US Senate: as undemocratic and archaic as Electoral College

[BentBow]

Originally Posted by edsg25

US Senate: as undemocratic and archaic as Electoral College

The Senate has changed how States place Senators, during Woodrow Wilson's term.


I say go back to the legislature of the States house appoint them, to represent the States agenda.


The People already choose the House, to represent them.
You do know why Senators were appointed for a 6 year term, and Representatives were elected for a 2 year term. Right? There was a good reason for that.

[Originalist]

Originally Posted by Yeledaf

Vote thus far: 53-5 against.

Sanity reigns.

You know what?


It is this kind of result that gives me hope that sanity does reign supreme.


We have to remember that the lunatics make the most noise. Sometimes it makes common sense seem uncommon. In the long run, we all what's best for everyone - regardless of skin color, sex, heritage, religion, orientation, party.


In a perfect world, everyone would tolerate imperfection - me

[Oklazona Bound]

Originally Posted by edsg25

"one nation, under God"....of course, that wasn't added until 1954 when we felt the need to distinguish ourselves from the godless, ef-fin commies in the Soviet Union (I'm sure that someone, maybe Joe McCarthy, also wanted to make the US flag blue and white for....um...obvious reasons. I'm also sure you think we liberals, progressive, leftists, Democrats actually loved those Reds....news flash: we didn't)

The current Democrat party is has the same anti-russia hysteria that the McCarthyism era had. Before it was communism now its just a fear of Russia. And by the way I am a Libertarian Atheist. I don't agree with god being used anywhere in government. But its there because our two "wonderful" parties (in reality one big party) made it that way. And the pledge in its current form before god was added was put together by a socialist in 1892.

Originally Posted by edsg25

I would suppose they could have added "democratic" to the pledge, but think how awkward "and to the democratic republic for which it stands" sounds. However, we are in reality a democratic republicans. Kind of neat, TulsaTucson, don't you think, as our only two major parties are called the Democrats and the Republicans. And even more pertinent, the oldest (by far) party that still exists today and has its roots in the earliest days of the democracy...er.....republic.....er....land grab from the native Americans....er....giant slave plantation with all that free labor.....was one you love....the Democrats who at the time were the (yep, here we go again with every text alteration) the Democratic-Republicans

Again its all semantics. You are free to call us a democracy if it helps you sleep better at night. Perhaps because to you it sounds more like the name of your party. Good for you. I hope for the day when we are a Libertarian nation not under god but under the great people of this country. But most people are ignorant sheep and will fall in like with the Democan or Republicrat party.

Originally Posted by edsg25

Nothing personal, but our pledge might have worked better if it said "One nation, under our diversity, with Arizhoma's words invisible, with liberty and justice to all (white, black, hispanic Asian, male, female, straight, gay, etc.) By the way....your two states didn't even make it into the union until the 20th century...who are you to speak (at least New Mexico, Alaska and Hawaii have the decency to keep their mouths shut. just kidding')

Of course, even "In god we trust" didn't make it onto coinage (or anything) until the Civil War era and I'm sure, no doubt, that the founding father were turning over in their graves when that one became a reality.

I was born in California. Spent most of my life there. I don't know what you are trying to infer from my name on CD. Since you don't know me or anything about me you just make things up. The two states I have put together are where most of my income properties are located. I have a fondness for places that make me lots of money.

Originally Posted by edsg25

Yes, Ok, I realize we are a republic. You can't have a democracy with 300,000,000+ million we have in the US today. You couldn't even have it with the 4,000,000 folks we had in 1787. Democracies can not exist unless you have few enough people to fit in one place.

I realized we're going nowhere in a hurry on this thread as we ride this hell in a hand basket. But I'm bite on this one again...

Why are you accusing me of identifying the parts and the function of the US government? They are irrelevant to me here....and are not even a part of the discussion.

I can take the US Constitution, ask one to imagine it were the Constitution of, say, India, or Brazil, or Germany, and ask quite simply, by my suggestion of restructuring the Senate make the name (any nation) more democratic.

We could be a democracy but are not because the founding fathers which you keep referring to in your reply did not want it that way. A direct democracy opens up the possibility of mob rule. That the whims of the majority can harm those in the minority. Now that happens even in a republic of course but in theory its muted to some degree with a republic. But I get it because the current senate benefits the republicans flipping it to be more like the house will mean the democrats will control it. Your goal with this is to gain political control nothing else.

