(12-13-2016 10:27 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(12-13-2016 09:07 PM)solohawks Wrote:  

(12-13-2016 07:25 PM)john01992 Wrote:  problem is everyone has opted to go with the winner takes all system. one of many changes that has developed after the EC was orginally created.

I think I'm still on ignore but are you saying you would prefer the Maine/Nebraska style plan for electoral votes over winner take all?

I like that idea. It makes every state relevant that has more than 1 US representative.

that idea is basically the EC on steroids. so no. Maine/Nebraska get away with it because they don't have major urban centers which skews the whole thing. do it in virginia in 2012 and romney despite losing the popular vote in VA wins 9 of its 11 EC votes. they have done studies on this question based on the 2012 results and found that Obama needed to win the popular vote by 10 million votes in order to narrowly win the electoral college under that system.

(12-13-2016 11:01 PM)john01992 Wrote:  

(12-13-2016 10:27 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(12-13-2016 09:07 PM)solohawks Wrote:  

(12-13-2016 07:25 PM)john01992 Wrote:  problem is everyone has opted to go with the winner takes all system. one of many changes that has developed after the EC was orginally created.

I think I'm still on ignore but are you saying you would prefer the Maine/Nebraska style plan for electoral votes over winner take all?

I like that idea. It makes every state relevant that has more than 1 US representative.

that idea is basically the EC on steroids. so no. Maine/Nebraska get away with it because they don't have major urban centers which skews the whole thing. do it in virginia in 2012 and romney despite losing the popular vote in VA wins 9 of its 11 EC votes. they have done studies on this question based on the 2012 results and found that Obama needed to win the popular vote by 10 million votes in order to narrowly win the electoral college under that system.

Well if California and New York as states really wanted attention they would change their model.

I think they don't really want the attention as states. I believe they want their big urban centers to dominate even more than they already do

(12-13-2016 07:26 PM)john01992 Wrote:  

(12-13-2016 07:25 PM)JMUDunk Wrote:  

(12-13-2016 06:56 PM)john01992 Wrote:  

(12-13-2016 06:40 PM)Kaplony Wrote:  

(12-13-2016 06:13 PM)john01992 Wrote:  it makes no sense. no other country has it. no the founders did not forsee it because they current system is pre urbanization, and suffered a century of changes to voting rules and technological advances that makes the modern EC incomparable to the orginal system.

jefferson would have hated it.

Two things.

#1 - The United States isn't another country. We are our own country with our own rules and that's why we are the beacon of the free world. The election laws have been in place as is since the Constitution was ratified. You may not like it but it doesn't change the fact that it is the law.

#2 If you honestly think Jefferson, the consummate supporter of the rural, agrarian lifestyle, would want a system where NY and CA alone could decide every election then there is absolutely no point in continuing this conversation with you. What I suggest is you actually do some research into Jefferson's actual writings and beliefs before you start spouting your interpretations of what he would and wouldn't believe.

http://www.lewis-clark.org/article/1749

Quote:"The mobs of great cities add just so much to the support of pure government, as sores do to the strength of the human body." It's why he disliked Federalists: "They all live in cities."

Yeah, that sounds like the thought process of someone who would be happy to hand the election of the President over to urban areas.

Jefferson had more integrity than you do. he disliked personally living in cities and did not want to see the industrial revolution expand to america. but no he did not believe in his generation enslaving future generations with examples such as the 2A and the EC being forced on our generation. he wanted future generations to decide for themselves on those issues. that's why he only wanted the constitution to last 20 years and for it to be renewed. the idea that "the FF wanted it this way so we must do it that way" is as anti jeffersonian as it gets.

Hamilton (jefferson's rival) was the supporter of the EC whereas Madison (jeffersons friend and fellow Virginian) was against it. So do you really want to argue where Jefferson stood on this?

You mean a couple of those "rednecks from bum**** nowhere"?!?

so you deny the existence of rednecks?

Sorry we messed up your Hillary Rodham party

(12-13-2016 02:12 PM)200yrs2late Wrote:  The 5 counties that make up NYC plus Philadelphia County in PA cover her 2 million vote lead in the popular vote. I guess those 6 counties are the "shining city on the hill" to libs.

Sounds like a plan for redistricting !

(12-13-2016 06:13 PM)john01992 Wrote:  

(12-13-2016 06:09 PM)Fo Shizzle Wrote:  

(12-13-2016 06:01 PM)john01992 Wrote:  

(12-13-2016 05:58 PM)Kaplony Wrote:  

(12-13-2016 05:43 PM)john01992 Wrote:  trump lost the PV embarrassingly.

That's like losing a game 17-6 and claiming the victory because you had more passing yards. Congrats I guess but you still lost where it counts.

it's more like losing a game where in the first inning a run counts for 2 pts, half a point in the second, 4 pts in the 3rd...

and has a scoring system is retarded that literally no one else plays the game this way because it makes no sense.

