Kill the Electoral College

[Eric the Green]

Eric Satt shared a link to the group: Democratic Open Forum.
18 hrs · 


The Electoral College was Founded, with Roots Grounded in Slavery!

James Madison, slave owner from Virginia and the nation's 4th President, proposed that we needed this Electoral College to give southern plantation owners, an equal shot at winning the White House. His fear (and other slave owners' fear) was that there were far more free, White males who could vote in the northern states and that they would control the presidency if each man received an equal vote.

First thing the framers of the Constitution did was count each slave as 3/5 of a person (instead of not being counted at all, which is how it should have been since they had no voting rights...The Three-Fifths Compromise). There were 500,000 slaves in the South. Counting 60% of their population towards votes and creating an Electoral College system that placed an inordinate number of Electors in the South, especially in Virginia, gave the them an unfair advantage towards the presidency. In fact, during the first 32 of 36 years after our Constitution was ratified, the presidency was won by a Virginian!! 

Jefferson beat Adams in 1800, because of the Three-Fifths Compromise and Electoral College.

Fast forward. Slavery ended in 1865 yet the institution of the Electoral College still exists. It's a holdover from a terrible time in our nation's past. Slavery is gone so why are we keeping this outdated relic and allowing it to decide Presidents?

In the last 16 years, we have seen two USA Presidents selected, not by the people but by the Electoral College - Bush and now Trump. The former was, by most accounts, an abysmal failure. I don't expect much better from the latter.

http://time.com/4558510/electoral-college-history-slavery/
Let's allow Americans to make decisions for America. Kill the Electoral College.

[radind]

Keep the electoral college to save our Republic and to protect the interests of small states.

[Galen]

(12-22-2016, 08:17 PM)radind Wrote: Keep the electoral college to save our Republic and to protect the interests of small states.

Nice to see someone else with a clue.

[Galen]

(12-22-2016, 08:43 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: Furthermore, if the electorate gets even more dumbed down between now and 2020, The Electoral College may end up being the salvation of the nation.

Lets hope it doesn't come to that.

[pbrower2a]

We have two competing threads with the same name. Moderator -- please combine them. Thank you.

[pbrower2a]

(12-23-2016, 04:00 AM)Galen Wrote:

(12-22-2016, 08:43 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: Furthermore, if the electorate gets even more dumbed down between now and 2020, The Electoral College may end up being the salvation of the nation.

Lets hope it doesn't come to that.

Oh, so you want a dumbed-down electorate that accepts every lie by the "Great and Glorious Leader"?

Yes, the sort of electorate that loved Mussolini, loved Hitler, loved Stalin, and loved Saddam.

It is hard to see anything more obvious than that Donald Trump won because of support by white people either too dumb or too intellectually-lazy to read between the lines. I expect reality to hit Americans hard, and when it does they will see the clay feet of the idol. They will recognize the inhumanity of an economic ideology that sacrifices poor people to the god Mammon. As plutocracy hurts them much as a child-molester does by inflicting shame and pain that no child should ever feel, they will come to hate Donald Trump.  When his diplomatic and military bumbling comes back in the form of body bags containing the barely grown-up children of people who voted for Donald Trump they will start to know how bad he is.

When this is all over Americans will recognize the value in education that does more than prepare people for narrow roles of employment for harsh exploiters. We need people able to recognize propaganda for what it is, to insist upon fact-checking of authorities, and to see bigotry for what it is.

[Eric the Green]

Sorry about the two threads. Sometimes these things happen because of the difficulties in posting.

[Galen]

(12-24-2016, 02:35 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(12-23-2016, 04:00 AM)Galen Wrote:

(12-22-2016, 08:43 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: Furthermore, if the electorate gets even more dumbed down between now and 2020, The Electoral College may end up being the salvation of the nation.

Lets hope it doesn't come to that.

Oh, so you want a dumbed-down electorate that accepts every lie by the "Great and Glorious Leader"?

That is pretty much what we have had for the last eight years with Obozo.

[Odin]

(12-29-2016, 03:36 AM)Galen Wrote:

(12-24-2016, 02:35 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(12-23-2016, 04:00 AM)Galen Wrote:

(12-22-2016, 08:43 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: Furthermore, if the electorate gets even more dumbed down between now and 2020, The Electoral College may end up being the salvation of the nation.

Lets hope it doesn't come to that.

Oh, so you want a dumbed-down electorate that accepts every lie by the "Great and Glorious Leader"?

That is pretty much what we have had for the last eight years with Obozo.

You're projecting. It's Don The Con who "loves the uneducated".

