The actual intent of the 2nd amendment is pretty damn clear to anyone who actually reads it and knows the history. Because the 2nd amendment was _never intended to apply to the states_.
That's a pretty indisputable fact, that even if the founder's intent was that the Federal government couldn't disarm _anyone_, obviously the states could, and did, have laws about gun ownership at that time. I think everyone agrees with that, although a good 90% of the people involved in discussions about the 2nd amendment seem to forget it.
'A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.'
So, realizing it didn't apply to states, it is pretty clear that the 2nd amendment is the _federal government_ being forbidden from disarming _state militias_. Which they would do by disarming individuals, because that is how militias worked. I don't actually understand how people can read that amendment in any other way. States have a right to a militia, and the federal government cannot disarm people in it. (And, as is pointed out, pretty much any able-bodied male is considered part of the militia, and the state can presumably put anyone it wants in it, so the Federal government is basically forbidden from disarming anyone if the state doesn't want it.)
The problem is then we applied this restriction as applying to _states_ and have now forbidden the states from disarming not only their own militia (Which is somewhat crazy, if a bit moot because states don't really have those anymore.), but _anyone at all_ (Which is completely insane in the context of the original.)
Yes, I know that is one _logical_ outcome of the interaction between the second amendment and the Due Process Clause of the fourteenth amendment, but it's very clearly a colossal accident. The right being spoken of wasn't _actually_ a right to keep and bear arms, it was a right for a _state_ to operate a militia, and just phrased in a fucked up way.
The idea that a state can be _forced_ to not disarm its own frickin militia is crazy. As is the idea that somehow everyone is in the militia _even if the state doesn't want them to be_ and hence is required to be armed. Those two concepts are complete and utter nonsense, even if the 'programming' of the 2nd and 14th amendment makes them true. Those might really be the rules, but they are completely batshit crazy rules.
The GOP has convinced it’s base it can have everything they like about government, and less taxes too. But they can’t. So they bitch and whine about taxes that are at historic lows, and act like rolling back the tax rates to the 90s is gonna kill America and turn us into Soviet Russia.
Luckily, that's going to happen anyway, at the end of this year. Well, partially.
Plain fact of the matter is, when you poll the public on what they want to cut from government? There ain’t much, really, that has broad support to slash.
Actually, there is stuff that has 'broad support' to slash by _completely misinformed_ people. For example, if you poll people, foreign aid has broad support to slash, and people think it should be slashed way down to 5% of the budget or so. The obvious problem there is that foreign aid actually totals 25 billion, or 0.8% of the budget.
And, of course, there was Romney's public television insanity. To fight the dreaded half a billion dollars we're spending on it. Oh noes! That's enough money to give everyone a tax reduction enough to buy a single item off the dollar meal at McDonalds! That's worth giving up PBS and NPR for!
Likewise, when you ask people how much different income groups should be taxed...there'd for 'lowering' the amount of tax the rich pay to almost Sweden levels! Seriously. They want to 'lower' the rich's taxes to much higher than they _currently are_.
The problem is, frankly, people seem to have no idea where money goes, or how much goes where, or where it comes from. Checking other countries, educating people about such things is supposed to be the job of a system called 'the media', and someday this country might actually get one.
But, yes, there's nothing with broad support for cutting that actually would _do_ anything, except for the military. Especially the wars. Which is, of course, treasonous to talk about cutting.
And there’s no reason to force politicans to make hard choices — to cut into things like the military (do we really need to spend as much as the entire world combined?), or agricultural subsidies, much less anything truly difficult. (Cutting the military or agriculture hurts lobbyists more than Americans. Cutting in Social Security or Medicare tends to get the masses involved).
That is the real problem with living on borrowed money. If the spending matched the revenue, and people could see 'Oh, I'm spending $100 dollars a year on this, is there a way to trim it?' and 'Well, that's $200 a year, but it seems like it's a big program, so I guess I understand that.'
(Not that the revenues should exactly match spending, of course. I'd suggest varying by up to an extra 20% spending in bad times, made up for by an extra 20% revenue in good.)
Oh, and I somehow forgot to mention the difference in _money_ spent between the two sides under 'Obama handicaps'.
Seriously, folks, in 2008 there was the excuse of a idiotic running mate, _and_ the anti-Bush sentiment, _and_ people voting for a historic candidate they perhaps otherwise would not have, _and_ perhaps Obama didn't have a mandate because no one knew how 'far left' (ha) he would govern.
Yeah, all those excuses are gone this time. All of them. The Republican ticket is, at least, competent. Bush has gone down the memory hole. We've already had a black president. We know exactly how Obama governs. And it's also a recession. And hundreds of millions of dollars in secret spending, a lot of which was used to promote flat-out lies.
And it's +127 EVs for the 'socialist'. +127 EVs for living under Obama.
I think we've forever proven that the right, and the beltway idiots, and half damn the internet, don't live in the America they _think_ they live in.
And, see, in a sane world, we could sit there and argue about what it actually makes sense for the government to do, secure in the fact that once we agree to that, we would _actually set taxes to allow us to do that_.
But we can't. Because the Republicans have picked as a 'policy goal' something that isn't even a political question to start with, namely, 'What amount of taxes do we need to take in?
The problem is what actually happened is for about two decades the right pretended to care about less spending, while actually only caring about lower taxes. Meanwhile, they brainwashed _everyone_ into caring about both of them (While everyone somehow failed a spot check on who was actually doing the spending. Apparently, it's only spending if Democrats do it.)
This was stupid enough...but then they got overthrown by their own brainwashed base who actually _tried_ to reduce spending down to the idiotic level that would match the idiotic level of taxes. (And everyone else said WTF?)
You know those countries that have just been introduced to democracy, and don't really understand it, and have to have a decade or so learning how it works?
Well, thanks to the Republican brainwashing, us Americans need a decade or so to (re)learn how taxes actually work and what the correct level of them is. Hint: It's roughly the amount we are spending, regardless of whether or not you politically agree with that amount of spending.
I tend to hate the implication that _taxes_ have anything to do with _freedom_. The GOP has managed to brainwash a large percentage of the electority, _including Democrats_, that such a thing is true. And, what's more, that it is the _most important_ freedom.
How much you pay on your goddamn taxes is actually pretty unimportant to _everyone_. Almost everything the government does is more important than paying 3% more income tax. If you actually _ask_ people this, they will willingly agree. Aka, would you rather have roads than the 2% of money that goes towards roads?
Incidentally, the few things that people _don't_ agree they'd rather have more of than a corresponding cut in their taxes are the military, which we can never ever cut. And the rest is entirely made up bullshit. (Yes, I _would_ like to spend $1 a year to fund public television, you assholes.)
It's like the entire nation is convinced that the most important thing about a movie is how many times people said 'the' in it, or the most important thing about a car is whether the radio antenna is perfectly straight. It's completely insane.
Taxes _are not a political issue_. Period. Taxes need to match spending on average, slightly higher in good times and slightly lower in bad. There is no actual 'politics' there, besides who should pay what percentage. If the right thinks the government should spend less, they need to MAKE THE GOVERNMENT SPEND LESS.