Originally Posted by edsg25

So you are arguing with me about issues I've never raised. All I wanted to know was this:

WOULD RESTRUCTURING THE U.S. SENATE WITH MY PLAN SERVE TO MAKE THE CONSTITUTION MORE DEMOCRATIC?

That's it. Period. And you don't even have to think making it more democratic is a good thing. No one says it should be....and the question posed was only for those who place a high value on democratic principles.

No it would not be more democratic. You would still have representatives voting for your interests, or more specifically the interests of special interest groups and big donors behind the scenes. Neither party or the politicians of each party cares about anything else than power and what benefits each elected official. The rest is just lip service to keep people like you in line. Both parties are fine splitting control of the country and keeping any insurgent parties out of the situation. They can pretend to hate and fight with each other in congress yet all members in congress from both parties have much more in common with each other than someone like you or me. They just need us for the votes. Yes occasionally there are those elected that really want to do something be it AOC or Ron Paul or Dennis Kucinich as examples. At one point Bernie Sanders or some might say Trump. But the powers that be control what really happens and fundamental change never happens. So even Trump with all his bloviating has learned not to bite the military industrial hand that feeds him.

Changing the senate, it would create a tyranny of the majority of which the senate balances. Its not a democracy when those with ideals that don't fit the majority are not heard. That does nothing to make us more democratic. At the moment doing so would benefit your democrats. But the pendulum of politics is always swinging back and forth and in time whatever short term gains you get will get erased by the eventual republican majority. That is not the recipe for a stable republic. But you don't care about that you just want your party to have more political control, very short sighted.

Originally Posted by edsg25

You can't even listen to me or consider anything I say because I am on the.......dreaded left. Yet I can listen to you and consider what you say because I have no disdain, no dislike of the right.

Kumbaya, bless the beasts and the children, this land is your land, this land is my land, I'd like to teach the world to drink coke, Happy Ramadan, Happy Kwanza, Happy Hannukah, Merry Christmas (say that is a law now, y'know) to my good buddy...good ol' soonersundevil (wildcatcowpoke?)

The dreaded left.. Same to me as the dreaded right. Hyper partisans who cling to one extreme or the other are mostly the simpletons of politics. Scary people because their side can do no wrong and the other side does nothing right, in their mind at least. They see everything black and white and can't comprehend the nuances of the real world. They can't understand Libertarians like myself who pick out what is really right and wrong in politics instead of being lockstep with the Republicrats and or Democans.

Congrats on one thing. Of all the back and forth and occasionally rude comments I have received on here you are the first one to twist around my username in a slanderous way, not once but several times in one reply. Congrats on achieving a new low on here. I guess being civil was not working so go for some sort of insult? I don't get the point but hey, if it makes you feel good go for it no matter how mixed up you are.

[General I80]

I'm going to make this as Non-Partisan as possible.

We do need a way to keep the big states from overpowering the smaller ones, but the Senate is not the way to go. In my opinion, this way gives Vermont and Delaware way too much power over Texas, despite Texas being far bigger than both.

I see a lot of accusations of the Left wanting to remove the Senate to favor their party. However, before 1992, the Democrats controlled the Senate. Say that one Democrat drops anything environmentalist and anti-gun ownership, which could win or at least swing WV, AR, and other states with a lot of gun owners and coal mines. On the flip side, a I could run as a Republican, one who supports legalization of drugs (but still restrictions) and making it easier to immigrate. I'm still strongly to the right economically (no minimum wage, like in Sweden ; less taxes) That could swing CA, and win over FL.

All that is needed to flip the Senate is for a few politicians who actually use their brains to stop bandwagonning off the rest of their party. Then, we can prove that the Senate can, and does, screw over everyone, not just the left.

Like I said, we can't just let the populous states do whatever, and ruin the less populous ones, but we can't let the low population states do whatever they want, ruining the big ones.

I'd say that edsg25's plan needs modification, but it is way better than what we currently have. My solution is get rid of the Senate. I would also give each state between the median and 75th percentile for population one extra representative, all states within the 25th percentile and the median two extra, and all under the 25th percentile get three extra.

So yes, the Senate is awful, way worse than the Electoral College, but we need to make sure that everyone is not equally, but PROPERLY represented.