It makes perfect sense. Personally... I don't want the asswipes in the major cities being able to decide every damn election..and the founders foresaw a possibility that concentrated populations could do that...but...You knew that already.

it makes no sense. no other country has it. no the founders did not forsee it because they current system is pre urbanization, and suffered a century of changes to voting rules and technological advances that makes the modern EC incomparable to the orginal system.

jefferson would have hated it.

BS.....So what?....BS again...and again...So what? Deal with it John. It is not going to change just because you did not get the result you wanted.

(12-13-2016 11:01 PM)john01992 Wrote:  that idea is basically the EC on steroids. so no. Maine/Nebraska get away with it because they don't have major urban centers which skews the whole thing. do it in virginia in 2012 and romney despite losing the popular vote in VA wins 9 of its 11 EC votes. they have done studies on this question based on the 2012 results and found that Obama needed to win the popular vote by 10 million votes in order to narrowly win the electoral college under that system.

You know it almost sounds like we have the best possible system in place already.

(12-13-2016 06:13 PM)john01992 Wrote:  it makes no sense. no other country has it. no the founders did not forsee it because they current system is pre urbanization, and suffered a century of changes to voting rules and technological advances that makes the modern EC incomparable to the orginal system.

jefferson would have hated it.

I disagree that he would have hated it, and you can't prove that he would. All you're doing is assigning your opinion to someone else and then attempting to give it more weight as a result.

It's not true that we didn't have urbanization. It was merely defined differently.

Certainly you wouldn't compare 'urban' Philadelphia, Pa in 1780 to 'rural' Georgia in 1780?

Best I can tell, Philly was around 40,000 people and NY 25,000 in 1780, so there were certainly far fewer people represented by each elector, but the entire state of Ga only had 35,000 people. VA and PA both had over 300,000. Of course as we added states, many of them had even smaller populations for quite some time.

That 35k/300k ratio is not meaningfully different from a state with 1mm people versus a state with 10mm people.... or even (in the case of newer states with say 10k people) a modern state with 40mm people

the difference in size between the big states and small states is similar from back then to today. but not urbanization. to deny the trend of urbanization is akin to denying gravity.

Fo: you don't just "get over it." every time it happens our democratic process is undermined and we are one step closer to a crisis. you don't see it because it benefits your side.

"I disagree that he would have hated it, and you can't prove that he would."

and you can't prove he wouldn't. the evidence leans towards him being unfavorable to it and notice how the core of my argument is his 20 year limit philosophy. the idea of we must do something in 2016 because that's what the FF decided in the 1700s is at conflict with one of his core beliefs.

(12-13-2016 06:13 PM)john01992 Wrote:  it makes no sense. no other country has it. no the founders did not forsee it because they current system is pre urbanization, and suffered a century of changes to voting rules and technological advances that makes the modern EC incomparable to the orginal system.
jefferson would have hated it.

There are many things that we have in our form of government that no other country has, and on balance they have served us well. As a general rule, countries that elect their chief executives indirectly have fared better than those that do it directly.

Obviously, all parliamentary systems elect their head of government indirectly. I wonder what would happen if, instead of having independent electors, we selected the president by a vote of the incoming house and senate.

(12-14-2016 04:37 PM)john01992 Wrote:  the difference in size between the big states and small states is similar from back then to today. but not urbanization. to deny the trend of urbanization is akin to denying gravity.

You're arguing in the absurd. 'What you call it' or 'what the gross numbers are' don't make any difference.
The ratios aren't meaningfully different.... so the impact upon the votes is not meaningfully different. We just defined urbanization as having 5 people per acre and Rural as having 1 person per 50 acres... and now it's 50 people per acre in urban areas and 1 person per 5 acres in rural.

(12-14-2016 04:39 PM)john01992 Wrote:  "I disagree that he would have hated it, and you can't prove that he would."

and you can't prove he wouldn't. the evidence leans towards him being unfavorable to it and notice how the core of my argument is his 20 year limit philosophy. the idea of we must do something in 2016 because that's what the FF decided in the 1700s is at conflict with one of his core beliefs.

I'm not trying to prove it. I'm not trying to increase the weight of my opinion by linking it with someone else. You are... and again here. That's your opinion that he would support your opinion. Proof of nothing.

George Washington, Alexander Hamilton AND John Adams would have agreed with me.

FTR, we arrived 'where we are' not because of the opinions of one person, but because of the opinions of a group of people... One that has ebbed and flowed over the centuries... but the people we're talking about didn't just appear one day and disappear the next... they impacted the government for quite some time. It's unrelated otherwise, but the best example that the FF's didn't require membership in a militia as a requirement for owning a gun is that for the decades after the revolution and for 200+ years since, no such requirement was EVER put in place. That doesn't mean that ONE of them didn't want that... but it DOES mean that 'we the people' never intended that.

To come in now and argue that this was the 'original intent' is to fly in the face of 240 years of practice. Surely you don't believe it was the NRA in 1800 that kept the government from registering people's weapons?

there's this thing called urbanization built largely on this thing called the industrial revolution: one of the most commonly taught themes in history classes. this is getting close to denying gravity hammy.

