America's flawed democracy

I am not so sure it is this forum as much as it is the moderators who seem to take it upon themselves to censure the content. I feel if they are taking monies from me too operate there should be a level of free flow of speech and ideals. Personally I am over culture censorship based on hurt feelings.

 

Why wouldn't conservatives be for it? And what do you mean by "updated for modernity"? What about the original wouldn't work today?

 

FEDERALIST NO. 68
The Mode of Electing the President
From the New York Packet
Friday, March 14, 1788.
Author: Alexander Hamilton


Nothing was more to be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption. These most deadly adversaries of republican government might naturally have been expected to make their approaches from more than one quarter, but chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils. How could they better gratify this, than by raising a creature of their own to the chief magistracy of the Union? But the convention have guarded against all danger of this sort, with the most provident and judicious attention. They have not made the appointment of the President to depend on any preexisting bodies of men, who might be tampered with beforehand to prostitute their votes; but they have referred it in the first instance to an immediate act of the people of America, to be exerted in the choice of persons for the temporary and sole purpose of making the appointment. And they have excluded from eligibility to this trust, all those who from situation might be suspected of too great devotion to the President in office. No senator, representative, or other person holding a place of trust or profit under the United States, can be of the numbers of the electors. Thus without corrupting the body of the people, the immediate agents in the election will at least enter upon the task free from any sinister bias. Their transient existence, and their detached situation, already taken notice of, afford a satisfactory prospect of their continuing so, to the conclusion of it. The business of corruption, when it is to embrace so considerable a number of men, requires time as well as means. Nor would it be found easy suddenly to embark them, dispersed as they would be over thirteen States, in any combinations founded upon motives, which though they could not properly be denominated corrupt, might yet be of a nature to mislead them from their duty.

We elect electorates from each state not by overall popular vote. If the EU had our form of government would you not want France to have equal weight as Germany?

 

POST-WAR EUROPE

The US has a bicameral system of popular governance, plus an Executive Head oted separately. Your "equal weight" in the US is attributed by the Senate, which is necessary to pass any law of the land. Europe, at the end of WW2, decided to adopt the English-system of governance and not that of the US - largely because the expanse of Europe postwar was not prepared to amalgamate into a "European Entity of Governance". It took another 3/4 decades for the Europeans to "grow into" such a form of "European governance" as it exists today.

When joining the EU, a country must accept those laws that govern ALL EU-countries as regards the election of their Head of state and parliaments. for the moment, the Head of state in Europe is not elected but determined. That too must change with time. The "EU government" in Strasbourg does not elect an EU Head-of-state. Not yet.

The popular-vote for the Heads-of-state nationally in Europe is that of the party that wins the most votes in each national parliament. It's just another way of choosing the "Executive Head" of government that passes the laws voted by parliaments. That same system today governs the EU in the Representative Assembly in Strasbourg - which, for the moment, itself has no power to elect a "head of state". That must change, however. At present, the EU-head is nominated by the European Commission in Brussels and approved communally by all the EU national heads of state. (That Commission one day will be replaced by a Head of state elected in Strasbourg.)

Yes, all that is a bit complicated, but it takes time for entities with different languages and customs to "come together" - especially when many were members of a communist-party political entity designated at the end of WW2 by the Russian occupiers* ...

*Post-war history:
**Led by a very bizarre individual (called "Stalin") who willingly accepted American supplies for his army that defeated Hitler (and then occupied Berlin and Eastern Germany). HItler committed suicide because the Russians were occupying Berlin.
**As soon as Hitler was gone, however, Stalin decided that the anti-communist "West" was Russia's common enemy. Total WW2 casualties look like this here.
**The brunt of European war-casualties were clearly Russian. As listed here. The German army was responsible for killing most of them having invaded Russia. Stalin decided to do the same to Hitler's army, which is why so many Russian soldiers died.

 

I've been "hit" a number of times by "Management Comments" personally made.

They don't really bother me as I trust what the "Guards" are trying to do is give the exchange a bit of "good sense of usage". We humans have a tendency to EXAGGERATE our opinions and I, for one, am not an exclusion to that penchant ...

 

Wrong.

Since the establishment of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, the voting rules are now common to all members.

What that means nationally however is yet something else. As two or three of the countries are trying to imply. Poland being one of them. Abortions recently were made illegal in Poland without a popular-vote in the matter. It was simply "announced".

