6 ms·
The general "city dweller" politian vs. people living on the land seems to be an issue in many countries.
by k8sToGo 5y ago
The general "city dweller" politian vs. people living on the land seems to be an issue in many countries.
- koheripbal 5y agoThis is one of the reasons the US has a senate that over represents rural populations.
- germinalphrase 5y agoWhich has its own problems, of course.
- rjbwork 5y agoNot really. It's just an effect of it. The explicitly stated purpose is to represent the states, not the people, as the original conception of the US was more like the EU than, say, Switzerland.
- sulam 5y agoIt’s funny you use Switzerland as your example, which has the Cantons. To an outside observer they are a first order approximation of US states. They even have citizenship!
- rjbwork 5y agoHah. That is fair. It admittedly was a poorly thought out comparison.
- scott_s 5y agoThe Articles of Confederation were more like the EU, yes. The current US government as established by the US Constitution was definitely not, as it establishes a strong, central federal government with ultimate authority. The makeup of the senate, where each state no matter the size, has two senators was part of a bargain between the big and small states.
- zrail 5y agoThe reason the US has a Senate with two senators per state, along with a clause that makes it the only section of the constitution that cannot be modified by amendment, is because of the institution of chattel slavery. The slave states had a much smaller voting population than non-slave states and feared that majority rule would eventually remove their ability to keep slaves.
- honkdaddy 5y agoI’m not sure if you can say for certain the exact intentions of individuals who prepared the constitution hundreds of years ago.
- lesuorac 5y agoWhy not? The founders were literate and routinely wrote down their thoughts (see citations at the bottom of wikipedia). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_United_States_Senate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_United_States_S... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_United_States_Constitution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_United_States_C... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connecticut_Compromise https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connecticut_Compromise
- honkdaddy 5y agoYou'll have to do better than linking the entire history of the US Senate if you want to prove that the only reason the US has two senators per state is slavery. I don't doubt that it factored into it at the time, but to tell people in Alabama that the sole reason their vote is valued how the way it is is due to slavery seems incredibly revisionist and ignorant to me. Consider that in Canada's House of Parliament, we similarly have votes in rural areas overrepresented compared to their urban counterparts. Did that system arise from slavery as well? Of course it didn't, and any Canadian suggesting so would be laughed at.
- joombaga 5y ago> Did that system arise from slavery as well? Of course it didn't, and any Canadian suggesting so would be laughed at. Can you explain why? I probably have a childlike understanding of the histories of Parliament and slavery in Canada.
- throwaway0a5e 5y agoOf course it is. These two groups have wildly different day to day lives and living styles.