There's a quote going around about how a Democracy is doomed once people learn how to vote themselves free stuff. Well, that's wrong. A democracy is doomed when people realize they can just _vote themselves no taxes_ and keep getting the stuff that they had been purchasing, but are free now.
Which is, incidentally, counter-productive to reducing spending. If people are _paying_ for spending, and they are spending too much, and they are _paying_ for it, they might actually cut back on it. But if they aren't feeling it, why would they cut back?
The problem for Republicans is that, as I said, taxes _are not actually hurting people_, they were not too high, and wouldn't be in normal circumstances even if we taxed enough to cover spending. (Doing it now would be a bad idea, though.) People were basically happy with the level of government, so to reduce it, Republicans had to embark reducing taxes to start with, and hope, at some point, the government just falls over.
So, to recap: In 2000, Republicans win the presidency by _one_ electoral vote for a president we've never seen before and hence don't really know what he wants. He loses the popular vote. The Republicans also lose two seats in the House and lose four seats in the Senate.
And Bush proclaims _that_ is a mandate for Republican policies.
In 2012, Democrats win the presidency by 97 (+/-29) electoral votes for a president we've just seen four years of and presumably know what policies to expect from. He also wins the popular vote. The Democrats also win twenty-two seats in the House and two seats in the Senate.
And Obama wins during a _high unemployment_, where incumbents are supposed to be at a disadvantage. Oh, and he's black, and hence there's a small fraction of the population who will never vote for him.
And this blowout, of course, is _not_ a mandate for Democratic policies.
Speaking of blowout, I think the ultimate hypocrite on how to describe an election goes to Dick Morris. Apparently, his prediction of Romney winning by 325-213, aka, Romney winning by 60.4% is called 'a blowout ', but Obama winning, without Florida, by 303-206. That is, for reference, 59.5% of the (decided) EC. And Dick Morris calls it 'a squeaker'.
Who knew that 0.9% made such a difference! I guess 50.1%-59.9% is 'a squeaker' (Also known as 'a mandate' when it's a Republican), exactly 60.0% is 'a win', and 60.1%-100% is 'a blowout'.
Please note I'm not talking about his _prediction, which was even stupider than that, as Obama is actually going to win by 332 EV, aka, 61.7% of the total EC. I'm just talking about the word he used to describe Obama's victory when FL was still in doubt, when Obama had, tada, 59.5% of the EC. vs. the word he used to describe his prediction of a 60.4% win.
I'm rather hoping that classic liberals end up in one and the progressives end up in another, and we can run around debating _how_ to accomplish basically the same goals, and whether or not, for example, we should 'play favorites' to redress past wrong, or instead come up some other way to help people. And whether restricting people's ability to do drugs helps society, and even if it does, should we do it? Aka, a 'freedom' party vs a 'making society work' party, with both sides having to compromise to some exist, and both of them having basically the same goals. That would be an interesting and useful discussion.
Instead of this idiotic discussion we're apparently having about the delusional idea that cutting taxes increases revenue, and the delusional idea we should decrease spending during a recession, and the delusional idea that voter impersonation is an issue, and all the other delusional ideas that the Republicans keep coming up with.
Well, yes, the demographics problem is sorta on top of the crazy problem. And, yes, it's actually the demographics that will kill them.(Or, rather, _have_ killed them.) The crazy problem is just why they are unable to solve the demographics problem.
In fact, they almost _did_ solve part of the demographics problem, with Bush's rather reasonable immigration reform...and the first major success of the crazies was to destroy that.
The crazy problem happened _right_ as Republican party was ready to pivot on immigration, expanding their tent _just_ wide enough to keep a majority. So it is the reason they fell down...but it's sorta just random, that was the first thing they got caught up on.
If we look into an alternate universe where the internet was ten years later, we'd see a universe where the Republicans were still in charge, and the crazies were just now taking over in blogs...and in ten years the Republicans would lose because crazies held them steady on the LGBT issue while the rest of the country moved on.
And an internet (And fox news) ten years earlier than our universe, the 1992 blogs would be full of crazy about flag burning and how Clinton was secretly a Soviet spy or whatever. (The Soviet union's breakup obviously being some sort of liberal trick.)
So, basically, whatever issue destroys a party taken over by crazy is whatever issue comes up next that the crazies think crazy things about. Currently, that appears to be racial minorities. Admitted, the Republicans would have had a hard time pivoting on that _anyway_, but probably could have managed it.
What's also seriously helped is the Republicans continuing to demonstrate that both parties _aren't_ the same by having all sorts of crazy local people and laws.
Indeed. And the fact is, it's hard to see anything the right did wrong, except not predict the future.
The plan was obvious...keep stirring up the crazies with the newly invented cable news and talk radio, and keep gutting and criticize the mainstream media so the media doesn't report on this. Appear moderate to the public, appear far right to the base, and govern as basically moderate plus low taxes, ignoring the deficit, which was just something to yell around the Democrats about.
This actually seems like a perfect plan. It got them into power in 1994, and while it didn't get rid of Clinton in 1996, it did manage to get frickin George Bush in office in 2000.
And they managed to move the Overton window to the right, where suddenly we've all realized we need welfare reformed framed how the right says it. So the left moved away from their crazies (And plenty of sane leftish people), and into, functionally, a center-right party _barely_ to the left of the Republicans, which were also center-right.
But Al Gore had his revenge: The internet.
Suddenly, the crazy had a platform, and, worse, could _compare notes_. And realized that the Republicans were actually standing pretty close to the center, except for a few things like hurting unions (Which helped them politically) and lower taxes on the rich (Which also help them politically in donations). None of the Republican actually _cared_ about the lunatic issues that the far-right had been feed for two decades. Yes, that was somewhat obvious to everyone, but the far right had a lot of, to be blunt, fucking morons, and more importantly they were able to talk to each other and gin up the outrage.
Fox news then said 'Holy shit, right wing outrage, That's ratings gold!' (Insert video of a controlled detonation to take down a building.)
At this point, the right had two ways to jump. One option was to the left (On top of the Democrats) and disavowed their crazies, likes the Democrats did. Except the Democrats did that slowly, with the help of the media, the right had no time at all and the media had picked the other side. So they jumped rightward, a jump which half of them didn't manage to pull off and got replaced anyway.
That was _really_ the wrong choice. Well, perhaps the right choice for any individual's political career, as jumping to the left or even staying in the same place got people primaried out already. But it was _really_ the wrong choice for the party because of one simple fact:
Yes. Almost all hobbies look like wastes of time from the outside to other people. And a boatload of them are more dangerous than drugs.
Drugs sometimes cause a physical dependency, but so what? Skiing sometimes cause broken legs. A lot of hobbies, like computer games, TV watching, etc, sometimes cause people to not get enough exercise. Sports sometimes cause fights and riots. D&D sometimes causes players to think the game is real and go on murderous rampages for 'experience'...wait, that one is made up, nevermind.
