pick the side that benefits them. I live in New York City. This does not benefit me. When I referred to rural vs urban population distribution, balanced meant an even distribution. What else would it have meant? Your sympathy or lack thereof isn't the point. The point is that we have a system that works pretty well - part of the reason is that it was created without depending entirely on people's better nature. Ideological consistency doesn't really play into that.

throwawayjava 8y ago

> It's a different story when you look at your literal neighbor and they have more representation than you. Jealousy is not a particularly sound or convincing ideological justification. > And actually, yes, most of this anger is linked to a feeling that people in rural areas have too little representation compared to major population centers, where most people live. It's worth pointing out that MA is a bit of a special case nationally. In most of the Midwest, for example, the resentment (and power/money) flows the other way.

ameister14 8y ago
It might not be a reasonable, logical justification, but it exists. Operating on and creating a framework of laws that operate on flawed concepts of human nature leads to operational failures. It's one of the main problems with economics, traditionally. The right laws and system of government works with an understanding of human nature including jealousy, laziness, greed and other weaknesses. In fact, one of the arguments used at the constitutional convention against Madison's proposed Negative was jealousy on the part of the representatives, as the Senate would hold powers that the representatives did not. It's not an incredibly convincing argument to me, but it happened. MA isn't that much of a special case, as it's the case in the majority of states and Federally. I'm surprised that it's not in places like Iowa - especially as urban populations grow while rural decline, but maybe that's balanced by the majority of industry being related to agriculture.
- throwawayjava 8y ago
  On the one hand, you say we need to give geographic minorities extra power so that their interests are protected. On the one hand, you say we shouldn't give other minorities extra power because without geographic distance jealousy/tension would overwhelm the political system. I can't help but point out that you're making this claim on a thread attached to a story about a violent rural rebellion against urbanites! I.e., geography doesn't defuse those tensions. So given that those tensions exist no matter what, is there any justification? > It might not be a reasonable, logical justification, but it exists. So to be clear, there's no reasonable justification for giving geographic minorities extra voting poewr that doesn't also justify giving other minorities extra voting power. The only justification is grounded in realism: a fear of jealous-inspired violence toward neighbors that geographic distance would presumably prevent. How does the very article we're commenting on not completely refute this argument? > MA isn't that much of a special case, as it's the case in the majority of states and Federally. It's a special case in the majority of land mass (this is just a tounge-in-cheek joke ;-) ) Federally, I disagree. Democrats won the popular vote in the Senate and Presidency but control neither. That's largely attributable to urban voters in states that allocated their electoral votes to (R).
  - ameister14 8y ago
    >I can't help but point out that you're making this claim on a thread attached to a story about a violent rural rebellion against urbanites! Exactly - Shay's rebellion occurred in large part because rural voters didn't feel that they were adequately represented in their government. The Federal government didn't have enough power to oversee what was happening and the State government was made up of people from other districts, who then proceeded to disenfranchise people in the rural areas in order to more completely concentrate voting power in the urban East. >So to be clear, there's no reasonable justification for giving geographic minorities extra voting poewr that doesn't also justify giving other minorities extra voting power. The reasonable justification, beyond infrastructure spending, differences in industry and geographical considerations is that other minorities don't have a history of rebellion. In a centralized power structure, rural areas DO have a history of rebellion, successful rebellion, especially when they feel their interests are not served by the central government.

vkou 8y ago

All the reasons hold, though. You discriminate based on address (and oppose discrimination among people at the same address.) You cite that different addresses have different needs, and this justifies that discrimination. That's true. The same is true for discrimination based on other mutable or immutable characteristics, though. It's all well and good to ingore minority issues, until you get a lot of other angry people with no political outlet. (Because presumably, one person, one equal vote is not good enough for them.)

ameister14 8y ago
>It's all well and good to ingore minority issues, until you get a lot of other angry people with no political outlet. That's exactly why the Federal government doesn't ignore them, and why States shouldn't either. But you shouldn't be able to carry discriminatory policies with you.
- vkou 8y ago
  Rural areas getting proportionate political power, instead of disproportionate political power won't get ignored either. No more then racial and religious minority groups are being ignored, that is. Yet, here we are, with rural areas having disproportionate political power, and urbanites being discriminated against (Governments tend to take money from the cities, and give it to rural areas.) Elsewhere, you've suggested that rural areas deserve to get extra votes, because they are likely to participate in an armed revolt. In that case, why shouldn't we give men extra votes, compared to women? Most armed revolts are carried out by mostly men. Should we ration out political power to the most violent minority group of people that we can find? Maybe give the former Confederate states each an extra senate seat or two, and a handful of congressional ones?

TulliusCicero 8y ago

> Yeah, I'm not talking about gender/race though. I'm talking about regions. The point is that the same underlying principle applies in both cases. If you're going to extend extra voting power for minorities for geography, why not for {set of other personal attributes}? In practice, most people defending this setup -- it often comes up in discussions around the electoral college -- seem to support it simply because it happens to align with their own political objectives. It gives their state extra votes, so awesome! Understandable, but hardly principled. > And actually, yes, most of this anger is linked to a feeling that people in rural areas have too little representation compared to major population centers, Well yeah, they have less representation because we're in a democracy and there are fewer people there. I'm not terribly sympathetic to "I deserve extra voting power because of my lifestyle choice". > So this illustrates what happens when you've got proportional representation but a completely unbalanced population distribution What does "balanced" even mean in this context? Most people lived in rural areas when farming was most people's job, and now that we live in the information age, most people live in cities. Are both of those imbalanced? Because to me, it just sounds like in both cases, people simply adapted the needs of the time. Simply pointing out that most people live in urban areas to prove "imbalance" is like pointing out that we have far more believers than non-believers around, therefore the religious belief distribution is "imbalanced". Who exactly is deciding what "balance" looks like for things like this? > It's fine when everything is going well, but when the mills close down and the farms go out of business, you get a lot of angry people who feel they have no political outlet. There are certainly some people who feel that way, but unemployment is low, and moving to where the jobs are (in the cities) remains an option. I don't have a ton of sympathy here, given that the very same areas we're talking about usually practically worship the free market and like talking up how "self-reliant" they are (while simultaneously being heavily reliant on government subsidies from urban areas and demanding that the government protect their way of life). It would be nice to at least see a little more ideological consistency, a little less hypocrisy.

ameister14 8y ago
We are not in a Democracy. We live in a Republic. For a guy who's name comes from Cicero, you don't seem hot on the legal or organizational distinction. [edit] You say the point is that the same underlying principle applies in both cases; I don't agree. Geography doesn't have anything to do with personal characteristics. If you own land, you are tied to it. It's not easy to move, and we don't usually want people to move because if you stay in a place, you tend to improve it. I'm not sure why you brought up that most people arguing about something tend to pick the side that benefits them. I live in New York City. This does not benefit me. When I referred to rural vs urban population distribution, balanced meant an even distribution. What else would it have meant? Your sympathy or lack thereof isn't the point. The point is that we have a system that works pretty well - part of the reason is that it was created without depending entirely on people's better nature. Ideological consistency doesn't really play into that.