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I'm well aware of the reasoning for the design -- although I will point out that the notion of an extremely constrained federal government was controversial the

I'm well aware of the reasoning for the design -- although I will point out that the notion of an extremely constrained federal government was controversial then, hardly consensus among the founding fathers. But the design clearly is not fit for where our society is or the direction it is moving, people have much more affiliation with the national entity than with the state entity, and it simply does not make sense to have a pseudo-house of lords with actual political power in the 21st century.

giantg2 1y ago
If you are from a smaller state, you would think it would still make sense. Otherwise the rural concerns just get steamrolled by the urban concerns. The point still stands about trying to level out concerns between smaller and larger states, which is why it was created with years of debate and a majority even if it wasn't consensus.
- whimsicalism 1y ago
  I'm from an even smaller political entity than Wyoming, although we don't get any Senate representation at all. It would be beyond absurd to grant us equal voting power to California and obviously not a sustainable way of constructing a political system.
  - giantg2 1y ago
    DC?
    - whimsicalism 1y ago
      yes
      - potato3732842 1y ago
        Surely you see the irony in the guy from DC wanting more direct democracy at a point in the nation's history when "drop a nuke on DC, see if things improve" would probably be a winning ballot measure in most states.
        cthalupa 1y ago
        Very few of those people have much animosity towards everyday people or even federal workers (as people) living in DC, it's about the politicians.
  - blackguardx 1y ago
    You say smaller political entity, but the city of Washington D.C has 100k more people than the entire state of Wyoming...
    - whimsicalism 1y ago
      Good point - and also whoops on forgetting that, should have remembered from my DC history class where they drill in that we have a larger population than Wyoming and Vermont yet no rep
- mjamesaustin 1y ago
  Of course the voters who have much more political power than is fair, would be unhappy if we transitioned to a system where all voters have an equal amount of political power. This point is always brought up as if it's inherently bad for rural concerns to get overruled by urban ones, but TOTALLY FINE if urban concerns get overruled by rural ones. Our current system is a crazy double standard, and inherently unfair.
  - giantg2 1y ago
    "Of course the voters who have much more political power than is fair," Who determines what is fair? Why is it not fair for each state to have equal representation? "This point is always brought up as if it's inherently bad for rural concerns to get overruled by urban ones, but TOTALLY FINE if urban concerns get overruled by rural ones." The urban ones have more power in the house as that chamber is designed to represent the people. The rural states have equal power in the Senate. It might just happen that there are more rural states (just as in the House some states happen to have more people).
    - krapp 1y ago
      What "urban concerns" and "rural concerns" are we talking about, specifically?
      - mothballed 1y ago
        One in my state is solar panel legislation. You can't install solar panels in AZ without a permit and building plans and roof plans. That's all well and good in the city, but here in bumfuck nowhere I built a house with no building plans or roof plans. Why exactly did the majority of city dwellers pass this law without even considering people like me in bumfuck nowhere, who have as much or higher utility for solar panels than even those in urban areas, need to have this regulation? The answer is they didn't even think about us, they just did it. Now I can't install solar panels without producing a bunch of extra paperwork that city dwellers just assumed everyone already has on hand because in the city you're required to file those when you build the house. Due to that and other rules that are half-cocked consideration for rural counties that don't inspect literally anything else, they basically made it the hardest to put solar in the places where it is most practical and has the most impact.
- kccoder 1y ago
  I'm from a smaller state and I don't think it makes sense. I'll take tyranny of the majority over tyranny of the minority any day of the week.
  - joquarky 1y ago
    It's starting to feel like direct democracy would make better choices than whatever this mess is that we have now.
- watwut 1y ago
  Urban concerns are steamrolled by the rural concerns. Rural people literally hate and attack urban living people and urban people are supposed to smile and treat them nicely.
- toss1 1y ago
  >>rural concerns just get steamrolled by the urban concerns But effectively giving dirt a vote clearly isn't the solution. When voting maps are made weighted by strict land area they look one way, but weighted by population, they look entirely different, e.g., [0] Or, should Wyoming, with a population of 587,618 as of 2024 [1] really have as many senators as the 39,431,263 people in California [2]? California has nearly five times the rural population of Wyoming [3], yet all rural and urban Californians get only 1.4% of the representative power of anyone living in Wyoming. Does a Wyoming resident really deserve 67X the representation of people in California? I absolutely think rural concerns must be heard and met, but this setup is not right, and is clearly not meeting those concerns. [0] https://worldmapper.org/us-presidential-election-2024/ https://worldmapper.org/us-presidential-election-2024/ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyoming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyoming [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California [3] https://www.ppic.org/publication/rural-california/ https://www.ppic.org/publication/rural-california/
