4 ms·

> I personally don't think the founding fathers of the US understood the future gullibility of their citizens. They absolutely did. When only white, male, dece

> I personally don't think the founding fathers of the US understood the future gullibility of their citizens. They absolutely did. When only white, male, decently educated property owners could vote, they had decent reassurance that a constitutional republic with state-specific voter management could work. I think they'd be horrified to see that today we don't even demand a basic proof of civics education. And I hate that Ramaswamy made that suggestion in such an embarrassing, conversation-poisoning way.

plagiarist 3y ago
We need score voting. Being able to express a preference for a third candidate without danger of flipping the election would fix quite a bit. Unfortunately doing so currently is more useless than using the ballot as toilet paper.
- TedGetschman 3y ago
  Actually, implementing score voting (or approval or STAR or Majority Judgement) should incentivize all the candidates to move toward the majority opinion. The problem isn't the candidates, it is what platforms the current system pushes them to adopt. If we changed to any of these MaxVoting methods today, you would see majority opinion platforms emerge as the lead platforms within a year.
bb88 3y ago
I'm not saying you're wrong, I just think the founding fathers could not anticipate the world we have today. The problem of course being that intelligence tests were used in the 60's to deny voting rights. But the founding fathers were okay with slavery, so would they have been okay with that for that purpose? Originalism has a purpose I think, but, we've changed so much since then...
- chonkerz 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - refurb 3y ago
    Wow, I take it you haven’t read much about them then? Because that statement is 100% false.
    - plagiarist 3y ago
      Then why didn't they write the founding documents so that black people would be free and women and black people could vote? Would have saved us a lot of conflict over the years.
      - refurb 3y ago
        Because, at the time, those beliefs were not universal, and a compromise was made as formation of the Republic would likely not have happened otherwise. All the writings of the Founding Fathers are free and publicly available. You can learn all about it.
        plagiarist 3y ago
        I like learning, link us to some quotes.
        refurb 3y ago
        Like any subject, I’d you want a respectable understanding it’s going to take some commitment to studying key documents, not just reading. A few quotes. You don’t get smarter reading a few 140 characters tweets.
        lostlogin 3y ago
        That might explain the document, but that doesn’t explain some of them keeping slaves themselves. Jefferson even went on to be president and while he did things to restrict the trade, he kept slaves and opposed some measure to restrict slavery (for reasons much as you describe). https://www.crf-usa.org/images/t2t/pdf/HowShouldWeJudgeOurNation.pdf https://www.crf-usa.org/images/t2t/pdf/HowShouldWeJudgeOurNa... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson_and_slavery https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson_and_slavery
refurb 3y ago
Are you saying white male educated property owners can’t be gullible? Have you been to Marin county? The founding fathers certainly did assume there were gullible voters even among the select few who could vote. Protections such as the Constitution itself (that old archaic document!), the Senate, supermajorities, an independent legislative, executive and judicial, etc, etc. I laugh when people say “Congress is deadlocked! It needs to be fixed!”. No, it’s working exactly as intended.
zimpenfish 3y ago
> I hate that Ramaswamy made that suggestion in such an embarrassing, conversation-poisoning way Are you talking about his "failed Civics 101" gaffe re: historical ordering of Constitution and Revolution?
- lr4444lr 3y ago
  https://twitter.com/VivekGRamaswamy/status/1656812778177347585 https://twitter.com/VivekGRamaswamy/status/16568127781773475... I have been convinced for a long time that a test of basic civics and current events is a necessary (and possibly a sufficient) condition to fix most of the failings we see in representative democracy, but the Overton window is nowhere near it, and Ramaswamy is hardly the candidate I'd want proposing it. The whole question and answer bank could even be given out online or in print cosr free - my bar is pretty low.
  - zimpenfish 3y ago
    > a test of basic civics and current events is a necessary (and possibly a sufficient) condition to fix most of the failings we see in representative democracy Currently I would suggest that most of the failings in, e.g., US democracy are coming from the Republican party and I'm pretty sure most of them will have passed a test of basic civics, etc., yet are demonstrably bad at governance.

plagiarist 3y ago

We need score voting. Being able to express a preference for a third candidate without danger of flipping the election would fix quite a bit. Unfortunately doing so currently is more useless than using the ballot as toilet paper.

TedGetschman 3y ago
Actually, implementing score voting (or approval or STAR or Majority Judgement) should incentivize all the candidates to move toward the majority opinion. The problem isn't the candidates, it is what platforms the current system pushes them to adopt. If we changed to any of these MaxVoting methods today, you would see majority opinion platforms emerge as the lead platforms within a year.

bb88 3y ago

I'm not saying you're wrong, I just think the founding fathers could not anticipate the world we have today. The problem of course being that intelligence tests were used in the 60's to deny voting rights. But the founding fathers were okay with slavery, so would they have been okay with that for that purpose? Originalism has a purpose I think, but, we've changed so much since then...

chonkerz 3y ago
[flagged]
- refurb 3y ago
  Wow, I take it you haven’t read much about them then? Because that statement is 100% false.
  - plagiarist 3y ago
    Then why didn't they write the founding documents so that black people would be free and women and black people could vote? Would have saved us a lot of conflict over the years.
    - refurb 3y ago
      Because, at the time, those beliefs were not universal, and a compromise was made as formation of the Republic would likely not have happened otherwise. All the writings of the Founding Fathers are free and publicly available. You can learn all about it.
      - plagiarist 3y ago
        I like learning, link us to some quotes.
        refurb 3y ago
        Like any subject, I’d you want a respectable understanding it’s going to take some commitment to studying key documents, not just reading. A few quotes. You don’t get smarter reading a few 140 characters tweets.
      - lostlogin 3y ago
        That might explain the document, but that doesn’t explain some of them keeping slaves themselves. Jefferson even went on to be president and while he did things to restrict the trade, he kept slaves and opposed some measure to restrict slavery (for reasons much as you describe). https://www.crf-usa.org/images/t2t/pdf/HowShouldWeJudgeOurNation.pdf https://www.crf-usa.org/images/t2t/pdf/HowShouldWeJudgeOurNa... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson_and_slavery https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson_and_slavery

refurb 3y ago

Are you saying white male educated property owners can’t be gullible? Have you been to Marin county? The founding fathers certainly did assume there were gullible voters even among the select few who could vote. Protections such as the Constitution itself (that old archaic document!), the Senate, supermajorities, an independent legislative, executive and judicial, etc, etc. I laugh when people say “Congress is deadlocked! It needs to be fixed!”. No, it’s working exactly as intended.

zimpenfish 3y ago

> I hate that Ramaswamy made that suggestion in such an embarrassing, conversation-poisoning way Are you talking about his "failed Civics 101" gaffe re: historical ordering of Constitution and Revolution?

lr4444lr 3y ago
https://twitter.com/VivekGRamaswamy/status/1656812778177347585 https://twitter.com/VivekGRamaswamy/status/16568127781773475... I have been convinced for a long time that a test of basic civics and current events is a necessary (and possibly a sufficient) condition to fix most of the failings we see in representative democracy, but the Overton window is nowhere near it, and Ramaswamy is hardly the candidate I'd want proposing it. The whole question and answer bank could even be given out online or in print cosr free - my bar is pretty low.
- zimpenfish 3y ago
  > a test of basic civics and current events is a necessary (and possibly a sufficient) condition to fix most of the failings we see in representative democracy Currently I would suggest that most of the failings in, e.g., US democracy are coming from the Republican party and I'm pretty sure most of them will have passed a test of basic civics, etc., yet are demonstrably bad at governance.