[Pops]

On some level there is little difference between democracy and mob rule.

That is why the USA Cnstitution was so artfully crafted. And the Electorial College is at the heart of that grand compromise. To protect the small interests while allowing general majority rule.

Yep, mobs are the biggest worry of the powerful.

The electoral college protected the "small interest" of slave holders. And it was far from "majority rule"; slaves counted as 3/5 of a person but couldn't vote, neither could women or even men without land, far from a "majority."

... ahh when America was great.

[Newfie]

Yes, all the slaves in RI and NJ and DE.

Come on Pops. You are demonstrating what is wrong with America. You are stuck in a partisan groove, by your own admission stuck in the media you yourself trash. WTF. You exactly fit the paradigm of those you say we should ignore.

[KaiserJeep]

Don't go promoting any false history here, either. The electoral college was created when there were but 13 colonies, and the purpose was to prevent the twelve smaller states from being overwhelmed by the larger one (Virginia) via the popular vote.

If you doubt that, I invite you to read The Federalist Papers. Everybody should read these at least once to separate the speculation from the actual thoughts of the Founding Fathers.

Slavery was a common practice brought over from Europe. The large plantation form of slavery was also practiced in Asia and Africa before it was in the New World. Then the first major country to end slavery was the USA, even though the cost was very high, our Civil War.

All so Michelle Obama was free to say:"I live in a house built by slaves."

[Newfie]

While I agree with the majority of your post this oendantic point remains. From wiki.

The Slavery Abolition Act 1833 (3 & 4 Will. IV c. 73) abolished slavery throughout the British Empire. This Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom expanded the jurisdiction of the Slave Trade Act 1807 which made the purchase or ownership of slaves illegal within the British Empire, with the exception of "the Territories in the Possession of the East India Company", Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), and Saint Helena.

And thanks for prodding me to read the Federalist Papers. Just downloaded from Project Gutenberg. Working a bio of Nelson ATM.

[EnergyUnlimited]

@Ibon,
Degeneracy and idiocracy are becoming to be distinctly new trends on the West. Yes, they may well contribute to rebalancing human population with Nature, if only by assisting other more usual *overshoot predators*.
Changes in american society are breathtaking. I am only wondering what for example AOC would achieve, should she becomes to be a new president or an important voice in american politics.
As per corporate parasites - these are preparing themselves for a final feeding frenzy on dead corpse of our civilization, and that will incidentally herald their own demise. Soon after finishing off the West they will be disbanded by mobs and replaced by mafias.
I can only hope that rest of the world will not embrace certain american social policies (China is likely to resist those) or we will all live in a sort of Third World hellholes in no time at all.

@Newfie,
All these peoples crying how disadvantaged they are, new transgender laws etc are clearly demonstrating that *progessivism* have gone too far and it is now firmly alligned with forces of entropy.
From what I observe, an intelligent public debate on the West is no longer possible.

@Onlooker,
Plutocracy you mention is a clever one. It works for the rich and yet it is overwhelmingly supported by the poor, what can be seen for example in California.
Eastern Europe like Poland where I live is still resisting decadence but most of Western Europe (and all Nordic countries) is about to go down the drain.
If I am a Swedish patriot, I would pray for a Russian military invasion ASAP, as a matter of urgency, as it is about the only hope to save native population from extinction.

@Pops,
Are you suggesting that avoiding watching certain sources of news will make problems discussed there disappearing or you are simply saying that it is all blown out of proportion and situation is not near that bad?
But I think, that peoples building favelas 5 minutes of drive from magnificent skyscrappers of beautiful city, shitting on the streets at will and entirely legally or falling down from drug overdose like flies in broad daylight is an example of cultural collapse.
Could you imagine such scenes 10-20-30 years ago? Homeless peoples were around all the time, but in the past they still had much more pride and dignity than now.

@Cog,
Left and right are cooperating with each other to destroy american nation.
Right is bombing some already hopelessly retarded countries to oblivion and also incite rebellions against few still coping governments there and left is embracing all resulting refugees and invites them into United States.
They are perfectly complimenting each other and work to the same ends.

[BahamasEd]

The pie is getting smaller, but no on one wants to take a smaller piece.

Therefore, if my piece stays the same or grows some, you have to go with a smaller piece or without any at all.

