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> There were a whole lot of things in the US system of government that were put there on purpose but have turned out to definitely be bad. I don't agree that t
by pdonis 4y ago
> There were a whole lot of things in the US system of government that were put there on purpose but have turned out to definitely be bad.
I don't agree that there were "a whole lot", but yes, some of the original features were bad. The founders knew they couldn't avoid that, which is why they included an amendment process. Which has been used to fix a number of the original features that turned out to be bad.
I also don't agree that the brokenness in the current US system is due to too much use of anti-majoritarian features. I think it's due to too little use of such features. (Well, that and simply ignoring the Constitution altogether when it is politically expedient.)
- yamtaddle 4y ago> The founders knew they couldn't avoid that, which is why they included an amendment process. Our bad election rules make coalition-building to accomplish even very popular things really difficult if powerful interests oppose them, and it's getting worse the more sophisticated the game-playing within our set of rules gets. Moreover, a bunch of the reforms we need would threaten the power of those who could, realistically, work to effectively change the system (see again: broken election process) so they simply will not happen. We have trouble accomplishing things with overwhelming popularity in the general population that don't need an amendment—amendments are all but dead under modern electoral and political game conditions, and fixing that would require... an amendment. Key reforms that would fix the very deepest problems are about as likely as a literal miracle happening.