Memes Official Meme Discussion Thread

[mal3volent]

except, of the two senators currently representing montana, one is a republican and the other is a democrat...

your comments make you appear rather agitated. i am - and as far as i can tell deru is also - simply discussing the current state of affairs. i'm not saying the system is perfect nor am i arguing other, more representative, systems wouldn't be an improvement.

alasdair

this post illustrates how desperate you are. "Montana" was simply an example, I didn't give a seconds thought to the actual parties represented by Montana's Senators. The fact that you would pretend this makes any difference whatsoever, proves how disingenuous your argument is.

Why should state A that has 1/40th of the population of State B have an equal representation in the United States Senate?

 

[alasdairm]

I didn't give a seconds thought to the actual parties represented by Montana's Senators.

apparently.

you chose to use it as an example of how "They go as Republicans to add to the other Republicans" when that's not the case.

i'm neither desperate nor disingenuous because i wasn't discussing "why should...". i was discussing "why does..."

alasdair

 

[Deru]

I guess , to make it absolutely fundamental, why should one persons opinion count for more than another's, based on where they live geographically?

if it's complex, please take your time and explain it to me

At it's more fundamental, broken down, ideal scenario (which is impossible), it should all be equal.

Sometimes when paper meets reality, reality kicks paper in the balls. How can you realistically give an equal voice to all 320+ million citizens? You can't. Our system does a damn good job of keeping everyone's quantitative "will" value around 1 (hence the reason for my tolerance analogy.). If some people count for 0.8 and some people count for 1.3, it's never absolute, but it's within tolerance, and the individuals are represented better than trying to give everyone a baseline of 1. At some point, when something exceeds tolerance, like let's say individuals are down to 0.3 while others are at 2.1, then the checks and balances should kick in and policy changes should theoretically happen.

A good instance of this is how some peoples' vote in the election have slightly more value than others. It can't be perfect.

i'm not saying the system is perfect nor am i arguing other, more representative, systems wouldn't be an improvement.

Couldn't have said it better myself. I'm not arguing for or against either way, I'm assessing the realities of the system and then asking: what's the better solution? I know there is one, of course. I just don't know what that would look like to achieve the same product, our country.

 

[Deru]

Damn... I lost this well thought out paragraph I wrote about modifying a singular process and having uninteded consequences elsewhere. So, that summary will have to do

What benefit does the current system provide that a 100% representative government couldn't provide?

It's an ideal intersection between perfect and reality. That's not to say it's perfect and can't be better, of course.

If three million more people wanted Hillary as President, what justification do you give Trump to override the will of the majority of US Citizens ?

Trump didn't override anything, though? But, I'll just add this because it wouldn't be complete without it, Trump is the absolute worst human being ever and is destroying this country.

 

[mal3volent]

i'm neither desperate nor disingenuous because i wasn't discussing "why should...". i was discussing "why does..."

The conversation has always been why should, not why does. This time and the last time we had this conversation.

Then, inevitably, your argument reduces to "well of course it isn't fair, but it is what it is", essentially.

you chose to use it as an example of how "They go as Republicans to add to the other Republicans" when that's not the case.

This is typically what someone does when they want to distract from the actual discussion. It doesn't matter if they're both Republicans or not. My point was , two dems, two repubs, or one of each, they go to Washington to add to their party's number. That's what modern politics is. The idea that they go though there and have Montana on their mind everyday is ridiculous.

your comments make you appear rather agitated. i am - and as far as i can tell deru is also - simply discussing the current state of affairs. i'm not saying the system is perfect nor am i arguing other, more representative, systems wouldn't be an improvement.

Wait... you said we could "solve the problem" by having a bicameral system. Now after arguing that I'm wrong, you say a more representative government would be better? Here's an idea of how to achieve a more representative government: get rid of the part that isn't representative. Leave the part that is. The Senate is unfair and grotesque.

 

[alasdairm]

The conversation has always been why should, not why does

i disagree. deru is also discussing, at least in part, 'why does': "I'm not arguing for or against either way, I'm assessing the realities of the system"

It doesn't matter if they're both Republicans or not.

well, you explicitly said republicans so it read like you were making a partisan point.

