Donald Trump could dismantle net neutrality(washingtonpost.com) |
Donald Trump could dismantle net neutrality(washingtonpost.com) |
As frustratingly slow as congressional action is -- it's more resistant to being hand-waved away.
The lesson that a lot of anti-Trumpers appear to have taken away from this election is that the electoral college is bad because it lets people who don't live on the coasts have a say too. I would prefer that the lesson were: "Gosh! The President has too much power!"
I'm from the midwest and I still don't understand this sentiment. Why should the power of your vote depend on where you choose to lay your head down at night? That seems extremely anti-democratic to me.
It's not that people who don't live on the coasts shouldn't have a say. It's that if someone wins a popular vote by 2 million fucking votes, then they should probably win the election.
We already have the senate. The house also favors less populous states, even if not by design.
And state governments.
People who don't live on the coasts have an enormous amount of say without getting an extremely disproportionate voice in the presidential election.
I think a good example of what the electoral college is: you have a sports tournament. The winner isn't the person who gets the most points in all the games. It's the person who wins the most games.
The Electoral College also favors less populous states.
Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature
thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the
whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the
State may be entitled in the Congress
Should that same philosophy apply globally? Should you be able to vote in a country where you don't live?
You may live in the United States, but if each state were a different country, wouldn't it make more sense that your vote carry more weight in your own country than others?
Obviously, we think of countries as being on a completely different level, but the Unites States was originally set up to be a group of states with a great deal of autonomy, united only by a relatively weak federal government. In that context, the president of the United States should be regarded as a president of the states, not a president of the people.
It certainly matters globally where you choose to lay your head down at night, just as it matters in which state you lay your head down at night, and that's by design. If you don't care for your state's laws, you should be able to find a state the matches your ideals without having to leave the country.
The president's power should therefore be removed by a layer of geographical abstraction from the people - it serves only to make limited decisions that affect all the states in a very limited way.
If that was the goal, that's what the candidates would have campaigned for.
But the goal was 270 electoral votes, so that's what the candidates campaigned for.
This is like a losing soccer team saying that they won more free kicks, so they should get to win, not the team that scored more goals
Because it turns out that has a very strong effect on the power of your vote :)
The electoral college exists to balance the voices of citizens in cities vs. "the country." It checks the power of highly dense populations who are more likely to vote for pro-city federal policies, so the needs of those in "the country" are not ignored.
I didn't support Trump and live in a super-blue city, but when the EC was explained to me this way, it made sense. I don't want to see the US further turn into a place where you can only succeed if you live in a city.
Exactly, and it is supposed to be. We are a republic and not a democracy. The founders strongly opposed democracy. One of the reasons being that minorities would have no representation if your government is by majority rule only.
But everybody knows how the system works. It is late to discuss about its fairness.
Except that in a universe where the President was selected by popular vote, the candidates would have campaigned differently anyway, so your point is completely moot.
Out of curiosity, how does this happen in practice? My understanding was that seats were divided up by population (giving equal voice to those in more densely populated areas).
what if she spent TWICE the money getting them?
The sarcasm in your post is, funnily enough, the opposite of the truth because they actually have MORE say than people living in coastal cities[0]
Not only that, but as populations in major cities increase, and number of electoral votes stay the same, this effect increases [1]
[0] http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/map_of_the_w...
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/11/1...
(Ed: fixed AMP link)
Isn't that one of the primary mechanisms of sarcasm?
This is not a fair assessment. Plenty of people learned that lesson a long time ago, but always get laughed out of the room by the party in power.
I remember in the aftermath of 9/11 when GWB made one of the largest executive power grabs in history, and the right-wing whole-heartedly supported him in the name of keeping us safe. A common refrain from my left-leaning friends explaining why this was a bad idea was "Imagine someone like Hillary Clinton with these powers." Of course, that was all hand-waved away until Obama took office, then suddenly "executive overreach" became such a hot topic.
The only way to change the momentum of the executive gaining more power over more things is to convince both the in- and out-of-power parties that giving the President more authority is a bad thing. Good luck convincing the in-power party of that, no matter which side of the aisle they sit on.
Yup. That's true of all "true" reform. Most of the campaign finance reform laws that end up passing could more accurately be called "the incumbent protection act".
edit: perhaps more constructively - if he were to be serious about dismantling Net Neutrality, what would he have done differently than exactly what he's doing now? Beyond his most insane proposals (Muslim registration and internment/concentration camps, building a physical 2000 mile wall on the Mexican border) he seems to be making all the necessary, concrete appointments necessary to put the necessary people in place to follow through on his campaign pledges.
Uhhh. Yes.
> if he were to be serious about dismantling Net Neutrality, what would he have done differently than exactly what he's doing now? Beyond his most insane proposals (Muslim registration and internment/concentration camps, building a physical 2000 mile wall on the Mexican border) he seems to be making all the necessary, concrete appointments necessary to put the necessary people in place to follow through on his campaign pledges.
I have no idea. I see him walking back a lot of stuff, even before he's in office. I'm going to classify him as the used-car-salesman that says whatever he has to say to get a signature on the line below. I barely have enough energy to worry about all the things that do go wrong and have absolutely none left to spend on fantasies about more things that might go wrong. Getting old and tired, I guess...
No. Everyone should have an equal say. That's what national popular vote ensures. Clinton got over 2m more votes than her opponent, but will not be President. That's not democracy.
I completely agree with your point about limiting executive power.
If the election were a popular vote, the candidates would campaign for that. They'd focus more on big cities etc. There's no guarantee Clinton would have won the popular vote if that had been the case.
Edit: If you're downvoting could you explain why?
I suppose it was kind of a rotten trick to not tell the Democrats about the Electoral College beforehand, yeah.
Maybe I'm not understanding this fully but I don't follow the people saying that Clinton should have won because she got the most votes. If the rules said the winning party is the one with the most votes, the campaign strategies of each candidate would have been completely different. It sounds like moving the goal posts to me. It's like you agreed the team with the most goals is the winner beforehand but then after you lost you want to argue you should be the real winner because you had more possession of the ball.
