Why do you make more sense than the liberals in this country? However I am for term limits and severe reduction in post career remuneration - as if that really occurs when people stay in office until death do they part
I have a little theory. Going to simple majority vote (on most issues) gives us the lesson we need to see about why a Republican system is superior to the straight Democracy that many believe is what we should be doing (ie axing the Electoral College).
The simple majority is causing 50% + 1 to act with impunity.
Is there even a strong case for having a president? I get that we have always had one (or pretty much always have had one), but is it really a needed position? Perhaps congress and judicial is enough?
Giving absolute power to a 50% + 1 majority is a surefire way to cause huge cycles in governance, along with 1/2 the population being disenfranchised. A 60-67% pass rate on legislation would go a long way to eliminating this, since pols would have to give and take or move to the center to get votes.
Let me ask you a hypothetical - what if the conservatives had all of the power to radically change governance in accord with say my political positions. Would you be happy with a straight democracy then? Because I would not only radically change the laws, but would also lock you out of ever being in power or changing my decrees, other than by full on revolution. Sound good?
I could be persuaded on both, I just think it misses the key dysfunction here, and that isn’t people staying in their post longer than most aristocrats, it’s the influence groups buying them off.
Direct democracy would be something I could see causing the disintegration of the United States. 50%+1 Is a terrible way to run a country.
Sure, I get what you are saying. The first post alluded to the electoral college being better than electing the president by popular vote, and the popular vote being a negative because a majority would rule with just over half. The part left out is the electoral college allows a minority to rule over everyone with less than a majority. I see a majority getting their way as not optimal, but by definition more people are happy with this than a minority rule.
I am okay with requiring a higher pass rate. I just didn’t see that in the post I responded to.
Stuff like this is what makes me happy we have a constitution to prevent that. When a party gets all three branches, they will try to change things to the way they want and get every advantage they can. The constitution keeps them from going too far.
Democracy has an issue in that a majority of people can want untenable things. We need boundaries to protect the minority.
No. Conservatives often pretend(or believe) that certain things exist to protect the 49.9% from the 50.1%, when in actuality compromises(States’ rights) had to be made in order to ratify the Constitution.
Power over what? The ones with the power provide the choices for the people to vote on. A group of people couldn’t get a 51% majority vote on what kind of pizza to order let alone on the laws they want.
This isn’t quite true. The agreement was always going to be revocable. At any time, if all 50 democrats and Harris agreed, the filibuster would be toast. Even if the Senate governing agreement forbade this, a majority vote in the Senate would be sufficient to allow a governing agreement to be changed with a simple majority vote. And then the filibuster could be removed by another simple majority vote.
The only real difference is the political fallout might be different if Schumer had to change the rules instead of just Manchin and Sinema going back on their word. But if you’re going nuclear on the filibuster, the political fallout probably already is what it is.