It is legal for people to put specialized pieces of cloth in their backpack, hire an airplane, and then _jump out of that airplane_ and use the cloth to maybe land safely. This is entirely _legal_. People _sell_ other people this service, and the government is completely aware of this.
Compared to all that, someone who needs a specific amount of heroin each day to function is _nothing_.
And frankly, within a _functioning_ treatment system, it's a hell of a lot easier and cheaper to detox someone vs. fixing a broken leg or a heart attack caused by not enough exercise. (We do not have a functioning treatment system.)
This is why, despite being pro-life, I have very little respect for Roe vs. Wade. So, medical privacy allows people to do whatever they want to their body, eh? Okay, I wouldn't have called that 'medical privacy', but I can get behind that as a principle in a free society...a person's body is completely under their own control and any alterations they wish are allowed. In fact, I like that principle!
Oh, wait, it only applies to abortion (and contraceptives) for some completely nonsensical reason.
In fact, when you look at contraceptives, it's even goofier: There is a _constitutional right_ to put certain chemicals in your body to temporarily alter your body chemistry and reduce your fertility, but it is _illegal_ to put certain other chemicals in your body to temporarily alter your body chemistry and make you feel better? What?
Now, yes, a right to abortion and contraceptives is somewhat more _important_ than a right to recreational drugs, but I'm having trouble seeing how it is more 'medical privacyish'. It's like having a constitutional right to free speech allowing you to wear a 'Fuck the government' shirt but it being illegal to wear a Brewer's shirt. Huh?
Heh, I made my comment above, with nearly the same analogy, before I read yours.
But, in this case, it's more like, when people bring up the racial and idiotic disparity in crack vs. cocaine sentencing, it's someone claiming the solution is to 'legalize all drugs'. I.e, we're not talking about a 'bad' law, we're talking about a _discriminatory_ law. That they refuse to fix.
It's clearly completely nonsense. And, as I pointed out, extortion: 'We admit that unjust things are being done to you under the color of law, but instead of fixing the law to where it is just (Which is our responsibly as members of society who ultimately make laws), we will continue to allow society to harm you until you change your position on the laws about that topic in general to get the political outcome we want.'
That...is not ethical. At all. People who think a law is unjustly applied have a duty to make it just as quickly as possible, regardless of whether they like the law as a whole.(1) They cannot stand there pretending to be moral entities while stating they will only consider removing the law completely.
1) Why the hell I, a progressive, am having to point this out to so many supposed 'libertarians', is beyond me. I actually get a little flexible in how 'just' a law is, and am willing to slightly harm people for a better outcome in general. Libertarians are supposed to be the people demanding an absolute line on anything close to civil rights, and often, even on things that really aren't.
I’m not willing to damn gay couples to exclusion in the interim that I wait to get everything I want all at once.
Indeed, such a position seems profoundly unethical. Just imagine it applied other ways:
'Yes, the police are racially biased against blacks WRT drug laws, but instead of agreeing that we need to figure out how to stop that, I think instead I'll demand nothing change until drugs are legalized.'
'Yes, it's bad that the police are harassing people who walk around with perfectly legal firearms, but the place we need to focus is on on making all weapons, including automatic weapons, legal so they can't harass anyone ever again.'
Somehow the people making the argument 'We should just get rid of marriage' tend to be the people who _aren't_ affected by the current actual problem. And, I must point out, gay people what to get married usually _have no problem with marriage_. Saying 'We agree that society is unjustly harming you, and we will allow that to continue until you agree with our position about marriage.' is a little, uh, extortiony.
Sometimes I have this fantasy: 'Yes, the fact that people annoyed at your idiotic stance knocked down your door and burst into your house is wrong, and the fact that they are currently beating you with tire irons is horrible. So I will not rest until I have mandated that tire irons are properly regulated...oh come on, you're not even looking at me while I'm talking to you. And stop moaning like that, and asking for help...I _am_ helping you! Surely you see that. What do you mean you don't have an moral objection to tire irons, you just want them to stop hitting you with them? No, I don't know how we'd change tires without them, why are you asking all these stupid questions...don't you _want_ them to stop hitting you? For the good of everyone, we must get rid of tire irons...oh, great, now he's gone to sleep, the lazy bastard.'
They are the _state's_ electors. If the _state_ needs an extra week or so to get them together, the state can take an extra week. As long as the certified vote is mailed to the right people and state what the numbers are, it's a damn valid election. (Incidentally, I dislike this fact generally, I think the Federal government should be running elections for Federal offices...but that fact is true whether or not I like it at any given moment.)
And the constitution does not actually say what could happen, so I'm confused as to what people think _would_ happen if a state picked a different day. Congress has no authority that I can see to reject cast votes. In fact, trying to do _that_ would cause a constitutional crisis:
'...which lists [the electors] shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate; the President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted...'
Nothing in there about 'Unless they voted on the wrong date'. If it is signed and certified by proper state authorities and gotten to Congress in time, Congress _shall_ count it, period.
Now, I guess the Federal government could make voting on a different day a crime, or make electors casting electoral votes from the result of a wrong-date vote a crime...but they haven't done that, and they can't do it retroactively. And it wouldn't affect the election anyway. (Much like state laws against faithless electors...an argument can be made that states can, indeed, make that a crime...but it won't change the actual vote they actually cast.)
That said, the easiest solution would be for Congress to hurry back to DC and postpone the entire election by a week.
Wow, half the people here have rather...astonishing predictions. You guys know we elect presidents based on the electoral college, right? So everyone looking at national polls is being a bit silly.
As is everyone looking at Ohio...Romney _must_ win Ohio, but Obama does not actually need it. Obama's basically starting at 241, Romney at 191, so Romney has to win a hell of a lot swing states. And, statistically, he's about to _lose_ most of those swing states. In fact, it appears that he is likely to lose Ohio!
My prediction: Obama wins NH, PA, WI, MI, and NV, for a total 0f 263. Romney wins NC and FL.
This leaves CO, OH, and VA on the table...and Romney has to win _all_ of them.
He will not. He probably _lose_ all of them, and thus Obama will get 303 EVs at the lower bounds. But let's be conservative here, and let Romney win either VA or CO somehow, so the total is 288. Obama still wins.
So my official prediction: 288-303 EV for Obama. Assuming I haven't screwed up in the math somewhere.
And I don't think it's completely impossible Romney will lose Florida. It was already close, and then Romney went around being an idiot towards hurricanes and disaster relief, and Obama went around being competent.
Unrelated to that, I also predict that Ohio will manage to fuck up the election again and go into overtime, this time due to voter ID. But Obama will still win it.
Ah, I see what you mean. Yes, we don't want to actually attach congressional districts to the presidential election, as congressional districts are just something states made up anyway. Valid point.
I think I'm back at 'Why the heck is the state is charge of how it elects people to national office?'. I'm sorry, states have demonstrated they are _completely irresponsible_ WRT voting and voting rights. Especially recently.
There are states that are _deliberately_ screwing up the election in specific ways so that 'their party' wins. Look at Ohio, which had a horrible election process in 2004, fixed it for 2008 and, to their horror voted for Obama, so is now attempting to break it back.