It won't take him any significant personal time to get rid of net neutrality. Under Trump the FCC commissioners will change from a 3 to 2 Democrat majority to a 3 to 2 Republican majority in 2017. Net neutrality passed at the FCC on a 3 to 2 straight party line vote.
Republicans are massively, overwhelmingly against net neutrality and Republicans control both houses of Congress, so it is a pretty damn safe bet that the new Republican commissioner will be one who agrees with the overwhelming majority Republican opinion on this.
Tom Wheeler, the FCC chairman, is a Democrat, but almost certainly will follow tradition and relinquish the chairmanship pretty much as soon as Trump takes office, and Trump will name one of the Republican commissioners as the new chairman.
So, in 2017 we will have an FCC commission chaired by a Republican, with a 3 to 2 Republican majority. Reversing net neutrality will almost certainly be one of the first things on the agenda for the 3 to 2 Republican majority, Republican chaired FCC, especially considering that reversing net neutrality has been a priority for Republicans ever since Wheeler went with Title II reclassification.
Wouldn't it be stupid for net neutrality advocates to wait until Trump actually does this to worry about it and start working to stop it? It's not like, say, building the wall and making Mexico pay for it, which has so many moving parts, cost, and problems to overcome that ignoring it until something concrete actually happens is fine--the wall plan is very likely to fall apart on its own long before it gets to that stage. Dismantling net neutrality will be close to trivial once Trump's appointments are on the commission.
It would actually be more work on Trump's part to stop net neutrality from being dismantled, as he'd have to do some work to find a Republican commission nominee who is not against net neutrality and will pass Congressional confirmation.
Also, I don't need any of your lessons.
Prosecute Hillary? "We have to move forward"
Torture works? "Well, General Madd Dogg Mattis thinks its not very important"
Climate change? "I have an open mind about it"
I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but what Trump could do is pretty much up in the air at the moment
Trump doesn't have to do that much to dismantle net neutrality. All he has to do is sign bills put in front of him and appoint people to the FCC that are against the latter. He's not president yet, so he hasn't done the former, but he is in the process of the latter.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-fcc-idUSKBN13H02...
This doesn't usually happen because CA/NY usually vote D, Texas usually votes R, Illinois has been voting D for a while now, and Florida/Pennsylvania are swing states; (Florida usually votes R) although, the usual suspects have passed voter suppression laws.
This system doesn't protect smaller states by design, it is, as it always was, supposed to prevent the rule of mob and a demagogue from being elected. Unfortunately, due to an extremely misguided sense of party loyalty, here we are. At best it's an arbitrary ruling that can be exploited by someone who will lose the popular vote.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_College_(United_Stat...
Utter nonsense. Under a popular vote-based system, each person in a non-coastal state would have exactly as much say as each person in a coastal state. To the extent that coastal areas might have more sway as a whole because they have more people, isn't that the whole point of democracy?
If we want to give people in less populous areas more power because they're a minority, why stop there? Why don't we give Asians and blacks more voting power than whites? Why not give Muslims and Jews more voting power than Christians? We could give more voting power to gays and lesbians than straight people!
Why is rural area/state vs urban area/state the divide where we ought to privilege the minority? Why not some other dimension that historically has involved a lot more oppression? Wouldn't that make more sense?
We give states a base number of votes for being a state,2 , then add them based on population. This means that smaller states get a boost in power vis a vis larger ones but that larger states still matter more. This is not a bad thing.
States provide the basic block upon which Government in the US rests. It is in our interests to provide states with more equal power at a national level than population would dictate.
If you pass a constitutional amendment to adjust voting laws you can enable exactly whatever you like though, for any of your more hyperbolic suggestions you would need to override many of the existing protections as well but if you wanted to be an asshole along with the rest of america there is no reason we could not do so using our existing legal framework.
The argument is not about rural versus urban but about the relative power of small versus large states. This isn't a historical issue but a simple legal one. States actually matter in the United States.
But the United States was never intended to be a popular democracy. In their wisdom the Founding Fathers acknowledged the problems inherent in democracy (it devolves too easily into two wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner). Instead, they created a federal republic, in which the primary powers of governance would be invested in the states. This is evident in the text of the 10th amendment: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
The essential characteristic of this federal republic was that issues would be decided locally, and only a few necessary powers would be delegated to the central government. Small, local governments have many advantages: it's easier for ordinary people to participate in and influence them, and they're harder for big money to control. Local governments listen more closely to their constituencies and their decisions more accurately reflect what their communities want. While some of the Founders were fonder of a strong central government than others, none of them would have supported the degree of centralization we have today.
I can't help but wonder what our society would look like if we had adhered to the original vision of the Founders. Indeed, our entire moral framework would be based on the reality that people only a few hours' drive away might have very different values, and rather than coercing them through the threat of government force, we had to either persuade them to change their minds, or learn to work with people who were very different from us. In the modern United States people pay a lot of lip service to these ideals but at the end of the day they just want to get their candidate elected so that he/she can force everyone else to conform to their beliefs. Authoritarians on both sides of the political spectrum grow bolder every day and I can't help but feel that the American experiment in self-rule may be approaching its twilight.
The antidote is a return to the true meaning of the 10th amendment. A more local government which is influenced and participated in directly by the people it governs. A world where your vote is one of hundreds or thousands, not hundreds of millions, and genuinely does count. An end to the US central government as a tool of coercion and a dismantling of the most powerful bureaucracy in human history. Unfortunately the national conversation is very, very far away from this idea. Everyone's so caught up hoping that the next autocrat at the top will come from Team Blue/Team Red depending on their favorite color...
So, how about this - instead of weighing electoral college votes by location, we could weigh electoral college votes by education level. That way, people with higher education gets more of say than people with lower education.
Pro-Trumpers need to explain why giving giving geographic weighting should be more valuable than giving educational weighting. There are a million factors that elections could be adjusted for.. why should we pick geography as a factor over anything else? Why should farmers be weighed more than University professors?
Is there something more special about farmers than university professors? Which one is more important for a modern economy?
How about this, we can weigh votes by race - black votes more than white votes. Isn't that just as valid as weighing farmer votes over urban votes?
Yes, this is a personal anecdote. No, I don't have a citation.
Hope for the best, but expect and prepare for the worst.
The reclassification of services necessary to make the ruling in the first place was (I believe) over-reach.