- wing-_-nuts 1y ago
  I've yet to understand why 'land' should have a stronger vote than 'people'
  - SoftTalker 1y ago
    Why even have states? Or cities? What purpose do they serve?
    - wing-_-nuts 1y ago
      Why this non-sequitur?
    - PaulDavisThe1st 1y ago
      Cities have no representation at the federal level, so we can leave those out of the question. Why have states? Why indeed! One answer: to create a level of governmental organization smaller than the federal one that can act as a set of laboratories for legislative and legal experimentation. Another answer: to reflect the fact that not all laws and regulations make sense across a diverse range of climate and geography and demographics and economies. Neither of those answers, however, require states to be considered inviolable sovereign entities, and a lot of us born after 1880 don't think of them that way.
  - QuercusMax 1y ago
    Because the rural folks think that "bad people" live in cities. (Don't ask them too many questions about what makes them bad; it's almost certainly bigotry.)
  - giantg2 1y ago
    It has nothing to do with land. It's about the political subdivisions that are states, and how those states have differing concerns (can even be seen in the talks about different commerce and trade concerns when the country was formed).
- BobaFloutist 1y ago
  I'm not going to do the math, but California has a larger rural area, a larger rural population, and a larger number of rural communities than, oh, I don't know, the ten least populous states combined? So at this point we have fewer rural communities overriding more rural communities just because of where state boundaries are draw.
gspencley 1y ago
> But the design clearly is not fit for where our society is or the direction it is moving, people have much more affiliation with the national entity than with the state entity For better or worse. I would argue that government serves you much better the closer it is to you. A municipal government is going to be a lot more responsive to people who live in that city vs the State / Provincial level, who have a much broader constituency. And the State / Provincial level is going to be a lot more responsive to its constituency than the Federal level. Politics is the direct result of the philosophy of a culture. The more culturally people identify as "American" instead of "Californian", "Texan", "Virginian" etc. the more you're going to see the scope of the federal level expand, because that's what "the people" are asking for. The problem with democracy is that people don't always vote or act in accordance with their objective best interests. And not to go off on a tangent, but the cultural attitude towards democracy itself is indicative of my point. Culturally people tend to equate democracy with "freedom" even though democracy is but a tool. A perfectly appropriate tool for certain things (should we spend the city budget on a new sporting stadium or upgrades to our roads?). But there are other matters that should never, under any circumstance, be put to a vote (ex: what groups of people have rights).
- PaulDavisThe1st 1y ago
  > I would argue that government serves you much better the closer it is to you. This works very well for the local wealth crowd. It is much easier to capture city or county government than it is state, and much easier to capture state government than federal. In fact, one of the reasons that we need a more powerful federal government than we did 200 years ago is precisely that local non-governmental power (read: rich folk) has grown in scale that often even state government cannot control it adequately. There's no inherent reason federal government cannot be just as responsive as more local ones, other than an entire political philosophy and party that is committed to the idea that this is not just impossible but morally wrong.
  - gspencley 1y ago
    > This works very well for the local wealth crowd It works well for everyone. The problem with government that is for and by the people, is that wealthy people are people too. You're effectively saying that because you're worried about the "local wealth crowd" "capturing" government, you would prefer to make change in government more difficult and representation farther removed for everyone. It's not clear how that would make it easier for the "non local wealth crowd" to affect change while it makes it harder for the "wealth crowd" ? Although maybe "local" is the key word here? I mean, that would imply that you're OK with global mega-corps capturing the federal level as long as they are not local companies. But I think I'd be straw-manning you to assume that's your position, and I'm not trying to strawman you. I'm just illustrating the logical conclusion of your idea if I take it at face value. For what it's worth, I'm not a fan of protectionist economic policies. But if I were, I might offer that "local wealth" at least provides value at the local level (jobs, economic growth etc.) whereas global mega-corps have interests outside of the country. In any case, it's not at all clear how making it less difficult for the "local wealth crowd" makes it easier for the "non local wealth crowd." As I see it, you just make government farther removed for everyone. Disadvantaging both groups equally. But if you're ideologically driven by a hatred of wealth and of capitalism, then maybe that's well understood and we are all sacrificial lambs on offer.