And it's not just in the USA, it's world wide.

Welcome to collapse, the slow version, enjoy.

[EnergyUnlimited]

The pie is getting smaller, but no on one wants to take a smaller piece.

Therefore, if my piece stays the same or grows some, you have to go with a smaller piece or without any at all.

And it's not just in the USA, it's world wide.

Welcome to collapse, the slow version, enjoy.

OK, we are at the limit of growth, KJ may not live to see an AI future or only some dystopian version of it, but for all what I can see the West in general and US in particular have elected to go down the drain voluntarily, without making a peep.
These suicidal policies are what amuses me. History offers no precedent.

[KaiserJeep]

I have to laugh. Sometimes the Doomies pile BS so deep you need chest waders.

In fact, never have so many enjoyed Middle Class comforts on this planet. Never has extreme poverty been as low as at present (10% is still 770 million, a serious problem).

For every income strata of society, things are slowly, incrementally improving. For those of you who forecast the future, be it with chicken bones, drill rig counts, or market statistics, note that there is no Doom on the entire visible horizon. Nor in the 9000 year History of human civilization has TEOTWAWKI ever actually happened. YES, individual countries have stumbled and fallen, but the World has persevered.

I know, most of you find the very concept intolerable - but I'll say it, never-the-less. The most likely future by far is one where the humans muddle through all forms of adversity, and become stronger as a race because of it. Because bad times for individual humans accelerate evolution, and we adapt and overcome whatever is before us, becoming a more dominant species in the ecosystem.

Last parting thought: Even if we completely screw up the planet itself, we already possess the knowledge and even the designs of self-sufficient space habitats. Even a dreamer such as Elon Musk, with his obsession with a colony on the surface of Mars, cannot think outside the box on this one.

[Pops]

Don't go promoting any false history here, either. The electoral college was created when there were but 13 colonies, and the purpose was to prevent the twelve smaller states from being overwhelmed by the larger one (Virginia) via the popular vote.

Virginians won 8 of the first 9 presidencies due to the 3/5s compromise and the electoral college. Without the scheme it would have been outvoted by the other states because of course slaves can't vote but counted at 3/5s in apportionment they added the winning margin. So even in your inverse telling it was a failure.

Don't "invite me to read." If you have a point, cite it.
Here are a couple of examples of how to do that.
Madison wrote in #10 of his fear of "factions" which are groups

united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.”

Madison was of course referring to mobs (factions) who protested against the economic policies passed by wealthy legislators that forced farmers into poverty and foreclosure. See Shay's Rebellion.

“A pure democracy, by which I mean a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction,”

Considering they settled on a plan that only allowed white men of property to vote, and even these to only vote for "electors" and not directly, it is pretty easy to see the "interest of the community" centered even higher up the food chain.

In more recent history, in Gray v. Sanders SCOTUS held that every person should have approximately equal representation: one person one vote

The Fifteenth Amendment prohibits a State from denying or abridging a Negro’s right to vote. The Nineteenth Amendment does the same for women. If a State in a statewide election weighed the male vote more heavily than the female vote or the white vote more heavily than the Negro vote, none could successfully contend that that discrimination was allowable…. How then can one person be given twice or 10 times the voting power of another…because he lives in a rural area or because he lives in the smallest rural county?

In 2015 in Evenwel_v._Abbott SCOTUS found essentially the same, that states can only define districts based on total population, limiting it one way or another would have the effect of making some votes worth more than others.

The electoral college gives some votes more weight that other, up to 3 to 1, which is obviously unconstitutional in light of just two precedents.


Sorry, I knew this would send the thread off track... split it if you want.

[Pops]

@Pops,
Are you suggesting that avoiding watching certain sources of news will make problems discussed there disappearing or you are simply saying that it is all blown out of proportion and situation is not near that bad?
But I think, that peoples building favelas 5 minutes of drive from magnificent skyscrappers of beautiful city, shitting on the streets at will and entirely legally or falling down from drug overdose like flies in broad daylight is an example of cultural collapse.
Could you imagine such scenes 10-20-30 years ago? Homeless peoples were around all the time, but in the past they still had much more pride and dignity than now.

