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[kaijyuu]

Because they have power in other ways that can't be practically stifled.

Same logic as is behind affirmative action: give those low on the totem pole an advantage so as to balance out the disadvantages you can't quite get rid of.

How is living in a state with a low population density a systemic advantage (aside from the electoral college issue)?

Good point. My argument still stands from a money perspective, rather than a population density one, though.

Note that I'm not really advocating it because I think it's a great idea. More of a devil's advocate thing, from what I think Bohandas is arguing.

[Bohandas]

What?

Why should they get less votes per person either?

Just temporarily to cancel out their cumulative unfair advantage.

[RedKing]

What?

Why should they get less votes per person either?

Just temporarily to cancel out their cumulative unfair advantage.

That was kinda the rationale of the Three-Fifths Compromise. 

[PTTG??]

Makes me think of that mod I want to do for LCS where there's not just an L+ stance, but an L++ stance (for instance, while L+ women's rights is total equality between men and women, L++ is the widespread adoption of matriarchy. L+ flag burning rights mean that it's completely allowed, while L++ flag burning rights mean that such public events as school graduations or sports events are kicked off with a couple burning flags. L+ gun rights is extreme gun restriction; L++ means that absolutely all guns are not only banned, but also collected (even ones in LCS stockpiles). L++ Gay rights mean that straight people are second-class citizens. L++ animal rights mean that you will frequently find wild animals in place of citizens.

Might as well add C++ positions too, like C++ women's rights which immediately imprisons women seen outdoors insufficiently covered, including your LCS members, and C++ guns rights, which mean that it's not a crime to shoot anyone not carrying a gun.)

[SalmonGod]

I hear the "two wolves/one sheep" metaphor all the time, but I'm not sure what useful thing it's supposed to communicate.  Any form of social organization, not just democracy, is going to fit that metaphor.  The major difference between democracy and most other things is that the sheep is given at least some opportunity to speak up for itself, and can even be more than just token with proper procedure.  There are really good consensus decision-making processes in that regard.

[Seamas]

The mountain-of-a-molehill effect created by the Electoral College system is the same for the structure of the U.S. Senate, is it not?  That, too, seems outdated now but talk of changing that would really stir things up.  California gets two senators to represent the interests of 30 million people, and Rhode Island gets two senators to represent 1 million. 

So then a  RI senator gets 30x as much say in the legislature per citizen as a California senator?  Why are we paying so much deference to miniscule states like those when the majority (by population anyway) of interests in the country frankly are located in the big states?  I'm not trying to bully anybody from a small state btw, but it's something that needs to be talked about.

Makes me think of that mod I want to do for LCS where there's not just an L+ stance, but an L++ stance (for instance, while L+ women's rights is total equality between men and women, L++ is the widespread adoption of matriarchy. L+ flag burning rights mean that it's completely allowed, while L++ flag burning rights mean that such public events as school graduations or sports events are kicked off with a couple burning flags. L+ gun rights is extreme gun restriction; L++ means that absolutely all guns are not only banned, but also collected (even ones in LCS stockpiles). L++ Gay rights mean that straight people are second-class citizens. L++ animal rights mean that you will frequently find wild animals in place of citizens.

Might as well add C++ positions too, like C++ women's rights which immediately imprisons women seen outdoors insufficiently covered, including your LCS members, and C++ guns rights, which mean that it's not a crime to shoot anyone not carrying a gun.)

Yes, sometimes I think we're embracing political correctness in America in this fashion, which almost turns those L+ ideals into L++ headaches.  (Though that's still preferable to C+ headaches of any kind...)

Sometimes I feel my identity as a white, straight, privileged male in the USA makes me part of the newest Politically Correct punching bag for the L++ types out there I know (here's looking at YOU, UC Santa Cruz).

Just saying.

[Mephansteras]

The mountain-of-a-molehill effect created by the Electoral College system is the same for the structure of the U.S. Senate, is it not?  That, too, seems outdated now but talk of changing that would really stir things up.  California gets two senators to represent the interests of 30 million people, and Rhode Island gets two senators to represent 1 million. 

So then a  RI senator gets 30x as much say in the legislature per citizen as a California senator?  Why are we paying so much deference to miniscule states like those when the majority (by population anyway) of interests in the country frankly are located in the big states?  I'm not trying to bully anybody from a small state btw, but it's something that needs to be talked about.

Yes, but that's balanced by the House having more seats for a state depending on population. You have One that is simply equal by state and another that's equal by population. I don't really have a problem with that.

I just don't think that the Electoral college works too well for the Presidency, since there isn't anything that balances it. Plus, as I stated earlier, the 'extra power' given to the small states isn't actually used anyway in the vast majority of elections.

[Bohandas]

The mountain-of-a-molehill effect created by the Electoral College system is the same for the structure of the U.S. Senate, is it not?  That, too, seems outdated now but talk of changing that would really stir things up.  California gets two senators to represent the interests of 30 million people, and Rhode Island gets two senators to represent 1 million. 

So then a  RI senator gets 30x as much say in the legislature per citizen as a California senator?  Why are we paying so much deference to miniscule states like those when the majority (by population anyway) of interests in the country frankly are located in the big states?  I'm not trying to bully anybody from a small state btw, but it's something that needs to be talked about.

Yes, but that's balanced by the House having more seats for a state depending on population. You have One that is simply equal by state and another that's equal by population. I don't really have a problem with that.

Equality by state is unnecessary. In fact, when you get right down to it, the states aren't really necessary. Their main contribution to the course of American history was causing the Civil War.

[Eagle_eye]

And it doesn't balance it out either. A person from wyoming still has more representation than a person from california. The disparity shrinks with increasing population, but it can never entirely compensate.

