Re: Philly Sucks

SLAVE of THE STATE wrote:
On Nov 6, 5:46 pm, Fred Fredburger
<FredFrebur...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Tom Kunich wrote:
"Fred Fredburger" <Fred.Fredbur...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
messagenews:wztQk.2867$532.736@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On the other hand, we are a republic. That electoral college system
was designed to keep power away from the great unwashed masses too.
Yeah, that Constitutional Congress was made up of Kings and Princes.
Specific to the Electoral College and the reasons for it, the FF had
reasons for rejecting direct popular vote. Most sources agree that those
reasons include some measure of distrust in the decision making process
of the average person.

Well they were certainly arguing against a pure popular sovereignty in
the sense of majority rule. But that is not at all equal to saying
there was a distrust of the "average person," although someone like
Hamilton and perhaps Adams would have distrusted peons. One reason
was to protect non-majorities and even individuals against "mob
rule." Again, that is not the same as distrust of the "average
person" as it does not guarantee invocation of explicit actions
against non-majorities and individuals, as the invocation actually has
to come from the official authority, so then we step back and ask how
the official got their power and what other measures would tend to
reign that power in. Really, it had a lot to do with dividing power,
to make "ambition counteract ambition." That theme was repetitive,
and you will recall that none of the States who were party to granting
power to the Feds were eager to see any particular party gain an upper
hand, whether it be other States, the Fed, or blocks of States.
Therefore, they attempted to build in these counterchecks in several
ways, and the electoral college was one of these ways.


You're arguing for a distinction between the distrust of the "average person" versus a distrust of the tyranny of the majority. Semantically, I think I like your way better. But I confess that I'm not entirely clear on what you believe that distinction to be. I was more concerned about the distrustful angle of it. In an "Oprah" world, distrust is to be distrusted. The FF had TONS of it, and that's a good thing. That's why we've got 3 branches of gov't with checks and balances, separation of church and state and the electoral college.

Do you have a citation for the "Most sources agree?"


On the distrust thing? I'm not referring to any particular survey of the literature. You can google "electoral college history" and look at what you get for reasons a popular vote was not adopted. They all agree that pure majority rule was distrusted, although the reasons listed will vary.

It's easy to call that elitist, but there's a general problem with
applying standards in an anachronistic way. By today's standards, Nixon
was a liberal. In those days, information didn't flow as quickly and
freely as it does now so a direct popular vote would have been even less
informed than it is now. That's frightening.

With regard to elitism, perhaps some folks automatically accept the
Charles Beard version of history. Aspects of Beard are probably true,
but I recommend a bit of soberness before swallowing the whole thing
in one bite. (Robert A. McGuire did shore up some of what Beard
claimed, which Forrest McDonald had manged to disassemble fairly
well.)

As an aside, I should add that *certain aspects* of the rule-of-law
were very much intended to *not* be applied in *any* chrono-spec: they
were meant to be very stiffly fixed. That is why these things are
*written down* and fairly hard to change (amending the C) if the
procedural requirements are actually followed. The electoral college
was one of these things, and no one has produced a full and good
argument why modern communication devices manage to diminish its (also
alleged) benefits.

To the point of the modern characterization of what are roughly
understood to be bipolar political power wings (right v left,
conservative v liberal, republican v democrat), I think these modern
groupings are a total muddled mess. There are so many disconnects
_within_ both the modern left and the right, that it would take 300+
pages of history research and political science knowledge to
reasonably sort it out and is a study in-and-of itself. Some of the
qualities ascribed to today's "conservative," are historically more
appropriate to the left (before the muddled "middle way" of fabian
socialism took over what is now called "the left." And today's left,
in the stunning turn around of using the (traditional) conservative's
tact to use the power of the State to achieve otherwise valid social
concerns, is simply inconsistant with the word "liberal." If someone
tells you they are politically a "liberal" or a "conservative," there
is a pretty good chance it means they are a confused and conflicted
human being, or they just have never given the topic much thought, if
words and history are to mean anything.

And finally, I think your assertion that voting is somehow better
informed and rational than before is completely unfounded.

That's not what I intended. To say that information is more freely available is not the same as saying that people are better informed. They might be more informed with bad information. In fact, I'm pretty certain of it. It changes things, but doesn't necessarily improve the situation.

One of the reasons cited for the electoral college was that since the US of 1789 was regionalized and fragmented there was a fear that each locality would vote for a local politician for president. You could have ended up with the vote split between 50 candidates (there was no assumption that political parties would arise to deconflict this). One of the potential roles of the electoral college was to clean up the resulting mess.

Political parties and mass media make the idea of regional Presidential candidates ridiculous. Most everyone is going to vote for someone with a national presence. People are flooded with dis-information telling them that's what they should do.

That's what I was breezing past with that 2 word phrase.

I finally
got what Schwartz kept saying, although most of my thinking and
writing is for myself: it won't matter squat as far as convincing
anyone of anything. Most people are exceedingly fixed, and what
passes for rationality is merely superficial consistancy with (and
built upon) some assumed axioms. This calls out the prime difference
between me and pretty much everyone I know. I think a vote is an
extraordinarily crude tool and and do not trust people with this
simple political act, while I trust them much more to run the
complexity of their own private lives. (Heck, even I can admit I
don't know how to vote, and I've tried pretty hard at it.) Everyone
else seems to trust others in the simple political act of voting, but
not in the running of one's own life. This is a major difference, and
perhaps unresolvable.

Yeah.

The most shocking thing I've seen on the news since 9/11 was this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAH-o7oEiyY&feature=related

That's Alan Greenspan, Ayn Rand's buddy, sometime editor of the Objectivist Newsletter. For him to say that is ... unthinkable. That ties back to your "Everyone else ... [doesn't trust others to run] ... one's own life" comment. Even Alan Greenspan's gone there.
.

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