[pbrower2a]

(12-29-2016, 03:36 AM)Galen Wrote:

(12-24-2016, 02:35 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(12-23-2016, 04:00 AM)Galen Wrote:

(12-22-2016, 08:43 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: Furthermore, if the electorate gets even more dumbed down between now and 2020, The Electoral College may end up being the salvation of the nation.

Lets hope it doesn't come to that.

Oh, so you want a dumbed-down electorate that accepts every lie by the "Great and Glorious Leader"?

That is pretty much what we have had for the last eight years with (President Obama -- insulting deprecation removed).

Say what you want about President Obama, but in 2008 and 2012, voting  for him correlated positively with educational achievement, much the opposite of what used to be the norm. Even in 1964 Barry Goldwater got a majority of the vote among people with college degrees.

Barack Obama understands the complexity of political, economic, and legal reality; Donald Trump simplifies that rhetorically. Should his deeds match his rhetoric, then we stand to get lots of wrong answers to the challenges of the day.

Rigid ideologies fail to solve problems.

[David Horn]

(12-23-2016, 03:58 AM)Galen Wrote:

(12-22-2016, 08:17 PM)radind Wrote: Keep the electoral college to save our Republic and to protect the interests of small states.

Nice to see someone else with a clue.

So you both prefer the tyranny of the minority to the tyranny of the majority.  Got it.

[Galen]

(12-29-2016, 12:18 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(12-23-2016, 03:58 AM)Galen Wrote:

(12-22-2016, 08:17 PM)radind Wrote: Keep the electoral college to save our Republic and to protect the interests of small states.

Nice to see someone else with a clue.

So you both prefer the tyranny of the minority to the tyranny of the majority.  Got it.

I prefer small government and the federal government has been operating well beyond the limits of the Constitution for decades.

[pbrower2a]

(12-29-2016, 11:20 PM)Galen Wrote:

(12-29-2016, 12:18 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(12-23-2016, 03:58 AM)Galen Wrote:

(12-22-2016, 08:17 PM)radind Wrote: Keep the electoral college to save our Republic and to protect the interests of small states.

Nice to see someone else with a clue.

So you both prefer the tyranny of the minority to the tyranny of the majority.  Got it.

I prefer small government and the federal government has been operating well beyond the limits of the Constitution for decades.

I prefer a government strong enough to protect civil liberties, defend the nation, provide for the general welfare, regulate just enough to keep the worst actors from getting away with harm, establish justice... but constrained from doing real harm to innocent people.

In a democracy, government is no better than the majority of voters, and the majority of voters fell short in November.  I hope that they can undo the damage in 2018 and 2020.

[Odin]

(12-29-2016, 11:20 PM)Galen Wrote: the federal government has been operating well beyond the limits of the Constitution for decades.

The SCOTUS obviously disagrees.

[Eric the Green]

"the federal government has been operating well beyond the limits of the Constitution for decades."

Galen wrote that, of course. Typical libertarian dogma. Those designated powers, or whatever they call them.

[Galen]

(12-30-2016, 08:06 AM)Odin Wrote:

(12-29-2016, 11:20 PM)Galen Wrote: the federal government has been operating well beyond the limits of the Constitution for decades.

The SCOTUS obviously disagrees.

Doesn't mean that they are right.  Having read the Constitution, Federalist Papers and the Anti-Federalist papers, I can be quite confident about the limits the federal government is supposed to have.  I doubt that you or Eric the Obtuse will bother to do this since reading what the people who wrote the Constitution had to say about won't give you the answer you want.

[Bob Butler 54]

(12-31-2016, 04:03 AM)Galen Wrote:

(12-30-2016, 08:06 AM)Odin Wrote:

(12-29-2016, 11:20 PM)Galen Wrote: the federal government has been operating well beyond the limits of the Constitution for decades.

The SCOTUS obviously disagrees.

Doesn't mean that they are right.  Having read the Constitution, Federalist Papers and the Anti-Federalist papers, I can be quite confident about the limits the federal government is supposed to have.  I doubt that you or Eric the Obtuse will bother to do this since reading what the people who wrote the Constitution had to say about won't give you the answer you want.

As one of the few progressives who respected Scalia, I'll agree with Galen and Odin.  My only quibble is that I'd have said 'centuries' rather than Galen's 'decades'.  The founding fathers were much more concerned with limiting powers than subsequent generations.  The Supreme Court has allowed itself to put political motives ahead of the letter of the law throughout history.  While I haven't read the Federalist or Anti-Federalist papers, I have researched the 2nd Amendment and other question enough to concur with Odin's confidence.