But, people appear to like the outcome, so they don't quibble with the methods.
I don't dislike that particular outcome, but worry about the executive branch unilaterally extending their own purview. That territorial expansion would allow for a lot of decisions that I might like a lot less. That probably just means that I worry too much about what will happen when a guy I don't like is in charge...
The arrogance and entitlement of middle america is really getting to be too much. Now your votes should count more just "so you can have a say too".
Maybe you shouldn't have abandoned unions, maybe you shouldn't have abandoned the left, maybe you shouldn't have expected the GOP to place your interests first. It's been almost 50 years since "The Silent Majority" and apparently nothing's changed.
Maybe the problem isn't everyone else. Maybe the problem is you.
Not passing judgement or touching the merit of the whole subject but it is a very consistent position of the right in the United States to oppose regulation passed down by unelected officials of the executive branch instead of legislation created and approved by the legislative body through their elected representatives.
It is a similar phenomenon to the one occurring in Europe with its maximum exponent being the Brexit process, also motivated in a lot of ways by the perceived interference in the day to day life of the British by regulations passed down by unelected officials of the European Union instead of legislation created and approved by the local legislative bodies through their elected representatives.
In America, opposing FCC mandating net neutrality through regulation is akin to other similar rejections of "legislation by the executive":
- DEA or Department of Health legislating controlled substances
- FAA legislating personal drones
- FCC legislating TV language and obscenity
- ATF legislating gun ownership, possession and storage
- Treasury Secretary legislating penalties for failure to enroll in government approved healthcare (Obamacare "Tax Penalty")
It is all part of the same phenomenon, people pushing back against what they perceive as a federal overreach in areas that deny people proper representation in contesting the regulations imposed.
Trump got elected on that exact platform by the detractors of such overreach and it is only natural that he is going to follow the desire of his electoral constituency.
Trump has announced two appointments to the FCC, Jeffrey Eisenach and Mark Jamison.[1] Eisenach has a paper arguing that ISP's should not be subject to any antitrust regulation.[2] Mark Jameson wants to abolish the FCC.[3] "Telecommunications network providers and ISPs are rarely, if ever, monopolies", he's written.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/nov/22/obama-net...
[2] https://www.aei.org/publication/broadband-competition-in-the...
[3] http://www.techpolicydaily.com/communications/do-we-need-the...
The big deal to me is mostly the last-mile infrastructure, which is more of a local/state issue anyways. If the telecom companies mostly handled the backbone, losing the government enforcement doesn't even seem that bad.
Regardless of what happens at the federal level, California and New York are completely controlled by Democrats, so HN commenters should find it relatively easy to push through state net neutrality laws. And bigger companies like Netflix can probably bribe the smaller states by promising to set up a call center in Montana or something in exchange for net neutrality laws in that state.
Frankly, this current system where an unelected official gets to pick and choose the scope of his agency is a bit silly. I wouldn't mind if the whole agency is cut out, if its scope changes so wildly depending on who's President.
http://www.dailydot.com/layer8/bruce-schneier-internet-of-th...
This is a bad thing for all consumers, period.
Is this really the best quote out there on Trump's intentions regarding NN?
To be honest, it looks like he took it for some other kind of regulation altogether and just used it as a pretext to bitch about Obama and censorship. If anything, NN forces all ISPs to "carry" conservative media.
The loss of net neutrality just increases walled gardens. And there will be a patch work of exceptions instead of broad neutrality.
Instead of like you who pays for something like 100mbps download and 10 upload, big content provider probably have a commercial contract more like 100mbps upload and download for each of their data centers.
And the answer is, with increasing clarity, "no."
The difference between a one party state is freedom of speech, human rights, a governing body that keeps the ruling party in check, and that using the military to squelch riots on national television would be political suicide.
That being said, this article is pure propaganda and contains no information. Of course decisions made by agencies can be reversed by the combined efforts of the elected head of state and the legislature. That's why we call it a democracy. The Post gives us no reason to think he has strong feelings about this other than
> Trump vowed to “eliminate our most intrusive regulations” and “reform the entire regulatory code.”
and a single tweet
> Obama’s attack on the internet is another top down power grab. Net neutrality is the Fairness Doctrine. Will target conservative media.
And to back that up, anonymous sources saying that it's unlikely that Trump was lying about something that they haven't even made a decent case that he said he would do or even feels strongly about:
> "It's unlikely Trump was misleading the public, according to policy and business analysts. The new administration, they say, will instead delete from history the Federal Communications Commission's unprecedented regulations for Internet providers."
10/10 anonymous unquoted policy and business analysts agree!
This entire article is sourced to "analysts" and it's about what Trump "could" do. What he could do with the support of Congress doesn't need "analysts" it's just a point of fact. The random analysts are just to make this sound like news.
Here's a better headline for the article so everybody will know it's shit and not worth clicking on:
Robert Kaminski, a Telecom Analyst at Capital Alpha Partners Says: "Net Neutrality Has a Big Target On Its Back," Declines to Explain Further
edit: This isn't fake news, it's shit news. I'm not accusing the Washington Post of being a fake news outlet.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/29/losing-net-neutrali...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/17/net-neutrality-gone...
Which in turn credits this as the original source:
http://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/9yj1f/heres_a_new_scen...
Whenever such issues comes up, I come out and advocate for the use of "Reverse-DRM" -- Instead of big companies using crypto against individuals, individuals should be using such tech to protect themselves against big companies. Often, people will counter by saying that laws are enough. However: "Possession is nine tenths of the law" and "Opportunity makes a thief." Such laws are necessary, but those would be way easier to enforce and pass in the first place if consumers had some form of lock that companies had to circumvent. This election also shows that laws shouldn't be the exclusive protection.
It is precisely the asymmetric nature of power between companies and individuals that makes the corporate use of DRM against individuals so horrible, and the individual use of DRM against corporations so potentially beneficial. However, there are so many online who simply knee-jerk against the idea of DRM without thinking about this, it will probably never happen.
1. http://original.antiwar.com/thomas-knapp/2016/11/20/washingt...
WaPo has been central to a lot of real news in recent history. Why do you say that it is fake?
