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The system wasn’t built to favor rural areas, it was built to favor the sovereignty of the States, which are independent territories with their own systems of g
by oceanplexian 5y ago
The system wasn’t built to favor rural areas, it was built to favor the sovereignty of the States, which are independent territories with their own systems of government, who specifically agreed to join the US in exchange for the representation they received in Congress and the Electoral process. Trying to walk back that compromise to let high population states dominate national politics is a violation of the social contract.
That’s why the States are referred to as experiments in democracy. It’s a decentralized form of government (With guardrails, written into the US Constitution). It doesn’t matter that there are millions of people in Los Angeles, their voice shouldn’t have a disproportionate say in how farmers in say, Iowa, run their government. The needs, economies, and demographics of different states are completely different and a using decentralized system of government is much more intuitive than trying to manage it from the top down.
- Redoubts 5y agoUnless you’re gonna address how states were drafted and the politics behind that, this post is at best a credulous defense of federalism.
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- scarface74 5y agoSo in that case, shouldn’t voters in CA be able to refuse to subsidize rural states? We should have lower federal taxes and let each state fend for itself.
- nec4b 5y agoThen you should stop voting for people who want more taxes.
- scarface74 5y agoThe people who want less taxes don’t want to cut spending, they increase deficits and they are damn sure not going yo cut subsidies to rural America. The people in CA have less voting power in the Senate than all of the states they are subsidizing.
- nec4b 5y agoThe people in CA vote for one party, which is the party of redistribution on the national level. Would that party not bulge if it were punished by CA voters?
- scarface74 5y agoBoth parties are the parties of redistribution. Republicans “redistribute” via farm subsidies, oil and gas subsidies, unneeded military bases to create jobs (bases that the military wants to close), “disability insurance” for people in rural America that are not disabled but don’t have the right kind of training to work the in demand jobs. Heck and lately unemployment insurance for people who lost their jobs because they refuse to get vaccinated. But, the point is that people in CA can only elect two Senators while five or six states whose population doesn’t equal CA can elect 10 or 12.
- nec4b 5y agoCalifornia decided itself it wants be in a union with other states and accepted the conditions which enabled that union. I think it should be their right to secede from such a union if it is not in their interest anymore. I think you are also forgetting CA is also huge in agriculture and will certainly subsidize its farms even if it gets independent.