No, not ignore it, but understand the motivations of your sources. One source will point to favelas as the fault of the lazy residents, the ineffectual government, rampant immigration. Another source will point to lack of mental health care and drug treatment, affordable housing, gentrification, job opportunity / living wage.

The answer is somewhere in the middle, but siloing is the media business model, where once it was broadcasting it is now narrowcasting.

[EnergyUnlimited]

Last parting thought: Even if we completely screw up the planet itself, we already possess the knowledge and even the designs of self-sufficient space habitats. Even a dreamer such as Elon Musk, with his obsession with a colony on the surface of Mars, cannot think outside the box on this one.

Knowledge is of not much use without means to exercise it.
Before we move to live in space habitats it is wise to practice resilience by persevering with clearing up human poo from the streets of cities near you.
Failing that, there is really no hope to conquer a space. That would require rather more far planning society.
Mind you, few years in space and you are reduced to irradiated plant unable to stand on planetary surface without exoskeleton. I wonder what would happen after few generations...

[KaiserJeep]

Interesting reading, Pops. Certainly, I was invested in some "electoral myths".

But I found an absolutely valid reason to retain the Electoral College: HRC was the fifth Democratic candidate for POTUS to be denied the office by the EC.

If you don't like it, why don't you start a movement to amend the Constitution? That should be about as popular as the Equal Rights Amendment, which failed ratification and denied gender equality to women.

Still (I know this one hurts a lot) No Doom in sight anywhere.

[Pops]

Yes, all the slaves in RI and NJ and DE.

Come on Pops. You are demonstrating what is wrong with America. You are stuck in a partisan groove, by your own admission stuck in the media you yourself trash. WTF. You exactly fit the paradigm of those you say we should ignore.

That you uniformly disagree with everything I post doesn't make me a partisan, it simply makes you less the open minded independant you fancy yourself.

For many years I was a left leaning, pro-government D. After gingrich and McConnell, the coalescing of the parties, and geo-sorting I realised that there would no longer be compromise. You aren't looking for compromise either, it's just a tagline.

So ignore me.

[EnergyUnlimited]

No, not ignore it, but understand the motivations of your sources. One source will point to favelas as the fault of the lazy residents, the ineffectual government, rampant immigration. Another source will point to lack of mental health care and drug treatment, affordable housing, gentrification, job opportunity / living wage.

The answer is somewhere in the middle, but siloing is the media business model, where once it was broadcasting it is now narrowcasting.

Pops,
I have concentrated my attention on emerging problem (cultural collapse), not on solutions offered by different sources.
Problem is obviously there and solutions... these are only domain of talk and no action.
Acid tests for possible solutions may come after first plague outbreak in SF or LA.

[Pops]

Interesting reading, Pops. Certainly, I was invested in some "electoral myths".

But I found an absolutely valid reason to retain the Electoral College: HRC was the fifth Democratic candidate for POTUS to be denied the office by the EC.

If you don't like it, why don't you start a movement to amend the Constitution? That should be about as popular as the Equal Rights Amendment, which failed ratification and denied gender equality to women.

Still (I know this one hurts a lot) No Doom in sight anywhere.

Kudos KJ! makes the effort worthwhile for once

Actually there was an amendment almost passed to dump the EC back in the '60s sometime. Passed overwhelmingly by the house, it was ironically a D, Strom Thurmond I think, that defeated it.

More likely the demise will be a coalition of large states whos electors will pledge to vote with the national majority. its called National Popular Vote Interstate Compact or something similarly catchy.

[KaiserJeep]

The EC came about in 1787 and has withstood all attempts at change at the Federal level. The reason being that it leaves most of the important decisions to the States. The disparity in outcomes between the EC and the popular vote comes about at the state level, because in 48 states, there are "winner take all" provisions. Only Nebraska and Maine cast EC votes in proportion to popular votes - and these decisions were made by state legislators.

[Ibon]

I think regardless of political ideology there should be a consensus that there is enough abundance in the USA to be able to address some of the issues discussed here as regarding the degeneration of the USA.

How interelated for example three of the most egregious problems; The opiod addiction, homelessness and a failed health care industry.

When you consider that the opiod crisis became a crisis because of disenfranchised citizens under stress, that many of the homeless are actually suffering mental health issues and that the for profit health care system has left many folks under insured or un insured then you can see how these three issues have created a synergistic affect that has accelerated the degeneration.

