Merry Christmas to me (I wish).

hacksoncode · 2016-12-24T22:27:26+00:00

So where do you keep the good whisky?

You know... the kind you can drink without having to refrigerate it...

hacksoncode · 2016-12-24T22:24:46+00:00

How would you describe someone that was bisexual, but through a variety of circumstances has come to be primarily attracted to the same sex?

hacksoncode · 2016-12-24T22:15:56+00:00

They are Centrist in the sense of representing the center of the U.S. population approximately as well as the Democrats do. Both would be considered right-wing parties in much of Europe, but Europe can't vote in the U.S.

hacksoncode · 2016-12-24T21:56:26+00:00

Yes, but there's really nothing that democracy can do to solve the problem that sometimes giant segments of the population become extremist.

Proportional representation doesn't solve that either.

hacksoncode · 2016-12-24T21:53:29+00:00

I think that most people would argue that making these tactics effective is a flaw, not that they don't have an effect.

hacksoncode · 2016-12-24T21:51:45+00:00

It tends to go pretty well until it goes massively wrong. C.f. Weimar Republic.

hacksoncode · 2016-12-24T21:50:19+00:00

Sadly, no. The populace is more extreme than I would like, but democracy really can't fix that problem.

hacksoncode · 2016-12-24T21:03:46+00:00

Most of the time it works out that way, sure. And then there's the one time when 2 centrist parties are close to equal, but neither one has a majority and there's only 1 minority party with enough votes to bring either centrist party to a majority.

hacksoncode · 2016-12-24T20:53:26+00:00

Yeah, democracy doesn't deal well with large fractions of the population being idiots. Sadly, no system does.

hacksoncode · 2016-12-24T20:42:10+00:00

The place where I disagree is that 5-10% of the population should not have any significant power in enacting their extremist policies. That is rule by a minority, which is the only thing worse than rule by a majority.

hacksoncode · 2016-12-24T20:25:39+00:00

In a proportional system they don't necessarily need much support. Imagine our system where neither the Democrats nor the Republicans had a majority in the House. In order to pass any law, each side would have to pander to one or more minority parties. Thus, the minority parties would essentially decide which laws each side passed.

hacksoncode · 2016-12-24T20:22:53+00:00

If you wish to award a delta, you'll need to repost this comment and remove the ">" in front of your delta.

Deltabot doesn't accept deltas inside quotations, because we need to have some way to talk about deltas without awarding them.

hacksoncode · 2016-12-24T20:19:17+00:00

I'd prefer using the straight popular vote to choose a president, but that would require a constitutional amendment.

You might want to check out the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.

hacksoncode · 2016-12-24T20:03:42+00:00

Not in the sense I mean. I'm talking about representing the fringe edges of society (i.e. very few people). Trump is president because the country really is that loopy.

The terrifying part is that the Republicans are a Centrist party.

hacksoncode · 2016-12-24T19:55:07+00:00

Based on your previous affiliations, I feel it necessary to ask this question:

What do you think it means to be a libertarian?

hacksoncode · 2016-12-24T19:42:54+00:00

The problem is that a significant fraction of the population is what you are calling "extremist". That's a good point, but it's not something that a democratic system can solve.

The scary truth is that the Republicans are a Centrist party.

hacksoncode · 2016-12-24T19:38:18+00:00

That's easy to say, but imagine a party actually composed entirely of the alt-right neo-Nazis rather than just influenced by them.

hacksoncode · 2016-12-24T19:33:51+00:00

If it were actually true that politicians still needed to get on a train and travel to each state in order to listen to their concerns, there might be some validity in that view.

However, in reality, each individual voter who might vote for them would get exactly the same attention from an intelligent candidate.

There would be no need to "pander" to "California", because "California" wouldn't be voting any more. Only individuals in California would be voting.

Given current demographic trends (which it's not clear would stay the same in a popular vote situation), a Republican candidate would be appealing to people outside the cities in all states, and a Democrat would be appealing to people inside cities in all states.

The country is no longer in a situation where it makes sense to base our voting system on carriage and train stops.

hacksoncode · 2016-12-24T19:21:50+00:00

If they got "equal" representation, we wouldn't be in this mess. Equal representation would be equal by population. States aren't people. They don't have opinions. Only the people in the states deserve any kind of representation.

hacksoncode · 2016-12-24T19:16:34+00:00

Every single state in the union has urban centers that tend to vote less conservatively (today... but there's no saying it has to stay that way).

There's no one or two giant state capital. Even California, if it were actually a giant uniform blob of people that thought the same way, rather than being about 2/3rds Democratic, and with a larger Libertarian contingent than any other state, would only have ~12% of the vote.

hacksoncode · 2016-12-24T19:13:25+00:00

Especially not one where, you know, illegal immigrants are encouraged to vote when they aren't even citizens.

Found the idiot.

hacksoncode · 2016-12-24T19:12:43+00:00

Of course. Look at the pyramids. Piles of stone constructed in the shape of a pile of stones will always be stronger and longer lasting than a weird unstable shape.

hacksoncode · 2016-12-24T19:09:24+00:00

They are, by definition. There is a legal framework enforcing their commitment, and a social framework doing the same.

Being willing to have those frameworks in place shows more commitment than not having them in place.

It might be misplaced commitment, but it's a higher level of commitment.

hacksoncode · 2016-12-24T19:07:50+00:00

Which is fine, since some people voted for the communists so their ability to tip the scales on which centrist policy wins out is just an expression of the will of the voters.

It's really not, though. Only a tiny number of people wanted them to have any influence at all, whatsoever.

And don't discount the power of getting to decide which "centrist" laws get passed. All parties have a range of platform issues.

A small libertarian party could get all of the economically conservative laws passed from the Republicans, and all of the socially liberal laws passed from the Democrats. While I, as a libertarian, might love that outcome, most people in the country wouldn't.

hacksoncode · 2016-12-24T19:05:30+00:00

Well, would those majority states secede if they didn't get their way? I would argue that would be a much bigger problem for the country.

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