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[smjjames]

Come on, Obama isn't even in the category of those other four. Not gonna fight over why Obama is better than the others because it isn't helpful to the discussion ATM.

[Rusty Shackleford]

Come on, Obama isn't even in the category of those other four. Not gonna fight over why Obama is better than the others because it isn't helpful to the discussion ATM.

Okay, Obama wasn't that bad but it's disappointing that he was the best president in decades.

Like out of 340+ million people Obama was the best qualified guy available for president? Bummer dude.

[MrRoboto75]

Like out of 340+ million people Obama was the best qualified guy available for president? Bummer dude.

Most "possible" candidates either A) aren't presidential material (as in, they aren't up for the sheer task, or can't gather support even within their own party), or B) lack the millions of dollars in resources to seriously run for national office.

The majority lies in C) Both.

[Egan_BW]

Judging by our current president, A is of no impediment.

[MrRoboto75]

Judging by our current president, A is of no impediment.

Evidently the repubican party disagrees.  Better than Rubio or that Cruz guy, according to them.

[nenjin]

Ect.

I'm going to pass forward something a poster once said to me about my posting style, which at the time I didn't take very gracefully.....

It's "Etc" not "Ect." I used to do Ect all the time until someone called me out on it. It's Et Cetera, not Ecterea.

Sorry. I normally don't abbreviation Nazi but you're the only person I've noticed doing it that way since I stopped. Don't hurt me!

[Rusty Shackleford]

Ect.

I'm going to pass forward something a poster once said to me about my posting style, which at the time I didn't take very gracefully.....

It's "Etc" not "Ect." I used to do Ect all the time until someone called me out on it. It's Et Cetera, not Ecterea.

Sorry. I normally don't abbreviation Nazi but you're the only person I've noticed doing it that way since I stopped. Don't hurt me!

Ect... etc. Ect. I either mistyped that just now or never noticed that 'ect' is wrong but I can clearly see ect is wrong now that you mentioned it. I don't think I ever noticed one way or another which is bad form.
 

[redwallzyl]

I hate this kind of response because one it either forces me to research, and do some kinda rigor or it means the responser knows I'm right but does'nt have any academic data either, but put the burden of proof on me.

That's because the burden of proof is on the person making the claim.

If it wasn't, it'd be established fact that there's a teapot orbiting the sun.

I didn't say anything as controversial as that obviously. Anything anyone says is debatable sure but it's asinine to demand a damn peer-reviewed academic study for any mundane statement you say on an internet forum.

Regardless, the EC is the implication of individual states voting a candidate, due to the USA being 'united states' and governed as such not a monolithic federal entity.

Eliminating states rights in the manner that the EC is eliminated probably means rewriting the constitution.  Which probably means a civil war, depending on who you talk to.

Anyways, it's pretty safe to assume if everyone was forced to vote, was able to vote, Trump would have won. Rural areas that support guys like that have less access to voting polls than do voters in dense urban areas or suburbs.

we already have other parts of the government for federal balance we don't need the president to be as well. besides the systems has nothing to do with it and does noting about it. people claiming it does are just showing a total ignorance of the entire history of the thing and what it is and how it works. states don't have anything near the kind of difference between them as some people seem to think as well and weren't drawn to any kind of constant standard like distracts are, supposed to be, making the whole idea of balancing the election of one person on it ridiculous. you want federalized presidential elections? your going to need to draw new huge voting districts for it nationally. that makes infinitely more sense.

Oh boy yeah we should gerrymander the whole country regardless of state lines. That'd be better and different than the EC.

If you've been around the country and talked to people, yeah there is cultural homogeny and also major differences. Somewhat like arguing the US should annex Canada and have thejr autonomy taken away because they're so much like Americans that we can vote for them just ad well as if they could vote for themselves.

its almost like that was my point or something...

[Strife26]

Judging by our current president, A is of no impediment.

Conditions to be "President material"

-Natural born citizen
-35+ years old
-Win a majority of the electoral college or come out on top after the no-majority provisions.

[Playergamer]

you realize that "Johnnie Cochran style" and "If I say it, it must be true" are both equally crappy arguing styles right.

*Johnnie Cochran style is in reference to the defense strategy of questioning every single point made by the prosecution, even if they're well established, to establish doubt. In this scenario, I'm using it to refer to requesting sources for every single claim a person makes, even non-serious or non-essential ones.

[McTraveller]

An important thing to remember: When the US was founded in 1776, it only had about 2.6 million people.

There are only 16 states/territories with smaller populations than that today.

I would argue that, probably, a solution to most political problems is to simply limit the maximum number of people that can be governed by a government.  Basically, once you hit a population of, oh, I dunno, 25 million, you have to split into separate countries or something.  Maybe smaller - 10 million?

Any time you try to put hundreds of millions of people under the same rule, small percentages of minority start to become large absolute numbers - if 1% of the people in the US disagree with some policy, that is well over three million people.

[Rusty Shackleford]

An important thing to remember: When the US was founded in 1776, it only had about 2.6 million people.

There are only 16 states/territories with smaller populations than that today.

I would argue that, probably, a solution to most political problems is to simply limit the maximum number of people that can be governed by a government.  Basically, once you hit a population of, oh, I dunno, 25 million, you have to split into separate countries or something.  Maybe smaller - 10 million?

Any time you try to put hundreds of millions of people under the same rule, small percentages of minority start to become large absolute numbers - if 1% of the people in the US disagree with some policy, that is well over three million people.

I would whole heartly agree with this, at least to the effect that different states can have widely varying policy for governance. I could live without border guards and visa applications though, but I suppose a state could reserve the right to do that if they wanted to. The idea works best if you have freedom of movement and can decide what sort of ideological dystopia you want to live in.

[Descan]

I mean I'm also a fan of smaller countries, albeit bonded together in trade and other mutually dependent arrangements, but... Who the hell is gonna enforce that rule? You either have one Giga-country engaging in utmost hypocrisy to make everyone else small, OR you have some sort of world government. Which technically goes against the rule of "no government controlling more than 25 million people."

[Lord Shonus]

Additionally, "freedom of movement" tends to not really mean anything in the US, where most people never leave the state they're born in. Apologies for not being able to find the most recent statistics.

You seem to be reading that a bit wrong. That's about changing your residence (moving from Ohio to live in Kentucky, for example), not simply traveling. Considering the size of US states, moving from one to another is a massive undertaking, and an apt comparison would be "freedom of movement in the EU is meaningless, because not that many people move from France to Germany".

[Strife26]

Geographically, sure, but we're talking within the same country here, not between countries which speak entirely different languages. Considering that most of the states' rights arguments are the idea that should a state reflect an ideology that a person disagrees with that they can just move (an argument I've had on these forums, even), it doesn't reflect reality.

Ability for people to move and the likelihood of them moving are very different things. A bus ticket from any side of the country to any other is well within "tax return" levels of price.