Oh, and let's not get into electronic voting weirdness. Or gerrymandering.Or voter ID to fight the imaginary crime of voter impersonation.
And it's not just that. Why the hell do states get representation for their _prison population_? Or people with stripped voting rights? Or people here illegally.
The sheer level of dishonesty and manipulation going on at the local level for national elections...no. Just no. The entire situation is competely fucked up.
As states are indeed in charge of themselves, they can continue to be irresponsible towards their own internal elections. But Representatives and Senators and electors are supposed to be via actual vote of actual people, and at this point we have _decades_ of records demonstrating that states simply cannot be trusted with that.
Of course electoral districts are an extra-constitutional artifact themselves.
I don't know what you mean by artifact, but, yes, the states could elect all electors by a majority vote. I guess we're lucky the states have forgotten this.
I actually think this was a major oversight of the constitution. Yes, yes, it's all well and good to let states have any form of _internal_ government as long as it is representative, but I really do think that _exactly_ how national offices are filled should be spelled out in the constitution. (Or, rather, the right of the national government to specify that should be spelled out, and then the government should do that.)
We already specified, and then changed, how we did that for Senators. (Incidentally, I see nothing in the 17th amendment stopping us from having two _Senate_ districts in a state. Interesting idea.)
Actually, looking at state's attempt to deliberately fuck it up, I'd really prefer the US government did the actual voting process and even controlled who could vote in it. (Just for national offices, of course.)
And a great many are partisanly gerrymandered to an extreme degree.
It really doesn't make sense to worry about a gerrymandered district when the 2/3rd of entire nation is functionally in 'gerrymandered-by-accident' states where their vote doesn't matter.
At least if the gerrymandering is _local_, yes, any specific district might be ignored by a candidate, but they can scarcely ignore the entire state, or even an entire section of the country!
But like I said, introducing _another_ election into the gerrymandering equation means they really have to stop using such tight tolerances for gerrymandering, or they risk blowing one of the elections.
I propose that the House-based electoral votes should be _by congressional district_.
This would neuter gerrymandering. Now there are _two_ boundaries to worry about, with different levels of fuzziness and different voting patterns, and it's a hell of a lot harder to sit there and make '10 55%-our-guy districts and one 95%-the-other-guy district'. If you gerrymander to that extent with the presidential election in the balance, a very slight shift in the presidential election might throw them _all_ to the other side, so you can't risk it. You have to make them 60% or 65% districts...which means now the other side has two or three districts instead of one.
The VP election is decided by the _incoming_ Senate, just like the Pres is decided by the incoming House. Which means, of course, that Biden is not part of it, as he has not been elected yet. These seems to be one of those weird paradoxes. The only thing the Senate can ever tie on, without the VP being able to decide it...is the VP selection.
I actually think in a case of electoral college tie actually happening, the Senate would say 'You know, we're just going to wait and pick whatever VP was in the same party as whoever the House picks, because we as a county do not like divided ticket President/VP'. (Of course, if the House misses their window, then it would be a real vote.)
Another odd fact: While the House is time-limited on how long they can take to select the President, the Senate is not. They can actually wait forever, which raises the question of what happens when a presidential inauguration rolls around and there's no one there to take office. I _guess_ the Speaker of the House has to take office.
Although if we've got such a fucked up House they can't manage to pick a President, it's entirely possible that is because they haven't managed to pick a Speaker yet!
And without a President, we've got no cabinet either. Hrmmmm...I really have no idea what is supposed to happen at that point.
We'd apparently be be in a weird position where there is a _race_ to see whoever managed to get their act together (The House in electing a Speaker, the Senate in electing a VP), because their guy to assumes the presidency. (And, ironically, neither of those actually ran for the office. So the actual tied candidates are sitting over to the side, pissed.)
What I would like to see is not a 'popular vote' per se, but a _divided_ vote.
All states should do it exactly like congressional districts....everyone votes for one elector from their district, and two state-wide electors.
This would cut down on the crazy redistricting, simply because the margins are not exactly the same. I.e., if the Republicans run around making each district 55% Republican and 45% Democratic for Representative votes, they really risk blowing a lot of presidential electoral votes. They'd have to _really_ overpower the districts to ensure a presidential win, which now means there's less Republicans to go around for other districts. (Please note I am in no way implying that only Republicans gerrymander.)
Meanwhile, it means that the campaigns would have to pay attention to almost every state(1), simply because there's usually at least _one_ congressional district they think they can win. (And the campaign 'splashes'...yes, your specific district might be decided, but if they come to a district near yours, they're often going to be talking about basically the same issues that people in your district care about.)
Reading this opinion, it appears to first point out the sex discrimination angle. (Which is perfect in this case. If Edith Windsor had been male, she would not have been denied anything. Her sexual orientation is completely irrelevant.)
But then it instead points out that homosexuals should be a suspect class _anyway_, and decided based the decision on that.
I am not sure this will work. I can imagine the Supreme Court coming up with some bullshit reason to not add gay people to suspect classes. I would _like_ it to be added, because it that would screw with all the other anti-gay laws. But even without that, even if the court punts on that, the sexual discrimination issue should win it, and the people making the case were smart enough to argue that also.
So if that logic shows up in court, that the Supremes would basically be _forced_ to say a) yes it obviously is (Seriously, she would have been awarded her spousal deduction if she had been male. It really can't be any clearer sexual discrimination than that.), and thus b) it is under intermediate scrutiny (This is settled law), and c) no one has ever come up with any government interest at all. (They really have not.)
The only tiny wiggle room is (c), and that requires the Supreme Court accepting some completely nonsensical government interest.
I notice, reading the dissents, that they seemed to completely ignore the sexual discrimination aspect, and instead applied 'rational bias'.
Regardless of whether or not sexual orientation is protected as a class, (Which is actually debatable.), any law that _talks about_ gender in any way, and especially ones that _restrict_ people from things based _solely_ on gender, is _already_ under intermediate scrutiny. The court really should already know this.
I don't think 'Super-cool to shoot' is a particularly good reason to allow things. RPGs are also super-cool to shoot. (And speaking of an entirely different sort of RPG, kill sats are also super-cool to shoot, as evidenced by playing Fallout New Vegas.)
And I'm not entirely sure what sort of usefulness they would pose in hunting. Unless animals have gotten much stupider recently, even a suppressed gunshot should startle them.
On “A Well Regulated Militia”
The actual intent of the 2nd amendment is pretty damn clear to anyone who actually reads it and knows the history. Because the 2nd amendment was _never intended to apply to the states_.
That's a pretty indisputable fact, that even if the founder's intent was that the Federal government couldn't disarm _anyone_, obviously the states could, and did, have laws about gun ownership at that time. I think everyone agrees with that, although a good 90% of the people involved in discussions about the 2nd amendment seem to forget it.
'A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.'