No matter which side you're on it is in our interest to not let net neutrality go down without any resistance.
https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/2699
Note the subject of this thread is "WaPo Party."
Anu Rangappa is a senior DNC adviser is writing to DNC national fundraiser director Jordan Kaplan on September 22, 2015 saying:
"They aren't going to give us a price per ticket and do not want their party listed in any package we are selling to donors. If we let them know we have donors in town who will be at the debate, we can add them to the list for the party."
Kaplan then replies with: "Great - we were never going to list since the lawyers told us we cannot do it."
If congress has power to pass certain laws, they have power to relegate some of such authority to a governing body. If the FCC's rules are in accordance with the laws that empowered it, then there is nothing wrong.
And no Trump never said he is against net neutrality. If he did that, he might have lost the election -- net neutrality is very popular.
"Obama’s attack on the internet is another top down power grab. Net neutrality is the Fairness Doctrine. Will target conservative media."
Yes, and people who don't like these regulations have the power to vote politicians who would revoke this authority. Your argument is unlikely to convince anyone. Especially people who are concerned that governments regulate too much, as parent states.
You are ignoring the obvious possibilities of letting local or state government legislate those things, or simply not legislating them.
The FAA regulates kites. So of course they can regulate drones, personal or commercial.
By the way before I get downvoted for my views, I am merely pointing out that actual conservatism is a position of Federalism rather than a position on a particular agendas of certain groups.
That means a government should be closer to the people it obsensibly represents and decision should be made at the lowest level until such time as it affects a higher level. For example, if California wants to legalize heroin, that's for California to decide -- it has no practical effect on people in Louisiana.
The problem with many social conservatives is that they are intellectually inconsistent -- you can't call for government to enforce what 'you' want but then call for smaller government when it comes to what 'they' want.
It's a question of the scope of government and at what level government ought to be acting -- it really isn't about specific issues but the bigger question of "Is this the role of the Federal government."
How about the USDA inspecting meat to prevent shady companies from passing off improperly stored meat as safe? Or the Department of Housing making sure that people don't add lead to paint without it being labeled as such?
Completely wrong. It gives to the FCC the authority to write rules. In fact, Congress cannot delegate its legislative authority to the Executive branch short of a Constitutional amendment. They tried that with the line item veto and Clinton but it was struck down in the Courts.
Rules and laws are very different. Here is a primer:
https://www.epa.gov/laws-regulations/basics-regulatory-proce...
And BTW, the United States population is about 320M and the GDP is about $18T. Shit's complicated. The idea that Congress should write every rule is blithering populist nonsense.
I think delegation of authority is inevitable in a complicated administrative system.
Stephen Phillips, a prominent and heavily Brexit-supporting Conservative, appears to have figured out that Brexit means a huge increase in executive power, not a reduction. He's resigned from the party. Sadly, he appears to be alone.
In practical terms, the amount of legislation a modern country needs is far in excess of what its elected bodies can deliver. The question isn't if someone other than the body should be legislating, it's who, and with what oversight.
Personally, I think hardline ideologically driven policies leads to disaster. But it looks like that's what we're going to get.
In the meantime, Backbone providers still provide Pandora, deezer, i<3 radio, and [new hot music startup, potentially more innovative than Spotify] at 250mbps to the consumer-facing ISP, but the consumer-facing ISP decided to create artifical scarcity and throttles those.
A theoretical counter argument would simply say: but in that case free market would penalize that ISP as consumers would choose a different one. But I think that's a naive answer because : some people don't see/know the issue, Spotify is good enough, as lycos search and MySpace were good enough at their prime. and more importantly it's a fact that 3 out of 4 Americans do not have a choice in high speed broadband provider. And for those who do, they're sometimes locked in because they still want that cable TV bundled with it. (hypothetically, This would be even more true if that bundle TV provided HBO at 250mbps where regular HBO would be deprioritezed because they didn't pay the platinum level, instead Netflix got it. HBO was business savvy enough to get prioritized via the bundle story.)
With no NN, and no competition, we're going to end up forcing families who are aleady paying out the ass to choose between letting little Jimmy do the research he needs for his homework assignment, and Daddy sneaking some porn in the middle of the night. No way.
And some people would rather everyone suffer than admit that "the market" is neither predictable nor a moral barometer.
Don't you think that these terminology we call each other by (liberal/conservative..) is stifling constructive discussion?
I am sure there is a popular or objective definition of these labels. However, there is also so much misinformation that loads these terms.
Whenever someone starts a conversation by calling the other side a liberal or conservative, there is an automatic implicit assumption of their beliefs whether that is correct or not. The social baggage that comes with these terms are automatically placed on the other person.
I see this so much in real life and online discussions. It's just a shame that people are using these words as an antagonist rather than a heuristic.
Ultimately what matters is percentage swing to the other major party for the state to change electoral vote, scaled by the size of the state and realistic probability of the swing actually happening.
Wyoming might have fewer voters per elector than Florida, but as solidly Republican as states get there's not much point in paying it any attention beyond the primaries, whereas the priorities of a few thousand Cuban exiles in Florida can shape foreign policy because they frequently play a major role in determining the eventual president. And a smallish electoral bribe in the form of investment allocated to populous areas of large states Michigan and Wisconsin would, for better and for worse, probably have swung it for Clinton.
California is at the rougher end of both scales, both under-represented per head and unlikely to change hands. But you'd also probably be less likely to be ignored in a pure popular vote election if you lived in Wyoming, especially if you were amongst the minority of Wyoming residents willing to vote for either party depending on the individual candidates' programmes.
But I would even go further; as to the house specifically and not the election of the president, you have inner state politics affecting the house and the distracting process. ie. Gerrymandering.
In my opinion, we are not seeing red states and blue states (or purple state), we have urban/suburban/rural interests all competing for resources. Keep in mind, now a days, we typically relate urban with democrats and suburban/rural with republicans, but this is not always the case, and sometimes a bit too simplistic.