giantg2 1y ago

If you are from a smaller state, you would think it would still make sense. Otherwise the rural concerns just get steamrolled by the urban concerns. The point still stands about trying to level out concerns between smaller and larger states, which is why it was created with years of debate and a majority even if it wasn't consensus.

whimsicalism 1y ago
I'm from an even smaller political entity than Wyoming, although we don't get any Senate representation at all. It would be beyond absurd to grant us equal voting power to California and obviously not a sustainable way of constructing a political system.
- giantg2 1y ago
  DC?
  - whimsicalism 1y ago
    yes
    - potato3732842 1y ago
      Surely you see the irony in the guy from DC wanting more direct democracy at a point in the nation's history when "drop a nuke on DC, see if things improve" would probably be a winning ballot measure in most states.
      - cthalupa 1y ago
        Very few of those people have much animosity towards everyday people or even federal workers (as people) living in DC, it's about the politicians.
- blackguardx 1y ago
  You say smaller political entity, but the city of Washington D.C has 100k more people than the entire state of Wyoming...
  - whimsicalism 1y ago
    Good point - and also whoops on forgetting that, should have remembered from my DC history class where they drill in that we have a larger population than Wyoming and Vermont yet no rep
mjamesaustin 1y ago
Of course the voters who have much more political power than is fair, would be unhappy if we transitioned to a system where all voters have an equal amount of political power. This point is always brought up as if it's inherently bad for rural concerns to get overruled by urban ones, but TOTALLY FINE if urban concerns get overruled by rural ones. Our current system is a crazy double standard, and inherently unfair.
- giantg2 1y ago
  "Of course the voters who have much more political power than is fair," Who determines what is fair? Why is it not fair for each state to have equal representation? "This point is always brought up as if it's inherently bad for rural concerns to get overruled by urban ones, but TOTALLY FINE if urban concerns get overruled by rural ones." The urban ones have more power in the house as that chamber is designed to represent the people. The rural states have equal power in the Senate. It might just happen that there are more rural states (just as in the House some states happen to have more people).
  - krapp 1y ago
    What "urban concerns" and "rural concerns" are we talking about, specifically?
    - mothballed 1y ago
      One in my state is solar panel legislation. You can't install solar panels in AZ without a permit and building plans and roof plans. That's all well and good in the city, but here in bumfuck nowhere I built a house with no building plans or roof plans. Why exactly did the majority of city dwellers pass this law without even considering people like me in bumfuck nowhere, who have as much or higher utility for solar panels than even those in urban areas, need to have this regulation? The answer is they didn't even think about us, they just did it. Now I can't install solar panels without producing a bunch of extra paperwork that city dwellers just assumed everyone already has on hand because in the city you're required to file those when you build the house. Due to that and other rules that are half-cocked consideration for rural counties that don't inspect literally anything else, they basically made it the hardest to put solar in the places where it is most practical and has the most impact.
kccoder 1y ago
I'm from a smaller state and I don't think it makes sense. I'll take tyranny of the majority over tyranny of the minority any day of the week.
- joquarky 1y ago
  It's starting to feel like direct democracy would make better choices than whatever this mess is that we have now.
watwut 1y ago
Urban concerns are steamrolled by the rural concerns. Rural people literally hate and attack urban living people and urban people are supposed to smile and treat them nicely.
toss1 1y ago
>>rural concerns just get steamrolled by the urban concerns But effectively giving dirt a vote clearly isn't the solution. When voting maps are made weighted by strict land area they look one way, but weighted by population, they look entirely different, e.g., [0] Or, should Wyoming, with a population of 587,618 as of 2024 [1] really have as many senators as the 39,431,263 people in California [2]? California has nearly five times the rural population of Wyoming [3], yet all rural and urban Californians get only 1.4% of the representative power of anyone living in Wyoming. Does a Wyoming resident really deserve 67X the representation of people in California? I absolutely think rural concerns must be heard and met, but this setup is not right, and is clearly not meeting those concerns. [0] https://worldmapper.org/us-presidential-election-2024/ https://worldmapper.org/us-presidential-election-2024/ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyoming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyoming [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California [3] https://www.ppic.org/publication/rural-california/ https://www.ppic.org/publication/rural-california/
wing-_-nuts 1y ago
I've yet to understand why 'land' should have a stronger vote than 'people'
- SoftTalker 1y ago
  Why even have states? Or cities? What purpose do they serve?
  - wing-_-nuts 1y ago
    Why this non-sequitur?
  - PaulDavisThe1st 1y ago
    Cities have no representation at the federal level, so we can leave those out of the question. Why have states? Why indeed! One answer: to create a level of governmental organization smaller than the federal one that can act as a set of laboratories for legislative and legal experimentation. Another answer: to reflect the fact that not all laws and regulations make sense across a diverse range of climate and geography and demographics and economies. Neither of those answers, however, require states to be considered inviolable sovereign entities, and a lot of us born after 1880 don't think of them that way.
- QuercusMax 1y ago
  Because the rural folks think that "bad people" live in cities. (Don't ask them too many questions about what makes them bad; it's almost certainly bigotry.)
- giantg2 1y ago
  It has nothing to do with land. It's about the political subdivisions that are states, and how those states have differing concerns (can even be seen in the talks about different commerce and trade concerns when the country was formed).
BobaFloutist 1y ago
I'm not going to do the math, but California has a larger rural area, a larger rural population, and a larger number of rural communities than, oh, I don't know, the ten least populous states combined? So at this point we have fewer rural communities overriding more rural communities just because of where state boundaries are draw.