[The Wonkette]

(12-31-2016, 07:56 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(12-31-2016, 04:03 AM)Galen Wrote:

(12-30-2016, 08:06 AM)Odin Wrote:

(12-29-2016, 11:20 PM)Galen Wrote: the federal government has been operating well beyond the limits of the Constitution for decades.

The SCOTUS obviously disagrees.

Doesn't mean that they are right.  Having read the Constitution, Federalist Papers and the Anti-Federalist papers, I can be quite confident about the limits the federal government is supposed to have.  I doubt that you or Eric the Obtuse will bother to do this since reading what the people who wrote the Constitution had to say about won't give you the answer you want.

As one of the few progressives who respected Scalia, I'll agree with Galen and Odin.  My only quibble is that I'd have said 'centuries' rather than Galen's 'decades'.  The founding fathers were much more concerned with limiting powers than subsequent generations.  The Supreme Court has allowed itself to put political motives ahead of the letter of the law throughout history.  While I haven't read the Federalist or Anti-Federalist papers, I have researched the 2nd Amendment and other question enough to concur with Odin's confidence.

I believe Galen is referring to more than the Second Amendment.  He is also referring to items such as the income tax, if I'm not mistaken.  Do you believe that the income tax is unconstitutional?

[Bob Butler 54]

(12-31-2016, 09:31 AM)The Wonkette Wrote: I believe Galen is referring to more than the Second Amendment.  He is also referring to items such as the income tax, if I'm not mistaken.  Do you believe that the income tax is unconstitutional?

I'd agree that Galen has any number of concerns, and many to most of them are valid.  I haven't delved deeply enough into the income tax issue to have a firm opinion on it, but Congress was given a list of powers by the Constitution.  They were originally interpreted as the only powers that the states granted the federal government, and properly so.  The Supreme Court has since ruled that as one of these powers was to collect taxes, Congress can spend tax money on anything it wants.  This was not the original intent.  Also, when the Reconstruction efforts to give equal rights to blacks gave way to the Jim Crow era, the Supreme Court put out a series of court cases that collectively prevented the federal government from enforcing the entire Bill of Rights.  The federal government has no police power, thus cannot enforce the Constitution.  That power was reserved to the states.  Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP in the mid 20th Century had modern courts overturn the Jim Crow decisions, except the 2nd Amendment which was allowed to linger until recently.

While I am generally with the progressives on a lot of social issues, I generally sympathize a lot with the conservatives with regard to the Constitution and the value of written rule of law.  We are getting ourselves into trouble with national parties trying to impose one size fits all solutions on the entire country.  I don't believe that the founding fathers intended that degree of control by the federal government over the states.  Returning to the spirit and letter of the original document is worth considering, though the open cans of worms that would result would be many.  A constitutional convention would likely be required to determine what federal powers are truly necessary in the modern world, and what powers only produce strife.  At this point, the country is way too divided for such a convention.  Ratification of anything would be very difficult or worse.  Talking about what was and what ought to be is fine, though.

[Eric the Green]

Oh Bob, you keep saying decisions on guns by the Supreme Court were Jim Crow decisions. How quaint and utterly false. But yes the Thurgood Marshall/Earl Warren Court properly restored the federal government's authority to enforce the constitution. Certainly that was the original intent, since the entire constitution came about because of the need for federal authority to control the riots and uprisings of the Articles era.

I think the gun issue can be compromised and worked out if people are willing, but that's a big if.

The powers of the federal government are not "properly" reserved to the list of enumerated powers. The constitution makes that clear and the supreme court has properly so held.

The income tax is absolutely necessary as a check on the power of wealth.

Written law is valuable, but the problem with writing is that words are never literal, so they must always be interpreted. Opinions will differ and the Court is there to arbitrate as best as it can. Words are not the things themselves. To the things themselves, said philosopher Edmund Husserl. Buddhists have always taught that. Words are a chimera, merely signs pointing to the reality. The finger pointing to the Moon, is not the Moon. Symbols are not realities. But, Americans often confuse the two. Like when super-patriots are more concerned about people burning the flag than with burning up the country, as we are doing. Americans confuse maps and territories.





So I cannot be a literalist. Justice and fairness are written in the heavens; they are absolute values that transcend what is written, which is only a human copy. Humans write laws to imitate that universal value of justice as best they can, and that is the basis for a workable civilization. Since humans are imperfect, laws are needed, and they must be shaped according to the universal law. I'm a Platonist in that respect. But if you doubt that such a universal law exists, and that we can imitate it, then all you have is the writings that somebody laid down centuries ago, whether in the Bible or in the Constitution. I have more confidence that we can write the laws we need today.