In a state like North Carolina for instance, the state legislature is run by the republican party, which has the power on how each US house seat is redistricted. I would argue that NC rural interests have much more power than NC urban interests at the state legislature level. This then also gets mirrored in the US Congressional redistricting, where the US Congressmen for cities like Charlotte are geographically divided to give Charlotte as little Congressional power as possible. (For instance, the Congressman for the NC 9th district was in fact essentially the Congressman for just South Charlotte and a few outlying suburbs, his seat has been spread out to a small part of South Charlotte and 3 or 4 very rural counties. This means that he can no longer solely lobby for South Charlotte's interests, but now has a "split" constituency (suburban vs. rural with different needs/wants. Think of it as a majority minority style district for rural areas). I would argue that this means that Charlotte's interests are in part superseded by small rural county interests, which once again, (unfairly?) gives more political power to lower density areas than larger density areas.
(Keep in mind, the above is all my own opinions and arguments, in currently lacking in hard evidence (such as the NC legislature intentionally split the 9th district to deny power to Charlotte) and relies on a few assumptions. So take it with a grain of salt, though I stand by my analysis.)
TL;DR; Even in states with a somewhat equal rural/urban divde, some states give more power to rural areas than urban areas by gerrymandering.
Well, this is both his best and worst trait. It's infuriating when you're trying to work out what he'll really do, but if he uses it successfully to gain certain concessions from other nations, he could be the best negotiator America's had in a long time.
Trump is a protectionist. Or is he? If China (or many other trade partners who exploit America's openness and don't reciprocate) genuinely believes he's going to impose tariffs on their imports unless they eliminate their barriers to US goods, what will they do? Who will blink first? If he doesn't chicken out we're about to watch the highest stakes poker game in modern history.
Right, obviously this was the point at the time of the Constitution's creation, and it made sense at that time because people thought of themselves more as citizens of their states than of their country. But that's no longer true, and hasn't been for a long time.
> This means that smaller states get a boost in power vis a vis larger ones but that larger states still matter more. This is not a bad thing.
Again, let me show you how absurd this is:
"This means that religious minorities get a boost in power vis a vis larger ones but that larger religions still matter more. This is not a bad thing."
"This means that racial minorities get a boos in power vis a vis white people but that white people still matter more. This is not a bad thing."
Why is it a good thing for geographic minorities to get extra voting power, but not minorities for other dimensions?
> States provide the basic block upon which Government in the US rests. It is in our interests to provide states with more equal power at a national level than population would dictate.
1. The Senate still does that anyway. 2. Why is that advantageous in this particular context?
> If you pass a constitutional amendment to adjust voting laws you can enable exactly whatever you like though, for any of your more hyperbolic suggestions you would need to override many of the existing protections as well but if you wanted to be an asshole along with the rest of america there is no reason we could not do so using our existing legal framework.
You don't even need a constitutional amendment actually, the interstate compact is sufficient: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Intersta...
Of course it's unlikely Republicans will back this since the current setup works to their advantage.
> The argument is not about rural versus urban but about the relative power of small versus large states.
Yes, but in practice states with larger populations tend to be more urbanized and states with small populations tend to be more rural.
The motivation for the electoral college had nothing to do with the values you've outlined in your post.
Incidentally, re: your thought experiment, we'd also have slavery and women wouldn't be allowed to vote. The politics of 1780 wasn't idyllic.
> Small, local governments have many advantages: it's easier for ordinary people to participate in and influence them, and they're harder for big money to control. Local governments listen more closely to their constituencies and their decisions more accurately reflect what their communities want.
Local governments also have certain disadvantages: just look at the housing and transportation situation in the SF bay area. Excessive fragmentation has resulted in horrible policies, with each community unwilling to compromise or do what makes sense for the area as a whole. It's basically tragedy of the commons.
> While some of the Founders were fonder of a strong central government than others, none of them would have supported the degree of centralization we have today.
Who cares? The country is radically different than the primarily agrarian society they had, what worked then won't work now.
The founders would also be horrified at our views on sex and gender, just because they were smart men for their time doesn't mean we need to follow their beliefs for all time.
> The antidote is a return to the true meaning of the 10th amendment. A more local government which is influenced and participated in directly by the people it governs. A world where your vote is one of hundreds or thousands, not hundreds of millions, and genuinely does count.
This doesn't happen because it's ineffective, same reason that -- current moves towards populism/nationalism notwithstanding -- there's a long-term trend towards more integration and fewer trade barriers as nations become more developed.
More fragmentation among local governments means powers are closer to individual citizens, yes, but that also means more government overhead: you're losing economies of scale. For example, imagine how well the interstate highway system would work if there were no real federal government or even state governments, and you just had hundreds or thousands of cities each managing little pieces of it.
Is this what you mean?
The Washington Post (along with the Guardian) was one of the first publishers of material leaked by Edward Snowden as part of its new reporting function. The Washington Post, as part of its editorial function, also published an editorial[0] arguing that Obama should not issue a pardon for Snowden. Therefore, the Washington Post cannot (or should not, or has no credibility to) publish an article on Trump and net neutrality as part of its new reporting function because it's position on issuing a pardon for Edward Snowden is inconsistent with freedom (of speech).
I'm not sure which freedom you're referring to. Freedom of speech or freedom of the press would be the likely ones, I think.
If that's not a fair summary of what you mean, please feel free to correct or expand.
[0]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/edward-snowden-doesn...
(Opposition to) net neutrality is not "made up".
> accuse the person they don't like for doing it in the future
People posting here like net neutrality completely independently of how they feel about Trump. You can go back way before Trump came on the scene and find HN threads in which the majority opinion is largely supportive of NN.
This isn't a "demonize Trump" sentiment, it's a "pro net neutrality" sentiment. And it always has existed as an extremely important issue for SV completely independently of Trump. For decades.
> despite having no indications whether that person will actually do it
...other than his word and the preference of relevant people on his transition team.
> and then say that persons supporters are stupid enough to support said action
No one ever said that voters supporting Trump were stupid. Just that abolishing net neutrality would hurt them.
E.g. it's possible that abolishing net neutrality would hurt a coal miner, but it's none-the-less in that coal miner's best interest to vote for Trump.
Repealing net neutrality is far more likely to shut down his alt-right nightmare sites as they fall under the cost margins of eyeball ISPs artificially inflating their peering costs (turns out playing out your Slytherin LARP fantasies in the real world doesn't provide the same revenue as companies like NBC can get).