The idea that they go though there and have Montana on their mind everyday is ridiculous.

i didn't say anything about senators focusing on state issues everyday. but i also don't think it's ridiculous to believe that there are senators who take their elected responsibility seriously and advocate for their constituencies, some more than others.

you said we could "solve the problem" by having a bicameral system.

yeah, maybe i could have worded that better. it's not the solution. it's maybe not even a solution. but i believe it was a well-intentioned attempt to bring some balance.

get rid of the part that isn't representative. Leave the part that is. The Senate is unfair and grotesque.

ok. you have made that clear. so how does that happen in practice?

alasdair

 

[Deru]

I'll try to explain this different:

My whole analogy was a long way of saying I'm not convinced, in reality, not emphasising rural areas is a bad thing. I'm not convinced the system needs to be changed.

I think it's good to have a slight bias toward rural areas, because "the product" works and it allows as close as realistically possible to give everyone that value of "1". I think it was built to be exactly as functioning. I think if you changed the system, too quickly without great scrutiny of downstream effects, the slightly biased portion you want changed is a great component in allowing our country to be what it is and could have disastrous consequences.

 

[alasdairm]

i see this doing the rounds but, again, can find no record of his actually saying this, or anything even close to this.

indeed, biden recently condemned that kind of violence at the end of august. he said "i want to be very clear about all of this: rioting is not protesting. looting is not protesting. setting fires is not protesting. none of this is protesting. it's lawlessness, plain and simple. And those who do it should be prosecuted..." then "violence will not bring change, it will only bring destruction. It's wrong in every way."

so is it funny? how? i would seriously love to understand this.

alasdair

 

[Deru]

My guess is it's play on words when he made his comment to black people if they didn't vote for him, they're not black, or whatever awkward comment he made during that interview. Can't remember exact verbiage.

 

[alasdairm]

well, if so, i guess it would be somewhat humorous if he hadn't clearly and unequivocally condemned rioting and looting...

alasdair

 

[Deru]

Yeah, I've heard multiple spins on that original comment so far. Doesn't surprise me to hear another one.

 

[alasdairm]

right. i guess it's more a comment on rioters than it is on biden.

and they say the left can't meme

alasdair

 

[mal3volent]

because "the product" works

agree to disagree.

so how does that happen in practice?

it doesn't, because they don't want it to.

 

[alasdairm]

^ so you might say it's not fair but it is what it is?

alasdair

 

[Deru]

agree to disagree.

I'm definitely not saying there isn't a better way.

Let's say, for instance, we eliminate the Senate, as I believe was the suggestion (if it's not, my apologies.) How does that look in practice? Do you see any uninteded consequences to doing this?

Just because I'm not convinced yet, doesn't mean I can't be

 

[mal3volent]

I might be missing something, but it seems pretty easy to me.

Any bill that passes through the house goes to the President and he signs it or vetoes.

also 100 additional asswipes get added to the unemployment numbers.

 

[alasdairm]

^ in that case, 8 states could pass anything and the other 42 would have no say. that seems to just swap one problem for another...

alasdair

 

[mal3volent]

^in that case, 8 states could pass anything and the other 42 would have no say. that seems to just swap one problem for another...

alasdair

you do realize that "states" are meaningless, made up boundaries on a map, right? What matters is the people inside the states. And each of those people are equal, regardless of which side of a line they live on.

does your statement sound less dramatic if you phrase it like, "in that case, 164 million people could pass anything and the other 163 million others would have no say." ?

that is leaving aside the fact that your statement is fundamentally untrue. The minority party in the house would still have significant influence in deciding which bills make it to a final vote on the floor.

its just, when those bills pass, they wouldn't get stuck in a completely bogus 2nd phase that prevents our country from progressing with the rest of the world.

 

[Deru]

That's the problem, as I was alluding to in my analogy. These issues almost never have a simple solution. Sometimes the most absurd things alone are necessary to make a bigger system function.

 

[Deru]

you do realize that "states" are meaningless, made up boundaries on a map, right? What matters is the people inside the states. And each of those people are equal, regardless of which side of a line they live on.

Except it's nowhere near this simple. States don't have an even proportion of individuals per state .. You would have to completely overhaul the House, too.

I'm going to stick with my original analogy, I ran into this issue 10,000+ times in my career. People want to fix this seemingly inefficient process and before you know it the whole overall process is a disaster.