gspencley 1y ago

> But the design clearly is not fit for where our society is or the direction it is moving, people have much more affiliation with the national entity than with the state entity For better or worse. I would argue that government serves you much better the closer it is to you. A municipal government is going to be a lot more responsive to people who live in that city vs the State / Provincial level, who have a much broader constituency. And the State / Provincial level is going to be a lot more responsive to its constituency than the Federal level. Politics is the direct result of the philosophy of a culture. The more culturally people identify as "American" instead of "Californian", "Texan", "Virginian" etc. the more you're going to see the scope of the federal level expand, because that's what "the people" are asking for. The problem with democracy is that people don't always vote or act in accordance with their objective best interests. And not to go off on a tangent, but the cultural attitude towards democracy itself is indicative of my point. Culturally people tend to equate democracy with "freedom" even though democracy is but a tool. A perfectly appropriate tool for certain things (should we spend the city budget on a new sporting stadium or upgrades to our roads?). But there are other matters that should never, under any circumstance, be put to a vote (ex: what groups of people have rights).

PaulDavisThe1st 1y ago
> I would argue that government serves you much better the closer it is to you. This works very well for the local wealth crowd. It is much easier to capture city or county government than it is state, and much easier to capture state government than federal. In fact, one of the reasons that we need a more powerful federal government than we did 200 years ago is precisely that local non-governmental power (read: rich folk) has grown in scale that often even state government cannot control it adequately. There's no inherent reason federal government cannot be just as responsive as more local ones, other than an entire political philosophy and party that is committed to the idea that this is not just impossible but morally wrong.
- gspencley 1y ago
  > This works very well for the local wealth crowd It works well for everyone. The problem with government that is for and by the people, is that wealthy people are people too. You're effectively saying that because you're worried about the "local wealth crowd" "capturing" government, you would prefer to make change in government more difficult and representation farther removed for everyone. It's not clear how that would make it easier for the "non local wealth crowd" to affect change while it makes it harder for the "wealth crowd" ? Although maybe "local" is the key word here? I mean, that would imply that you're OK with global mega-corps capturing the federal level as long as they are not local companies. But I think I'd be straw-manning you to assume that's your position, and I'm not trying to strawman you. I'm just illustrating the logical conclusion of your idea if I take it at face value. For what it's worth, I'm not a fan of protectionist economic policies. But if I were, I might offer that "local wealth" at least provides value at the local level (jobs, economic growth etc.) whereas global mega-corps have interests outside of the country. In any case, it's not at all clear how making it less difficult for the "local wealth crowd" makes it easier for the "non local wealth crowd." As I see it, you just make government farther removed for everyone. Disadvantaging both groups equally. But if you're ideologically driven by a hatred of wealth and of capitalism, then maybe that's well understood and we are all sacrificial lambs on offer.