Personally I would give up NN if we could separate transport from content completely and have real competition among ISPs.
If you want to argue Liberalism as an ideology has a component of statism attached, fine, but so does Conservatism. From Conservatism we got the 1st and 2nd constituions, and Liberalism became the more dominant of the two ideologies since the 14th amendment (and I'd say right now we might be looking at a regression but a. that's biased, and b. it's unproven, that part will take a while).
As a practical matter, saying that some issue is the proper domain of the states is equivalent to saying it can't be effectively regulated at all.
And it's not like the framers were unaware of that dynamic. They empowered the federal government to regulate interstate commerce precisely as a foil to the prohibition on states to do so.
Citizens don't really have the freedom to choose on issues like that unless they have the freedom to close their markets to people who do not play along. The Constitution takes away that freedom.
People underestimate the side effects of state-level or city-level legislation. Due to the size of the California economy the laws in California absolutely have practical effects on people in Louisiana. This is why national and international laws and agreements matter.
For example, environmental regulations on automobiles (this interview transcript is obviously one example and needs to be evaluated in the context of alternative information, but I think it's adequate to demonstrate the point that interactions between states are significant to a degree that dismissing them is risky): http://e360.yale.edu/feature/californias_clean_car_rules_hel...
Florida isn't giving money to anyone [3].
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotle
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population#Past_populati...
[3]: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/05/which-st...
"Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity, may alone suffice to elevate a man to the first honors in a single State; but it will require other talents, and a different kind of merit, to establish him in the esteem and confidence of the whole Union, or of so considerable a portion of it as would be necessary to make him a successful candidate for the distinguished office of President of the United States"
It's almost like the very people who came up with the electoral college would be absolutely appalled at the idea that a small handful of states would determine the result of the presidential election...
But they do ignore the rest. How much campaigning was done in rural Texas or California? Or Wyoming or Montana for that matter?
It's silly to pretend that Michigan and Florida somehow represent the country folk of America.
You mean they would campaign where the people are.
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a
punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly
convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any
place subject to their jurisdiction the action or process of regulating or being regulated
Your misreading would allow that regulation(s) take away freedom but laws and Constitutional Amendments don't. And that's just gibberish.
Arbitrary operator editorial ability seems like a dangerous and irresponsible thing.
There are three groups of people opposed to network neutrality. 1) People who don't like government regulation in general, 2) Telecoms lobbyists and 3) People who don't understand what network neutrality is.
Obviously only the first are worth listening to, though the second are the loudest and the third are the most numerous.
And the issue with listening to the first group is that we have to do it in the right order. The principle of not having the government regulate is that the free market will take care of it, but there is currently no free market for telecommunications, in part because the government has given the incumbents access to eminent domain and a trillion dollars in government subsidies over the past century. So the order of things would have to be to first somehow have strong last-mile competition (e.g. more than 20 providers on average) and only then remove network neutrality.
The people who actually believe this also believe that last mile is not a natural monopoly. The proper way to answer it is to give them e.g. Nevada and let them prove it. Then once Nevada somehow has 20 independent last mile providers, we can do the same thing everywhere else and won't need network neutrality anymore. And if they're wrong and they fail, then we'll know for sure and the only people opposed will be the people no one should ever listen to.
Fair point, but worth noting that they could fail for many reasons that have nothing to do with your central thesis.
And I think that would've been a good thing. Do you disagree?
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/05/which-st...
Small towns do not pay the bills. (Do you seriously think that small town America could afford to build and maintain the Eisenhower 4 lane highway that runs through the town? They can't.)
There is practically zero evidence that "Small town America" isn't dying a painful death these days. You don't have to like it, I certainly don't. (I live in a state that was "Small town America.") But wake up, small town America is dying, and there is almost nothing that can be done to fix it. But trying to somehow "punish" Urban areas certainly doesn't make any sense.
And finally, do you really believe that it's better that a minority has the ability to "showhorn" the majority? Why?
If the rules are bad, change them the next time around.
Nobody is seriously saying, "let's change the rules now so Hillary wins!" Some people are calling for electors to not vote for Trump, but at least that's part of the original intent for the electoral college (and it's not likely to happen anyways).
But lots of people are saying, "This system is obviously broken since the will of the majority was not enacted, let's fix it."
So nice strawman, but I think I just burnt it down.
In this case, it would be like the soccer team picking a really bad goalie, so they want to change the rules so goalies have less effect on game outcome.
If the DNC were correct about their assumptions, they should have won by a landslide. This should not be about changing the rules, it should be reevaluation of our beliefs and course corrections.
[1] http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/underst...
It's an interesting example of arguing against a cause that's only relevant because of the effect it caused previously.
For instance, the electoral college now is almost nothing more than a rubber stamp, with the electors themselves now supposedly having to follow the will of the individual voters who have chosen a candidate for their state. This has not always been the way.
Which is to say, the way that we now elect the president is supposed to be democratic. The fact that many states have laws against faithless electors, which goes against the very design of the electoral college in the first place, which was to have "intelligent/elite" individuals to make a decision on who would truly be the best candidate for the whole of the country.
So when discussing the (again, specifically the election of the President, also see 12th amendment) electoral college, we cannot say that this is a republican process; it is not.
People act like the electoral college system is some unchangeable entity that is fundamental to this country, yet we have changed it countless times over the past 220ish years, (including 14th, 15th, 19th, 22nd, 23rd, 24th, and 26th amendments to the US Constitution, which all effectively deal with who can vote, or how we choose a president/VP. Further, each state has changed many times how they choose the electors, which once may have been chosen by the legislator, but is now by popular vote).
Almost each and every change was designed to make the election of the President a more democratic process. To simply say that we are a republic and not a democracy misses the point, is untrue, ignores history, and is frankly, a lame excuse as to why we don't have a more democratic system for electing our president.
It does not miss the point, this was the intention despite what may have changed later. Certainly it might be better stated that we were intended to be a republic, but that has been weakened over time. The founders also stated that government would always move towards greater concentrations of power and that the constitution was only a parchment barrier. Assuming that later revisions are improvements would be a logical fallacy without understanding original intent.
If we judge the college based upon the criteria that motivated its creation, then we inevitably reach the conclusion that the college should be abolished.