[Seamas]

The mountain-of-a-molehill effect created by the Electoral College system is the same for the structure of the U.S. Senate, is it not?  That, too, seems outdated now but talk of changing that would really stir things up.  California gets two senators to represent the interests of 30 million people, and Rhode Island gets two senators to represent 1 million. 

So then a  RI senator gets 30x as much say in the legislature per citizen as a California senator?  Why are we paying so much deference to miniscule states like those when the majority (by population anyway) of interests in the country frankly are located in the big states?  I'm not trying to bully anybody from a small state btw, but it's something that needs to be talked about.

Yes, but that's balanced by the House having more seats for a state depending on population. You have One that is simply equal by state and another that's equal by population. I don't really have a problem with that.

Equality by state is unnecessary. In fact, when you get right down to it, the states aren't really necessary. Their main contribution to the course of American history was causing the Civil War.

Actually, sometimes I wonder if states are necessary at all anymore.  Maybe just on an administrative level - say, for responding swiftly in a natural disaster on the regional level.  And let's not even get started on the contradictions that state laws create with the federal law (like why I can, should, should not and also cannot legally grow ganja in my garden, all at the same time)

[Bohandas]

The states should maybe have the same level of power as city governments.

[GlyphGryph]

I could not disagree more strongly. States can be an important vehicle for progress - without states, there would be no gay marriage in the US, for example. I struggle to see that as an improvement. State legislation with federal oversight allows our country to move faster than it would otherwise - if it weren't for state's rights, there wouldn't have been a civil war, yes - because we would all be slave states. It was only the fact that slavery was illegal in the north that allowed us to build enough popular opposition to it declare emancipation.

Why should the people in California get to tell the people in Rhode Island what to do? Just because they have more people, they are allowed to decide which laws are best for all of us? Instead of just, y'know, better for the west coast? What do they know, or care, of our concerns of conditions?

Localizing laws helps make them more precise, and limits the amount of damage they do on the edges, by tailoring them to local culture and conditions. It's good to have a federal government to put it's foot down when the states go to far in that direction - but I think it's important that people should be able to live under the laws closest to what they want to live to, and states provide the best opportunity for that to happen.

Heirarchical democracy means the sheep can tell the wolves that they can't eat meat in sheep territory, but prevents them from declaring everyone must eat grass and starve the wolves to death.

And it also prevents one stupid law (see: Arizona) from screwing all of us (see: Way too many federal laws).

[FearfulJesuit]

Here's one idea I've seen bandied about at...gosh, can't remember when. In essence, you allow every county, every dozen years, say, to decide which state it wants to belong to. This would of course require a pretty extensive rewrite of federal laws about how cross-state crimes and federal jurisdiction are handled, because now the boundaries are smaller, but it fixes the problem that we currently have several states which, although they were natural states at their founding, are divided into regions that hate each others' guts. I grew up, for example, in Pittsylvania County, in south-central Virginia- a wonderful place in the way that small, rural places with salt-of-the-earth people tend to be, but pretty conservative. (Its congressional district was a swing district due to the inclusion of Charlottesville, but until... '06, I think, was represented by none other than the wild, wacky, lovable Virgil Hamlin Goode, Junior). Virginia is divided into two parts: a conservative, Southern, not all that rich rural area, and a northern, liberal, wealthy area around DC and stretching down the east coast. Both parts hate each others' guts, for good reason, I should add. There are several other states like this- Missouri, Georgia, even Florida and Pennsylvania.

There is really no good reason why these regions of the country should be forced together when they'd both be a lot happier choosing their own policies.

[Zrk2]

Interesting idea. It'd be a bitch to implement, though.

[Shadowlord]

States are necessary to provide different environments. If someone in the US wants to live in a place with socialized health care and 'liberal' politics, it's easier to move to Massachusetts than Europe. The same is true for somewhere with loose gun laws, for example (which MA isn't). Nationally, very little seems to be getting accomplished legislatively, but some states have such strong legislative majorities that they can actually get things accomplished. That said, we still need a strong federal government because states can't solve all our problems, and what we have now certainly isn't that (the legislative branch is largely crippled by divisiveness, and half of it appears to be doing its best to cripple the other two branches as well (blocking appointments to both the executive and judicial branch, trying to cut funding to agencies, etc)).

IMHO not all policies and legislation are right for all states (or nations), and not all people will support all policies, but much of the problem we're having in this country is due to propaganda convincing people that Ignorance is Strength. In addition to glorifying ignorance and superstition and vilifying learning and science, lies are presented as truth and the truth is presented as lies.

[In lieu of double-posting:]

I hate the fact that my vote in California is essentially wasted because ALL of the electoral votes are going to go Democratic no matter what. Even if I approve of how the vote ultimately goes, I still dislike the system.

I think your vote is less wasted if you vote for a third party candidate, in that getting above 5% gives the party matching funding* for contributions that they receive in the next election. That said, I'm mainly voting for Jill Stein (of the Green Party) because (a) I'm in no danger of flipping the state to Romney by doing so and, (b) if we were in a parallel reality where I was Emperor of the USA, the measures I would take in an attempt to save humanity from exterminating itself would be very similar to those which are in Jill Stein's platform (except that there are additional expensive things I would do involving space to solve our civilization's energy problem).

* I think this may be an oversimplification? I attempted to get clarification on wikipedia, but it didn't really explain it very well (It says you need 5% of the vote in the last election, but then goes on to say something about getting it by getting enough contributions, perhaps that is only for particular candidates per election, rather than the entire party for the next election like the 5% thing).