So, realizing it didn't apply to states, it is pretty clear that the 2nd amendment is the _federal government_ being forbidden from disarming _state militias_. Which they would do by disarming individuals, because that is how militias worked. I don't actually understand how people can read that amendment in any other way. States have a right to a militia, and the federal government cannot disarm people in it. (And, as is pointed out, pretty much any able-bodied male is considered part of the militia, and the state can presumably put anyone it wants in it, so the Federal government is basically forbidden from disarming anyone if the state doesn't want it.)
The problem is then we applied this restriction as applying to _states_ and have now forbidden the states from disarming not only their own militia (Which is somewhat crazy, if a bit moot because states don't really have those anymore.), but _anyone at all_ (Which is completely insane in the context of the original.)
Yes, I know that is one _logical_ outcome of the interaction between the second amendment and the Due Process Clause of the fourteenth amendment, but it's very clearly a colossal accident. The right being spoken of wasn't _actually_ a right to keep and bear arms, it was a right for a _state_ to operate a militia, and just phrased in a fucked up way.
The idea that a state can be _forced_ to not disarm its own frickin militia is crazy. As is the idea that somehow everyone is in the militia _even if the state doesn't want them to be_ and hence is required to be armed. Those two concepts are complete and utter nonsense, even if the 'programming' of the 2nd and 14th amendment makes them true. Those might really be the rules, but they are completely batshit crazy rules.
On “It’s the Party, Stupid, Ctd. : How we deal with the peccadillos is actually pretty important, too”
The GOP has convinced it’s base it can have everything they like about government, and less taxes too. But they can’t. So they bitch and whine about taxes that are at historic lows, and act like rolling back the tax rates to the 90s is gonna kill America and turn us into Soviet Russia.
Luckily, that's going to happen anyway, at the end of this year. Well, partially.
Plain fact of the matter is, when you poll the public on what they want to cut from government? There ain’t much, really, that has broad support to slash.
Actually, there is stuff that has 'broad support' to slash by _completely misinformed_ people. For example, if you poll people, foreign aid has broad support to slash, and people think it should be slashed way down to 5% of the budget or so. The obvious problem there is that foreign aid actually totals 25 billion, or 0.8% of the budget.
And, of course, there was Romney's public television insanity. To fight the dreaded half a billion dollars we're spending on it. Oh noes! That's enough money to give everyone a tax reduction enough to buy a single item off the dollar meal at McDonalds! That's worth giving up PBS and NPR for!
Likewise, when you ask people how much different income groups should be taxed...there'd for 'lowering' the amount of tax the rich pay to almost Sweden levels! Seriously. They want to 'lower' the rich's taxes to much higher than they _currently are_.
The problem is, frankly, people seem to have no idea where money goes, or how much goes where, or where it comes from. Checking other countries, educating people about such things is supposed to be the job of a system called 'the media', and someday this country might actually get one.
But, yes, there's nothing with broad support for cutting that actually would _do_ anything, except for the military. Especially the wars. Which is, of course, treasonous to talk about cutting.
And there’s no reason to force politicans to make hard choices — to cut into things like the military (do we really need to spend as much as the entire world combined?), or agricultural subsidies, much less anything truly difficult. (Cutting the military or agriculture hurts lobbyists more than Americans. Cutting in Social Security or Medicare tends to get the masses involved).
That is the real problem with living on borrowed money. If the spending matched the revenue, and people could see 'Oh, I'm spending $100 dollars a year on this, is there a way to trim it?' and 'Well, that's $200 a year, but it seems like it's a big program, so I guess I understand that.'
(Not that the revenues should exactly match spending, of course. I'd suggest varying by up to an extra 20% spending in bad times, made up for by an extra 20% revenue in good.)
On “Election 2012 Recap: Getting the Triumphalism Right”
Oh, and I somehow forgot to mention the difference in _money_ spent between the two sides under 'Obama handicaps'.
Seriously, folks, in 2008 there was the excuse of a idiotic running mate, _and_ the anti-Bush sentiment, _and_ people voting for a historic candidate they perhaps otherwise would not have, _and_ perhaps Obama didn't have a mandate because no one knew how 'far left' (ha) he would govern.
Yeah, all those excuses are gone this time. All of them. The Republican ticket is, at least, competent. Bush has gone down the memory hole. We've already had a black president. We know exactly how Obama governs. And it's also a recession. And hundreds of millions of dollars in secret spending, a lot of which was used to promote flat-out lies.
And it's +127 EVs for the 'socialist'. +127 EVs for living under Obama.
I think we've forever proven that the right, and the beltway idiots, and half damn the internet, don't live in the America they _think_ they live in.
On “It’s the Party, Stupid, Ctd. : How we deal with the peccadillos is actually pretty important, too”
And, see, in a sane world, we could sit there and argue about what it actually makes sense for the government to do, secure in the fact that once we agree to that, we would _actually set taxes to allow us to do that_.
But we can't. Because the Republicans have picked as a 'policy goal' something that isn't even a political question to start with, namely, 'What amount of taxes do we need to take in?
The problem is what actually happened is for about two decades the right pretended to care about less spending, while actually only caring about lower taxes. Meanwhile, they brainwashed _everyone_ into caring about both of them (While everyone somehow failed a spot check on who was actually doing the spending. Apparently, it's only spending if Democrats do it.)
This was stupid enough...but then they got overthrown by their own brainwashed base who actually _tried_ to reduce spending down to the idiotic level that would match the idiotic level of taxes. (And everyone else said WTF?)
You know those countries that have just been introduced to democracy, and don't really understand it, and have to have a decade or so learning how it works?
Well, thanks to the Republican brainwashing, us Americans need a decade or so to (re)learn how taxes actually work and what the correct level of them is. Hint: It's roughly the amount we are spending, regardless of whether or not you politically agree with that amount of spending.
"
I tend to hate the implication that _taxes_ have anything to do with _freedom_. The GOP has managed to brainwash a large percentage of the electority, _including Democrats_, that such a thing is true. And, what's more, that it is the _most important_ freedom.
How much you pay on your goddamn taxes is actually pretty unimportant to _everyone_. Almost everything the government does is more important than paying 3% more income tax. If you actually _ask_ people this, they will willingly agree. Aka, would you rather have roads than the 2% of money that goes towards roads?
Incidentally, the few things that people _don't_ agree they'd rather have more of than a corresponding cut in their taxes are the military, which we can never ever cut. And the rest is entirely made up bullshit. (Yes, I _would_ like to spend $1 a year to fund public television, you assholes.)
It's like the entire nation is convinced that the most important thing about a movie is how many times people said 'the' in it, or the most important thing about a car is whether the radio antenna is perfectly straight. It's completely insane.
Taxes _are not a political issue_. Period. Taxes need to match spending on average, slightly higher in good times and slightly lower in bad. There is no actual 'politics' there, besides who should pay what percentage. If the right thinks the government should spend less, they need to MAKE THE GOVERNMENT SPEND LESS.
There's a quote going around about how a Democracy is doomed once people learn how to vote themselves free stuff. Well, that's wrong. A democracy is doomed when people realize they can just _vote themselves no taxes_ and keep getting the stuff that they had been purchasing, but are free now.