However, if you want a true republic and protection against the problems of majority rule, then you might want to potentially change it, but not abolish it.
https://fee.org/articles/the-accidental-genius-of-the-electo...
As it stands, we have minority rule in nearly every branch of federal government.
Larry Lessig is probably the most prominent person calling for this. He has an op-ed in the Washington Post about this right now.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-constitution-let...
Also, Dave Winer mirrored it here: http://scripting.com/2016/11/25/lessigOnTheElectoralCollege....
This is such an awful argument. North Korea is a republic and not a democracy. China is a republic and not a democracy. Denmark is a monarchy and a democracy. Why would you want your country to be an undemocratic republic when you could be a democratic republic?
The USA is both a republic and a democracy. You could say, a democratic republic.
Since there is, more or less, no other type of democracy around when a colloquial English speaker says "democracy" they mean representative democracy. Everything else is a pointless annoying semantic game.
Representative democracy is a perfectly acceptable term. Trying to shoehorn monarchies into the term "republic" is absurd.
Also, the founding fathers weren't all supporters of the electoral college. Appealing to their ultimate compromise is a strange argument, especially since the original political motivations have largely become either irrelevant or reprehensible.
> It's the person who wins the most games.
That's the senate, and is not at all an accurate analogy for the way the electoral college works.
The Heritage Foundation is smart enough to realise the EC favours Republicans and therefore the policies it promotes and so will spin anything to make that seems like a good idea, because the will of the people being enacted would work against their goals.
Finally, and more a reply to the parent comment, even a popular vote within a two-party system can be suboptimal in some ways and so be less than an ideal "democracy". Ranked choice voting or similar systems can stop "regulatory capture" of the two main parties from denying the voters a legitimate voice.
Politicians across the spectrum have either defrauded their people with "democracy" rhetoric, or accepted it as a de facto standard for the modern age. Which one of the two, I'm clearly not possessing of the answers.
Seriously?
Second: my response wasn't to Heritage, but to skirunman above, who didn't explain any of this stuff either. If you want to ding me for attacking the source, you need to cop to the fact that the whole subthread is an appeal to authority. And that authority is pretty suspect.
This begs for a source. Where is it stated exactly what the purpose of the electoral college was, in the Founding Fathers' own words?
Furthermore, you have to keep in mind that at the time the U.S. was founded, the individual states were essentially their own countries with individual governments and leadership. The only way they could make the deal work with all of them was to ensure that no one state could "overrule" the others. If smaller states could be bullied by larger states, the term "united states" loses a quite a bit of its meaning.
The debate over the scope of the federal government dates back to before the end of the revolutionary war, and was a central topic of debate in the drafting and ratification process for the Constitution.
Remember that our first attempt at forming a country erred toward a weaker federal government, and was more-or-less an abject failure.
> Where is it stated exactly what the purpose of the electoral college was, in the Founding Fathers' own words?
Federalist 68, in which almost every argument makes literally no sense when compared to direct democracy.
That paper is mostly arguing for the electoral college over e.g. the "Governors" or "congressional" plans, leaving the infeasibility of direct election as a foregone conclusion.
A lot of founding fathers would've preferred a direct vote. See for example Anti Federalist 72. Using google you can also find quotes from Madison, for example, arguing that a direct vote would obviously be best.
Which begs the question: why not just do the obvious thing?
> The only way they could make the deal work with all of them was to ensure that no one state could "overrule" the others
Why don't we come out and be explicit about it -- the only way to make it work was the make sure that slave states were comfortable that they'd be able to retain political power while continuing to subjugate a huge portion of their population.
> If smaller states could be bullied by larger states, the term "united states" loses a quite a bit of its meaning.
Larger by what measure?
The slave states that were opposed to direct election and are today characterized as "rural" weren't actually significantly less populous than the northern states. Virginia -- a slave state -- was the most populous.
It's just that a huge number of their men were black, and so didn't count in a direct election.
So, the whole "rural / less populous states need a voice in presidential elections" thing is complete and utter horse shit. The actual issue was that "very populous states that choose to treat a big portion of the population as sub-humans need a vote controlled by whites but with power proportional to their entire population".
The electoral college was there to prevent demagogues. That way, if one person managed to convince the populace with empty rhetoric, there would still be a reasonable body to meet, to discuss, and to choose somebody else.
Worded another way: The states backing the college were some of the least populous UNLESS you counted slaves, who did not themselves enjoy rights of citizenship but were included in population counts to boost the political power of slaveholders.
One of the mistakes they made that we're all still suffering from was in how difficult it is in practice to amend the US constitution. Even the late great Antonin Scalia felt this way--in some interview he gave somewhere, he said that, if given a magic wand and the ability to change the constitution, he'd simply make it easier to amend.
Happily, there are people working on the electoral college problem, e.g. http://nationalpopularvote.com.
(I am, by the way, one of those coastal liberals who's pretty frustrated at how much less my vote matters than the vote of some dude in Wyoming.)
Completely disagree. It keeps us from screwing it up. Don't mess with something that isn't broken. And no, it isn't broken.
There's a reason the US government is one of the oldest in the world. They got quite a few things right from the start.
After all, it's a legal document, not a religious text.
There's also dodgy and ambiguous language that keeps causing arguments and problems, in part because it wasn't written super clearly to begin with, and in part because centuries have passed since the people wrote it.
(Some of my big ones: clarifying the 2nd amendment one way or the other, addressing abortion rights directly, and adding something to strengthen every citizen's access to voting, e.g. national voting holiday, felon enfranchisement, whatever.)
I'd make it easier to amend, and trust in my fellow citizens to do the right thing.
(he had given a talk mostly criticizing the idea of enshrining rights in the constitution as an attempt to remove certain ideas from democracy)
> But trying to somehow "punish" Urban areas certainly doesn't make any sense.
It's not about punishing urban areas. It's about the direction we want our economy to take -- one that's increasingly focused on producing wealth in a small number of cities for a small number of people or one that provides for the greatest number of American citizens. We should be especially conscious of this divide as part of the tech community -- for all their economic weight Google/Apple/Facebook hire an incredibly small number of people compared to traditional American megacorps.
> And finally, do you really believe that it's better that a minority has the ability to "showhorn" the majority? Why?