And none of this is because of resource constraints or an over crowded world or climate change. These issues are not partisan or racial or urban vs rural... They are problems that sweep through all demographics and all ideological backgrounds.

So when confronted with the severity of these issues you really do have to ask yourself why all this divisiveness?

Who is to benefit from the stalemate?

Why have we become so jaded and uncaring that these enormous and fixable issues take second place to staying locked into your ideological tribe.

There is a spiritual deficit in the USA. I think the discussion starts from there.

[onlooker]

"
In fact, never have so many enjoyed Middle Class comforts on this planet. Never has extreme poverty been as low as at present (10% is still 770 million, a serious problem). 

For every income strata of society, things are slowly, incrementally improving. For those of you who forecast the future, be it with chicken bones, drill rig counts, or market statistics, note that there is no Doom on the entire visible horizon."

It is the height of folly to believe no Doom on the horizon. Our world Economy and overpopulation is producing tremendously negative impact to the Environment. That the Environment continues to function adequately in many cases only attests to the resilience. But, tipping points are by many accounts approaching and we are running out of resources to sustain even a fraction of our world population. But, this is straying from the topic. The US and other rich countries by virtue of stealing resources and a huge balance of economic throughput from the poor countries still can maintain modern industrial consumer economies. But, it is telling that the same deviant mindframe that espouses our "dominance" and "technology" has also created such inequality and injustice in this world of which the US is a place that certainly can attest to that. So, Kaiser would have you believe that never have so many enjoyed Middle Class lifestyles but he does not reveal that never have so many poor existed either on Earth. Poor in absolute terms and poor in terms of being exploited for their labor by the Owners of Capital.

[dissident]

In hindsight we may see the current unhinging of the political space in the developed world as part of the looming collapse. Subconsciously humans know that no party can last. All their brazen denial and ignoring of the truth are really admissions of the reality of the threat. Faced with real end times, well off humans start to engage in debauchery and to avoid engaging their brains. This is what we see with all the snowflake mobs. They refuse to use their brains and instead engage in feel-good violence. Next step is for the physical violence to get worse. There will never be enough dopamine stimulus from brainless rampaging.

It may well be that civilization collapses before the exogenous shocks of cheap energy decline and climate change hit the hardest. All the expectation of rational response to these shocks is probably ignorant of the reality of human behaviour.

[Newfie]

Yes, all the slaves in RI and NJ and DE.

Come on Pops. You are demonstrating what is wrong with America. You are stuck in a partisan groove, by your own admission stuck in the media you yourself trash. WTF. You exactly fit the paradigm of those you say we should ignore.

That you uniformly disagree with everything I post doesn't make me a partisan, it simply makes you less the open minded independant you fancy yourself.

For many years I was a left leaning, pro-government D. After gingrich and McConnell, the coalescing of the parties, and geo-sorting I realised that there would no longer be compromise. You aren't looking for compromise either, it's just a tagline.

So ignore me.

Since you don’t address my points I take it your line of defense is to simply run away.

And I far from uniformly disageee with everything you say. But you take it very personally when I do.

Your historical ramblings about the Electorial College are interesting but, as the system is different today, then we should discuss it as it applies today when we have universal sufferage. Elsewise you are just engaging in more white guilt.

So TODAY the EC provides for Electorial votes proportionate to the representation in the senate and the house. This is to allow for the more populace states to have a greater voice while also allowing the smaller states to not be totally overshadowed. To revert to simply popular vote would be to undermine the Great Compromise which without which the constitution would not be. To repeal the EC would be a tremendous undermining of states rights. You may not care but others do.

Setting that aside, I believe there is an even greater reason to retain the EC. By having the EC as it stands it limits the number of jurisdictions that can be called into question during any election. For example Florida in Bush v Gore. The debate was limited to a single jurisdiction, Florida.

In a straight up popular vote, when every vote counts in ever jurisdiction you would end up with hundreds of jurisdictions being challenged ancross the nation. Any Presidential election that was not close would end up in a legal melee that could last for years.

Lots of folks talk about a straight popular vote but I’ve not heard on proposition that proposes a method of implementing it that assures a clean election. My bet is that the first popular Presidential election will be our last.