Which is, incidentally, counter-productive to reducing spending. If people are _paying_ for spending, and they are spending too much, and they are _paying_ for it, they might actually cut back on it. But if they aren't feeling it, why would they cut back?
The problem for Republicans is that, as I said, taxes _are not actually hurting people_, they were not too high, and wouldn't be in normal circumstances even if we taxed enough to cover spending. (Doing it now would be a bad idea, though.) People were basically happy with the level of government, so to reduce it, Republicans had to embark reducing taxes to start with, and hope, at some point, the government just falls over.
On “Election 2012 Recap: Getting the Triumphalism Right”
So, to recap: In 2000, Republicans win the presidency by _one_ electoral vote for a president we've never seen before and hence don't really know what he wants. He loses the popular vote. The Republicans also lose two seats in the House and lose four seats in the Senate.
And Bush proclaims _that_ is a mandate for Republican policies.
In 2012, Democrats win the presidency by 97 (+/-29) electoral votes for a president we've just seen four years of and presumably know what policies to expect from. He also wins the popular vote. The Democrats also win twenty-two seats in the House and two seats in the Senate.
And Obama wins during a _high unemployment_, where incumbents are supposed to be at a disadvantage. Oh, and he's black, and hence there's a small fraction of the population who will never vote for him.
And this blowout, of course, is _not_ a mandate for Democratic policies.
Speaking of blowout, I think the ultimate hypocrite on how to describe an election goes to Dick Morris. Apparently, his prediction of Romney winning by 325-213, aka, Romney winning by 60.4% is called 'a blowout ', but Obama winning, without Florida, by 303-206. That is, for reference, 59.5% of the (decided) EC. And Dick Morris calls it 'a squeaker'.
Who knew that 0.9% made such a difference! I guess 50.1%-59.9% is 'a squeaker' (Also known as 'a mandate' when it's a Republican), exactly 60.0% is 'a win', and 60.1%-100% is 'a blowout'.
Please note I'm not talking about his _prediction, which was even stupider than that, as Obama is actually going to win by 332 EV, aka, 61.7% of the total EC. I'm just talking about the word he used to describe Obama's victory when FL was still in doubt, when Obama had, tada, 59.5% of the EC. vs. the word he used to describe his prediction of a 60.4% win.
On “It’s the Party, Stupid, Ctd. : How we deal with the peccadillos is actually pretty important, too”
And we really need another party of some sort.
I'm rather hoping that classic liberals end up in one and the progressives end up in another, and we can run around debating _how_ to accomplish basically the same goals, and whether or not, for example, we should 'play favorites' to redress past wrong, or instead come up some other way to help people. And whether restricting people's ability to do drugs helps society, and even if it does, should we do it? Aka, a 'freedom' party vs a 'making society work' party, with both sides having to compromise to some exist, and both of them having basically the same goals. That would be an interesting and useful discussion.
Instead of this idiotic discussion we're apparently having about the delusional idea that cutting taxes increases revenue, and the delusional idea we should decrease spending during a recession, and the delusional idea that voter impersonation is an issue, and all the other delusional ideas that the Republicans keep coming up with.
"
Well, yes, the demographics problem is sorta on top of the crazy problem. And, yes, it's actually the demographics that will kill them.(Or, rather, _have_ killed them.) The crazy problem is just why they are unable to solve the demographics problem.
In fact, they almost _did_ solve part of the demographics problem, with Bush's rather reasonable immigration reform...and the first major success of the crazies was to destroy that.
The crazy problem happened _right_ as Republican party was ready to pivot on immigration, expanding their tent _just_ wide enough to keep a majority. So it is the reason they fell down...but it's sorta just random, that was the first thing they got caught up on.
If we look into an alternate universe where the internet was ten years later, we'd see a universe where the Republicans were still in charge, and the crazies were just now taking over in blogs...and in ten years the Republicans would lose because crazies held them steady on the LGBT issue while the rest of the country moved on.
And an internet (And fox news) ten years earlier than our universe, the 1992 blogs would be full of crazy about flag burning and how Clinton was secretly a Soviet spy or whatever. (The Soviet union's breakup obviously being some sort of liberal trick.)
So, basically, whatever issue destroys a party taken over by crazy is whatever issue comes up next that the crazies think crazy things about. Currently, that appears to be racial minorities. Admitted, the Republicans would have had a hard time pivoting on that _anyway_, but probably could have managed it.
What's also seriously helped is the Republicans continuing to demonstrate that both parties _aren't_ the same by having all sorts of crazy local people and laws.
"
Indeed. And the fact is, it's hard to see anything the right did wrong, except not predict the future.
The plan was obvious...keep stirring up the crazies with the newly invented cable news and talk radio, and keep gutting and criticize the mainstream media so the media doesn't report on this. Appear moderate to the public, appear far right to the base, and govern as basically moderate plus low taxes, ignoring the deficit, which was just something to yell around the Democrats about.
This actually seems like a perfect plan. It got them into power in 1994, and while it didn't get rid of Clinton in 1996, it did manage to get frickin George Bush in office in 2000.
And they managed to move the Overton window to the right, where suddenly we've all realized we need welfare reformed framed how the right says it. So the left moved away from their crazies (And plenty of sane leftish people), and into, functionally, a center-right party _barely_ to the left of the Republicans, which were also center-right.
But Al Gore had his revenge: The internet.
Suddenly, the crazy had a platform, and, worse, could _compare notes_. And realized that the Republicans were actually standing pretty close to the center, except for a few things like hurting unions (Which helped them politically) and lower taxes on the rich (Which also help them politically in donations). None of the Republican actually _cared_ about the lunatic issues that the far-right had been feed for two decades. Yes, that was somewhat obvious to everyone, but the far right had a lot of, to be blunt, fucking morons, and more importantly they were able to talk to each other and gin up the outrage.
Fox news then said 'Holy shit, right wing outrage, That's ratings gold!' (Insert video of a controlled detonation to take down a building.)
At this point, the right had two ways to jump. One option was to the left (On top of the Democrats) and disavowed their crazies, likes the Democrats did. Except the Democrats did that slowly, with the help of the media, the right had no time at all and the media had picked the other side. So they jumped rightward, a jump which half of them didn't manage to pull off and got replaced anyway.
That was _really_ the wrong choice. Well, perhaps the right choice for any individual's political career, as jumping to the left or even staying in the same place got people primaried out already. But it was _really_ the wrong choice for the party because of one simple fact:
WE CAN SEE YOU GUYS IN THERE.
On “No, but it would help”
Yes. Almost all hobbies look like wastes of time from the outside to other people. And a boatload of them are more dangerous than drugs.
Drugs sometimes cause a physical dependency, but so what? Skiing sometimes cause broken legs. A lot of hobbies, like computer games, TV watching, etc, sometimes cause people to not get enough exercise. Sports sometimes cause fights and riots. D&D sometimes causes players to think the game is real and go on murderous rampages for 'experience'...wait, that one is made up, nevermind.
It is legal for people to put specialized pieces of cloth in their backpack, hire an airplane, and then _jump out of that airplane_ and use the cloth to maybe land safely. This is entirely _legal_. People _sell_ other people this service, and the government is completely aware of this.