A popular minority, yes. Population-wise the country would effectively be run by the Northeast and California who's needs and desires are not necessarily the same as the rest of the country. I believe direct democracy does not work in a country as large as the United States which is why we're (supposed to be) a federal republic.
But, if your assertion is that they're the same thing now, then that's cool too, I guess.
It's really, really hard to equivocate the 13th amendment to, say, the EPA rules overturned by Michigan v EPA, or any of the other thousands of regulations imposed last year.
And even with that question answered, this doesn't necessarily fix the problem, as it's still quite easy to have the electoral college votes not match the popular vote. So what's the real point of the modern electoral college? It just makes for a more complex, less precise, less democratic system overall.
That is the effect of the electoral college in modern politics, but it is not at all why the college exists.
The slave states are often mis-characterized as rural/not populous as compared to northern states. But that logic only holds if the color of your skin defines your humanity -- slave states weren't significantly less populous, it's just that a huge portion of their populations weren't enfranchised. In fact, the most populous state was a slave state. So IMO the thesis that the electoral college is a result of slavery is mostly accurate.
As far as the "official" reasons (since slavery was a touchy motivation, even back in the day), see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_No._68 which outlines the "official" reasons for having a college as well as all of the alternatives at the time. Most of these seem pretty irrelevant to the modern world:
* As a veto on dangerous men -- I don't see this ever happening in our modern world. * To avoid "cabal, intrigue, and corruption" as well as pandering. None of these function as arguments against a direct vote, but rather as arguments against the use of governors, congress, etc. in place of the electoral college.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_College_(United_Stat...
1. To balance power between states that have slaves and states that do not https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-Fifths_Compromise
2. To provide a way for people with better information than the general public to choose the President [0].
Addressing #1, we thankfully no longer have slaves, but the need to address population disparity still exists. In 1929 the Republican majority in congress put a cap of 435 on the number of members of the House of Representatives [1]. That has led to a ratio of 1:700,000 representation, compared to the intended 1:50,000 ratio (and the 1:30,000 ratio advocated by George Washington). This alters the effectiveness of both the Electoral College and the House by reducing effective representation as larger coalitions need to form in order to influence the vote of a single representative. In 2012, CNN indicated the UK has a 1:90,000 ratio and the government we established in Iraq 1:100,000 [2].
The procedures of the Electoral College have changed since its creation, undermining the ability of the EC to perform #2 [0]. Electors are now often uninformed and simply act a pledged voters.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_College_(United_Stat... "Electoral College (United States)"
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_congressional_ap... "United States Congressional Apportionment"
[2]: http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/09/opinion/flynn-expand-congress/ "CNN: What's wrong with Congress? It's not big enough."
Heheh, so the people chose Clinton, but the "people with better information" chose Trump? That just doesn't sound right. ;)
Clearly, those in favor will point out its positives and discard its negatives, and vice versa.
The point, I think I'm making, is that for those opposed to net neutrality, maybe some would be less opposed if success and failure were clearly defined, and whatever regulations enacted were the least and most tailored amount of regulations meant to specifically prevent the previously defined failure states. Giving broad and ambiguous authority over something like "the internet" is fraught with both wonder and peril, and until and unless "good" and "bad" are quantified, it seems unfair to castigate "the other side" as shills, or ignorant (not that I'm suggesting that you've done that, but it's definitely been done).
Competition sufficient so that no last mile ISP has enough market power to charge transit or content providers for access to their customers. That's the exact minimum amount of competition necessary so that you don't need network neutrality regulations -- enough so that the market does the job for you.
If the goal is balancing power between political parties, then the presidency should certainly be a popular vote or else the house and senate should be substantially reformed.
At this point, the Queen is nothing more than a vestigial organ. (as an example, did the Queen come out for or against the Brexit vote? Have you ever seen a head of government remain so quiet about such an important event?)
Well, I would hope the move is towards more democracy, but it seems people everywhere are eager to vote against democratic freedoms these days.
I disagree with little of the above, but I wonder how much of it is due to 'Liz 2 in particular. I can imagine a different monarch exerting a great deal more influence. They'd be perfectly able to do so. The UK's armed forces are loyal only to the monarch and not the government, for example.
When electors are bound to their vote as they are today, the electoral college seems to exist in order to give a greater voice to more rural states, to keep them from being forgotten. But then the opposite occurs: winner-takes-all means that candidates have little incentive to campaign in "safe" states and the entire election hinges on just a few.
And there is your mistake. Our republic has endured precisely because full trust wasn't placed in the hands of the people, but rather the people were simply another check on the power of the government that was subdivided, distributed, and balanced.
There is a path for amending the constitution and it requires overwhelming consent, as it should.
For lots of people, they're not happy, the system doesn't work for them and they have no redress. Telling them it's for their own good? Pull the other one, it's got bells on.
There are always people who are unhappy. There is no system which will make everyone happy all of the time.
However, if you give the keys to the populace at large with unlimited power, you'll have tyranny of the majority and then you'll have bigger problems to chew on.
Do I really need to cite the most recent election as evidence? Democracy will always lean towards populism. Its only use is as a check on government.
The obvious rebuttal being that "laws" allow for the military draft, which is also slavery, or jury duty, which is an admittedly much milder form of the same thing, or the internment of the Japanese, or the infinite detention in Guantanamo, but since you probably already know that libertarians wouldn't be on board with slavery in the first place and are just positing up strawman after strawman, I think it's fair to assume that your arguments aren't being made in good faith, so I'll leave you to it.
https://fee.org/articles/the-accidental-genius-of-the-electo...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/11/15/...
The second article also fails to refute anything I've said. A direct vote was ruled out because of slavery -- the article says nothing about that. Once a direct vote was was ruled out, Federalist 68 basically explains why you'd want a college over the competing alternatives.
But the key move is ruling out direct democracy, not preferring one among the N bad alternatives. And the article never explains why a direct vote would've been ruled out. It's painfully clear what the reason for doing so was.
Although true, this is true as a point in time statement. In the end, they were convinced of the alternative argument.
Like the poster near the beginning of the thread said, the problem isn't really who wields Federal power, or who decides; the problem is that there's too much of it.