**Through most of history, the human population has lived a rural lifestyle, dependent on agriculture and hunting for survival. In 1800, only 3 percent of the world's population lived in urban areas. By 1900, almost 14 percent were urbanites, although only 12 cities had 1 million or more inhabitants. In 1950, 30 percent of the world's population resided in urban centers. The number of cities with over 1 million people had grown to 83.**

**The world has experienced unprecedented urban growth in recent decades. In 2008, for the first time, the world's population was evenly split between urban and rural areas. There were more than 400 cities over 1 million and 19 over 10 million. More developed nations were about 74 percent urban, while 44 percent of residents of less developed countries lived in urban areas. However, urbanization is occurring rapidly in many less developed countries. It is expected that 70 percent of the world population will be urban by 2050, and that most urban growth will occur in less developed countries.**

I'm glad Jefferson lost the 20 year limit argument it would have been disastrous. Just like how Hamilton lost key arguments which had he won, would have been disastrous as well. most of the FF all had very polarizing ideas and their ability to find the middle ground is what made things work. but the point remains. the idea that simply because the FF wrote it means future generations have to abide by it is 100% against the thinking of jefferson. while jefferson was wrong in the sense that with a limit the Union and govt would falter he was correct that certain issues would see one generation enslave a future generation with an arbitrary concept that we must follow simply because "the FF decided to make things that way and thus we must follow it." The EC and 2A are prime examples.

(12-14-2016 06:02 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(12-13-2016 06:13 PM)john01992 Wrote:  it makes no sense. no other country has it. no the founders did not forsee it because they current system is pre urbanization, and suffered a century of changes to voting rules and technological advances that makes the modern EC incomparable to the orginal system.
jefferson would have hated it.

There are many things that we have in our form of government that no other country has, and on balance they have served us well. As a general rule, countries that elect their chief executives indirectly have fared better than those that do it directly.

Obviously, all parliamentary systems elect their head of government indirectly. I wonder what would happen if, instead of having independent electors, we selected the president by a vote of the incoming house and senate.

if you want to talk "general rule" then the general rule is that when we are the lone exception on some issue, it's usually because we are supporting a bad idea, concept, policy, etc.

if congress elected the POTUS the GOP would never lose another election again. in 2012 the dems won 1.5 million more votes but the GOP won 33 more seats. the cons gerrymandered things so bad that any notion of having fair elections using congressional districts is asinine.

(12-14-2016 06:19 PM)john01992 Wrote:  there's this thing called urbanization built largely on this thing called the industrial revolution: one of the most commonly taught themes in history classes. this is getting close to denying gravity hammy.

Jesus.... PLEASE just stop.

My comment has to do with your still as of yet unproven claim that had they considered urbanization, that they would have done something else. You honestly haven't even tried to support that claim.

Here is what you said....

Quote:it makes no sense. no other country has it. no the founders did not forsee it because they current system is pre urbanization, and suffered a century of changes to voting rules and technological advances that makes the modern EC incomparable to the orginal system.

Since the EC is based on 2 points... 1, a weighting of the votes based on population and 2, a smaller, but not inconsequential reward for winning more states as opposed to simply winning more people...

There is ZERO evidence that 'the industrial revolution' has made this incomparable... as only the magnitude of population per representative (and also, per state) has changed.

You're right that no other country has it... but those that have SIMILAR systems (bicameral government) usually don't vote for President at all. I've suggested similar, but it essentially requires having more than 2 parties as opposed to those parties being an afterthought. I'd note that if we put Stein's votes on the left and Johnson's on the right, you STILL have a Republican majority and 'coalition' President who leans right. It might not be Trump, but it probably wouldn't have been Clinton either (either of them)

(12-14-2016 06:25 PM)john01992 Wrote:  

(12-14-2016 06:02 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(12-13-2016 06:13 PM)john01992 Wrote:  it makes no sense. no other country has it. no the founders did not forsee it because they current system is pre urbanization, and suffered a century of changes to voting rules and technological advances that makes the modern EC incomparable to the orginal system.
jefferson would have hated it.

There are many things that we have in our form of government that no other country has, and on balance they have served us well. As a general rule, countries that elect their chief executives indirectly have fared better than those that do it directly.
Obviously, all parliamentary systems elect their head of government indirectly. I wonder what would happen if, instead of having independent electors, we selected the president by a vote of the incoming house and senate.

if you want to talk "general rule" then the general rule is that when we are the lone exception on some issue, it's usually because we are supporting a bad idea, concept, policy, etc.
if congress elected the POTUS the GOP would never lose another election again. in 2012 the dems won 1.5 million more votes but the GOP won 33 more seats. the cons gerrymandered things so bad that any notion of having fair elections using congressional districts is asinine.

The fact that you don't agree with something does not make that thing nonsensical or asinine or idiotic or any of the other adjectives that you have used. You have a different opinion. That's it. Period.