Compared to all that, someone who needs a specific amount of heroin each day to function is _nothing_.
And frankly, within a _functioning_ treatment system, it's a hell of a lot easier and cheaper to detox someone vs. fixing a broken leg or a heart attack caused by not enough exercise. (We do not have a functioning treatment system.)
"
This is why, despite being pro-life, I have very little respect for Roe vs. Wade. So, medical privacy allows people to do whatever they want to their body, eh? Okay, I wouldn't have called that 'medical privacy', but I can get behind that as a principle in a free society...a person's body is completely under their own control and any alterations they wish are allowed. In fact, I like that principle!
Oh, wait, it only applies to abortion (and contraceptives) for some completely nonsensical reason.
In fact, when you look at contraceptives, it's even goofier: There is a _constitutional right_ to put certain chemicals in your body to temporarily alter your body chemistry and reduce your fertility, but it is _illegal_ to put certain other chemicals in your body to temporarily alter your body chemistry and make you feel better? What?
Now, yes, a right to abortion and contraceptives is somewhat more _important_ than a right to recreational drugs, but I'm having trouble seeing how it is more 'medical privacyish'. It's like having a constitutional right to free speech allowing you to wear a 'Fuck the government' shirt but it being illegal to wear a Brewer's shirt. Huh?
On “The Joy Of Opening Time Capsules”
The problem is that Romney basically has to win all the toss-ups, while Obama just needs to win one of them.
On “If you happen to live in Maine (or Washington, Maryland or Minnesota)”
Heh, I made my comment above, with nearly the same analogy, before I read yours.
But, in this case, it's more like, when people bring up the racial and idiotic disparity in crack vs. cocaine sentencing, it's someone claiming the solution is to 'legalize all drugs'. I.e, we're not talking about a 'bad' law, we're talking about a _discriminatory_ law. That they refuse to fix.
It's clearly completely nonsense. And, as I pointed out, extortion: 'We admit that unjust things are being done to you under the color of law, but instead of fixing the law to where it is just (Which is our responsibly as members of society who ultimately make laws), we will continue to allow society to harm you until you change your position on the laws about that topic in general to get the political outcome we want.'
That...is not ethical. At all. People who think a law is unjustly applied have a duty to make it just as quickly as possible, regardless of whether they like the law as a whole.(1) They cannot stand there pretending to be moral entities while stating they will only consider removing the law completely.
1) Why the hell I, a progressive, am having to point this out to so many supposed 'libertarians', is beyond me. I actually get a little flexible in how 'just' a law is, and am willing to slightly harm people for a better outcome in general. Libertarians are supposed to be the people demanding an absolute line on anything close to civil rights, and often, even on things that really aren't.
"
I’m not willing to damn gay couples to exclusion in the interim that I wait to get everything I want all at once.
Indeed, such a position seems profoundly unethical. Just imagine it applied other ways:
'Yes, the police are racially biased against blacks WRT drug laws, but instead of agreeing that we need to figure out how to stop that, I think instead I'll demand nothing change until drugs are legalized.'
'Yes, it's bad that the police are harassing people who walk around with perfectly legal firearms, but the place we need to focus is on on making all weapons, including automatic weapons, legal so they can't harass anyone ever again.'
Somehow the people making the argument 'We should just get rid of marriage' tend to be the people who _aren't_ affected by the current actual problem. And, I must point out, gay people what to get married usually _have no problem with marriage_. Saying 'We agree that society is unjustly harming you, and we will allow that to continue until you agree with our position about marriage.' is a little, uh, extortiony.
Sometimes I have this fantasy: 'Yes, the fact that people annoyed at your idiotic stance knocked down your door and burst into your house is wrong, and the fact that they are currently beating you with tire irons is horrible. So I will not rest until I have mandated that tire irons are properly regulated...oh come on, you're not even looking at me while I'm talking to you. And stop moaning like that, and asking for help...I _am_ helping you! Surely you see that. What do you mean you don't have an moral objection to tire irons, you just want them to stop hitting you with them? No, I don't know how we'd change tires without them, why are you asking all these stupid questions...don't you _want_ them to stop hitting you? For the good of everyone, we must get rid of tire irons...oh, great, now he's gone to sleep, the lazy bastard.'
On “Hurricane Sandy, and Why Sound Risk Management Should Always Trump Populist Banner Waving”
They are the _state's_ electors. If the _state_ needs an extra week or so to get them together, the state can take an extra week. As long as the certified vote is mailed to the right people and state what the numbers are, it's a damn valid election. (Incidentally, I dislike this fact generally, I think the Federal government should be running elections for Federal offices...but that fact is true whether or not I like it at any given moment.)
And the constitution does not actually say what could happen, so I'm confused as to what people think _would_ happen if a state picked a different day. Congress has no authority that I can see to reject cast votes. In fact, trying to do _that_ would cause a constitutional crisis:
'...which lists [the electors] shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate; the President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted...'
Nothing in there about 'Unless they voted on the wrong date'. If it is signed and certified by proper state authorities and gotten to Congress in time, Congress _shall_ count it, period.
Now, I guess the Federal government could make voting on a different day a crime, or make electors casting electoral votes from the result of a wrong-date vote a crime...but they haven't done that, and they can't do it retroactively. And it wouldn't affect the election anyway. (Much like state laws against faithless electors...an argument can be made that states can, indeed, make that a crime...but it won't change the actual vote they actually cast.)
That said, the easiest solution would be for Congress to hurry back to DC and postpone the entire election by a week.
On “George Lucas Taps Out”
This creates a very weird fact that I'm not entirely sure anyone has considered:
Marvel now has direct access to Star Wars.
On “The Joy Of Opening Time Capsules”
Wow, half the people here have rather...astonishing predictions. You guys know we elect presidents based on the electoral college, right? So everyone looking at national polls is being a bit silly.
As is everyone looking at Ohio...Romney _must_ win Ohio, but Obama does not actually need it. Obama's basically starting at 241, Romney at 191, so Romney has to win a hell of a lot swing states. And, statistically, he's about to _lose_ most of those swing states. In fact, it appears that he is likely to lose Ohio!
My prediction: Obama wins NH, PA, WI, MI, and NV, for a total 0f 263. Romney wins NC and FL.
This leaves CO, OH, and VA on the table...and Romney has to win _all_ of them.
He will not. He probably _lose_ all of them, and thus Obama will get 303 EVs at the lower bounds. But let's be conservative here, and let Romney win either VA or CO somehow, so the total is 288. Obama still wins.
So my official prediction: 288-303 EV for Obama. Assuming I haven't screwed up in the math somewhere.
And I don't think it's completely impossible Romney will lose Florida. It was already close, and then Romney went around being an idiot towards hurricanes and disaster relief, and Obama went around being competent.
Unrelated to that, I also predict that Ohio will manage to fuck up the election again and go into overtime, this time due to voter ID. But Obama will still win it.
