5 ms·

This isn't so different in the EU is it? Smaller countries don't want their needs ignored by the bigger countries so they get more seats relative to their popul

This isn't so different in the EU is it? Smaller countries don't want their needs ignored by the bigger countries so they get more seats relative to their population than big countries. Maybe it's hard to imagine the United States of American to become 50 independent countries but isn't the way you keep them united is by promising the smaller ones that they won't be trampled on by the big ones?

logicchains 5y ago
Nobody wants full democracy. Full democracy is what allowed Hitler to get away with gassing six million Jews, just because the majority of the population agreed it was a good idea at the time. Now Germany has very strict constitutional protections of certain rights to make it very hard for the majority to violate the minority like that again. State rights act similarly, protecting the populations of individual states to some degree from the arbitrary whims of the majority.
- pessimizer 5y ago
  This wouldn't help Jews in WWII because Jews weren't grouped into a single German electoral region. If you spread 49.9% of the population evenly in a system where states vote rather than individuals, you've insured that this minority gets no representation.
- boomboomsubban 5y ago
  >Full democracy is what allowed Hitler to... What election are you referring to where the Germans democratically gave Hitler power? His best "fair" election results saw his party get ~35% of the vote, and he only got the largely ceremonial chancellorship through backdoor deals. By the time he became president nobody could consider the elections fair.
kelnos 5y ago
> isn't the way you keep them united is by promising the smaller ones that they won't be trampled on by the big ones? Yes, but in the US, at least, it's gotten to the absurd opposite where the minority is more or less assured a majority of votes. In order to avoid tyranny of the majority, we've more or less codified tyranny of the minority.
- kodah 5y ago
  What's your evidence behind the statement that "the minority" is assured a majority of votes? Both Democrats and Republicans have won the electoral college and each of them throw a big rhetorical fit any time the other wins with it. At some point you have to accept that being equal doesn't always look fair in a micro vs macro sense of time. In the moment it doesn't look fair, when you look at the longer timeline they've had their share of elections. The system seems to be working as intended. It would be more helpful to describe what a state of affairs looks like that doesn't result in large population states, who already maintain the gift/grift of cultural hegemony, running the country.
  - 411111111111111 5y ago
    This comment is confusing to read. It doesn't matter which party wins the election because the voting system itself is flawed. It's also not a particularly new thesis but an often acknowledged problem. It might be that this was the intent of the system, that doesn't change the fact that nowadays significant portions of the population have gravitated towards a few very large metropolis, effectively giving disproportionate power to the people living in rural areas
    - kodah 5y ago
      The electoral college was set up to protect less densely populated areas from more densely populated areas, so the situation was always that way; it didn't "gravitate". It's not like "rural issues" are the ones dominating legislation or national conversation either. To take a step back, I've lived in both rural areas and major cities (I currently live in one). Rural folks being represented in government is not an issue and I find it kind of odd that people try to make it an issue like this. I'm fine having my agenda compete with theirs.
      - 411111111111111 5y ago
        I don't live in the USA, so i'm just repeating whats literally taught in school where i'm from. there were no metropolis like we have them today back then. City were considered gigantic with with only a few hundred thousand people -- which is maybe a largish town nowadays Nobody said that rural people being represented is an issue, its nonetheless a fact that they're overrepresented, as they have disproportionate voting power. That term doesn't mean that they shouldn't be represented, it means that they have proportionally more voting power then a person living in a city does.
burnished 5y ago
You're supposed to update the ratios as time passes and the context changes.
MinorTom 5y ago
The EU isn't exactly a model democracy, with its three levels of indirection.

logicchains 5y ago

Nobody wants full democracy. Full democracy is what allowed Hitler to get away with gassing six million Jews, just because the majority of the population agreed it was a good idea at the time. Now Germany has very strict constitutional protections of certain rights to make it very hard for the majority to violate the minority like that again. State rights act similarly, protecting the populations of individual states to some degree from the arbitrary whims of the majority.

pessimizer 5y ago
This wouldn't help Jews in WWII because Jews weren't grouped into a single German electoral region. If you spread 49.9% of the population evenly in a system where states vote rather than individuals, you've insured that this minority gets no representation.
boomboomsubban 5y ago
>Full democracy is what allowed Hitler to... What election are you referring to where the Germans democratically gave Hitler power? His best "fair" election results saw his party get ~35% of the vote, and he only got the largely ceremonial chancellorship through backdoor deals. By the time he became president nobody could consider the elections fair.

kelnos 5y ago

> isn't the way you keep them united is by promising the smaller ones that they won't be trampled on by the big ones? Yes, but in the US, at least, it's gotten to the absurd opposite where the minority is more or less assured a majority of votes. In order to avoid tyranny of the majority, we've more or less codified tyranny of the minority.

kodah 5y ago
What's your evidence behind the statement that "the minority" is assured a majority of votes? Both Democrats and Republicans have won the electoral college and each of them throw a big rhetorical fit any time the other wins with it. At some point you have to accept that being equal doesn't always look fair in a micro vs macro sense of time. In the moment it doesn't look fair, when you look at the longer timeline they've had their share of elections. The system seems to be working as intended. It would be more helpful to describe what a state of affairs looks like that doesn't result in large population states, who already maintain the gift/grift of cultural hegemony, running the country.
- 411111111111111 5y ago
  This comment is confusing to read. It doesn't matter which party wins the election because the voting system itself is flawed. It's also not a particularly new thesis but an often acknowledged problem. It might be that this was the intent of the system, that doesn't change the fact that nowadays significant portions of the population have gravitated towards a few very large metropolis, effectively giving disproportionate power to the people living in rural areas
  - kodah 5y ago
    The electoral college was set up to protect less densely populated areas from more densely populated areas, so the situation was always that way; it didn't "gravitate". It's not like "rural issues" are the ones dominating legislation or national conversation either. To take a step back, I've lived in both rural areas and major cities (I currently live in one). Rural folks being represented in government is not an issue and I find it kind of odd that people try to make it an issue like this. I'm fine having my agenda compete with theirs.
    - 411111111111111 5y ago
      I don't live in the USA, so i'm just repeating whats literally taught in school where i'm from. there were no metropolis like we have them today back then. City were considered gigantic with with only a few hundred thousand people -- which is maybe a largish town nowadays Nobody said that rural people being represented is an issue, its nonetheless a fact that they're overrepresented, as they have disproportionate voting power. That term doesn't mean that they shouldn't be represented, it means that they have proportionally more voting power then a person living in a city does.

burnished 5y ago

You're supposed to update the ratios as time passes and the context changes.

MinorTom 5y ago

The EU isn't exactly a model democracy, with its three levels of indirection.