On “Electoral College Reversal”
Ah, I see what you mean. Yes, we don't want to actually attach congressional districts to the presidential election, as congressional districts are just something states made up anyway. Valid point.
I think I'm back at 'Why the heck is the state is charge of how it elects people to national office?'. I'm sorry, states have demonstrated they are _completely irresponsible_ WRT voting and voting rights. Especially recently.
There are states that are _deliberately_ screwing up the election in specific ways so that 'their party' wins. Look at Ohio, which had a horrible election process in 2004, fixed it for 2008 and, to their horror voted for Obama, so is now attempting to break it back.
Oh, and let's not get into electronic voting weirdness. Or gerrymandering.Or voter ID to fight the imaginary crime of voter impersonation.
And it's not just that. Why the hell do states get representation for their _prison population_? Or people with stripped voting rights? Or people here illegally.
The sheer level of dishonesty and manipulation going on at the local level for national elections...no. Just no. The entire situation is competely fucked up.
As states are indeed in charge of themselves, they can continue to be irresponsible towards their own internal elections. But Representatives and Senators and electors are supposed to be via actual vote of actual people, and at this point we have _decades_ of records demonstrating that states simply cannot be trusted with that.
"
Of course electoral districts are an extra-constitutional artifact themselves.
I don't know what you mean by artifact, but, yes, the states could elect all electors by a majority vote. I guess we're lucky the states have forgotten this.
I actually think this was a major oversight of the constitution. Yes, yes, it's all well and good to let states have any form of _internal_ government as long as it is representative, but I really do think that _exactly_ how national offices are filled should be spelled out in the constitution. (Or, rather, the right of the national government to specify that should be spelled out, and then the government should do that.)
We already specified, and then changed, how we did that for Senators. (Incidentally, I see nothing in the 17th amendment stopping us from having two _Senate_ districts in a state. Interesting idea.)
Actually, looking at state's attempt to deliberately fuck it up, I'd really prefer the US government did the actual voting process and even controlled who could vote in it. (Just for national offices, of course.)
And a great many are partisanly gerrymandered to an extreme degree.
It really doesn't make sense to worry about a gerrymandered district when the 2/3rd of entire nation is functionally in 'gerrymandered-by-accident' states where their vote doesn't matter.
At least if the gerrymandering is _local_, yes, any specific district might be ignored by a candidate, but they can scarcely ignore the entire state, or even an entire section of the country!
But like I said, introducing _another_ election into the gerrymandering equation means they really have to stop using such tight tolerances for gerrymandering, or they risk blowing one of the elections.
"
I propose that the House-based electoral votes should be _by congressional district_.
This would neuter gerrymandering. Now there are _two_ boundaries to worry about, with different levels of fuzziness and different voting patterns, and it's a hell of a lot harder to sit there and make '10 55%-our-guy districts and one 95%-the-other-guy district'. If you gerrymander to that extent with the presidential election in the balance, a very slight shift in the presidential election might throw them _all_ to the other side, so you can't risk it. You have to make them 60% or 65% districts...which means now the other side has two or three districts instead of one.
"
Not as I understand it.
The VP election is decided by the _incoming_ Senate, just like the Pres is decided by the incoming House. Which means, of course, that Biden is not part of it, as he has not been elected yet. These seems to be one of those weird paradoxes. The only thing the Senate can ever tie on, without the VP being able to decide it...is the VP selection.
I actually think in a case of electoral college tie actually happening, the Senate would say 'You know, we're just going to wait and pick whatever VP was in the same party as whoever the House picks, because we as a county do not like divided ticket President/VP'. (Of course, if the House misses their window, then it would be a real vote.)
Another odd fact: While the House is time-limited on how long they can take to select the President, the Senate is not. They can actually wait forever, which raises the question of what happens when a presidential inauguration rolls around and there's no one there to take office. I _guess_ the Speaker of the House has to take office.
Although if we've got such a fucked up House they can't manage to pick a President, it's entirely possible that is because they haven't managed to pick a Speaker yet!
And without a President, we've got no cabinet either. Hrmmmm...I really have no idea what is supposed to happen at that point.
We'd apparently be be in a weird position where there is a _race_ to see whoever managed to get their act together (The House in electing a Speaker, the Senate in electing a VP), because their guy to assumes the presidency. (And, ironically, neither of those actually ran for the office. So the actual tied candidates are sitting over to the side, pissed.)
"
What I would like to see is not a 'popular vote' per se, but a _divided_ vote.
All states should do it exactly like congressional districts....everyone votes for one elector from their district, and two state-wide electors.
This would cut down on the crazy redistricting, simply because the margins are not exactly the same. I.e., if the Republicans run around making each district 55% Republican and 45% Democratic for Representative votes, they really risk blowing a lot of presidential electoral votes. They'd have to _really_ overpower the districts to ensure a presidential win, which now means there's less Republicans to go around for other districts. (Please note I am in no way implying that only Republicans gerrymander.)
Meanwhile, it means that the campaigns would have to pay attention to almost every state(1), simply because there's usually at least _one_ congressional district they think they can win. (And the campaign 'splashes'...yes, your specific district might be decided, but if they come to a district near yours, they're often going to be talking about basically the same issues that people in your district care about.)
1) Alaska is still screwed, however.
On “Intermediate Scrutiny”
Reading this opinion, it appears to first point out the sex discrimination angle. (Which is perfect in this case. If Edith Windsor had been male, she would not have been denied anything. Her sexual orientation is completely irrelevant.)
But then it instead points out that homosexuals should be a suspect class _anyway_, and decided based the decision on that.
I am not sure this will work. I can imagine the Supreme Court coming up with some bullshit reason to not add gay people to suspect classes. I would _like_ it to be added, because it that would screw with all the other anti-gay laws. But even without that, even if the court punts on that, the sexual discrimination issue should win it, and the people making the case were smart enough to argue that also.
So if that logic shows up in court, that the Supremes would basically be _forced_ to say a) yes it obviously is (Seriously, she would have been awarded her spousal deduction if she had been male. It really can't be any clearer sexual discrimination than that.), and thus b) it is under intermediate scrutiny (This is settled law), and c) no one has ever come up with any government interest at all. (They really have not.)
The only tiny wiggle room is (c), and that requires the Supreme Court accepting some completely nonsensical government interest.
I notice, reading the dissents, that they seemed to completely ignore the sexual discrimination aspect, and instead applied 'rational bias'.
Regardless of whether or not sexual orientation is protected as a class, (Which is actually debatable.), any law that _talks about_ gender in any way, and especially ones that _restrict_ people from things based _solely_ on gender, is _already_ under intermediate scrutiny. The court really should already know this.
On “The Candidates on Guns”
I don't think 'Super-cool to shoot' is a particularly good reason to allow things. RPGs are also super-cool to shoot. (And speaking of an entirely different sort of RPG, kill sats are also super-cool to shoot, as evidenced by playing Fallout New Vegas.)
And I'm not entirely sure what sort of usefulness they would pose in hunting. Unless animals have gotten much stupider recently, even a suppressed gunshot should startle them.
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...why on earth would we be making those legal? What sort of justification is there for that?
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