Some people take a long, long time to learn the distinction between religion and politics - which is a subtle but key difference* in any "Real Democracy".

Meaning this: A people may elect their political representatives to office but they simply choose whichever God they wish to pray to!

 

I'm more inclined to favor our system as it allows me to vote to put checks and balances on each branch. This last election I voted for Trump, a boorish oaf for sure, but a fighter for the things I believe in, I voted for a different party house of representatives in my district as she is more honest than the one from Trumps party. Many of us in the states do ticket splitting. On the other hand I can see where it would be advantageous to vote a party and they elect their leader.

I don't know the direction our country is about to embark upon as we now have the Democrats with major splits within the party and the Republicans also with a lot of angry feelings inside the party. It should make for jolly fun in 2022.

And to think if it wasn't for the French helping our forefathers overthrow the shackles of the English during our Revolutionary War we would just be another subsidiary of the English Crown today. We owe you debt of gratitude. I have never figured out why we are still closer to England when in reality we have the stubbornness and rebellious demeaner of the French.

 

LOL, say it isn't so.

 

Agreed. It was not only obsolete when it was devised it was also alien to a democratic process. If we are supposed to be the UNITED States, we should be UNITED when it comes to voting for a President and no individual state should be given the power to decide a national election, it should strictly be the majority of The People of the UNITED States.

Along with eliminating the electoral college concept, we should also have runoff elections. That would put an end to the possibility that one or more minority candidates can take votes away from any other candidate and cause another to win an election in which he/she did not receive more than 50% of the vote. It might also serve to end the stranglehold of the phony 2 party system. Runoffs should be held for the top 2 candidates with the most votes when no candidate receives more than 50% of the popular vote.

 

Point well taken, but in both instances, beyond "political sentiments", France and the UK have National Healthcare Systems. As do all the countries of the EU that have life-spans longer than the US*.

If you know of other pertinent-criteria that might be more important than life-span (as regards Healthcare Systems) I am VERY keen to know them ...

*The average life expectancy in Western Europe is 79 years for males and 84 years for females. For the US, the expectancy rates are 76 and 81 years respectively. In both instances life-spans are 5 years longer in the EU than the US for both sexes.

 

Which works like a charm in Europe. Yes, but, so what - people go back to vote a second-time if there is no majority vote of 50% or more. And because Europe has multiple parties, there have been some instances where runoffs were necessary.

But, the key difference is that in Europe it is the majority party in the Legislature that assumes the role of "Head of state". Which also means that the majority party has far easier means to pass laws. (But not always.)

So what, both or either system in the EU does the job far better than the present voting-anachronism in the US. Which is why the EU adopted its rule when rebuilding their democracies after WW2 ...

PS: And Europe did not bother to adopt Gerrymandering, which so obviously manipulates the popular-vote. Worth reading, Gerrymandering and the Rising Risk of a Monopoly on Power

 

There is sound logic behind the electoral system- it keeps a power balance that otherwise would totally dis-enfranchise a significant part of our population.
There are always people who believe that their loss was unjust because the system isn't fair- and those same people never support that view when they win.

If you do some study on the purpose of the electoral college, and will do so without bias, you would understand it's purpose.
Like most things, it's probably not a perfect solution- but it is the best we know of for the problem it addresses.

 

If we were a Democracy there is a good chance that slavery would still exist.
If we were a Democracy there is a good chance that woman would not have the vote today.
If we were a Democracy there is a good chance that the the LBGT community would still be in the closet.
If we were a Democracy there would be no controversy over Abortion as a woman wouldn't have a right to choose.

Please read The Federalist Paper # 68 by Hamilton to understand why we have the electoral college. Our country is a Republic (not republican) not a Democracy (not democrat).

 

Not so sure it is the Health Care systems per say. I would be more inclined to the Laissez-faire life style. Americans work to0 hard for things they really don't need. They do not know how to do things in moderation. Americans are always in a hurry. They drink to fast and too much and have not mastered the art of sex . I am 79 now so maybe I should come to France and enjoy another 5 years.

 

Correct, a democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for dinner. But we are not a democracy (as you correctly noted), we are supposed to be a Constitutional Republic where all individual rights are protected, as guaranteed in Article IV Section 4. We are not that either, but that's a whole other discussion. I wasn't talking about a democracy, I was talking about a democratic process. The majority elects but the majority cannot vote to violate anyone's protected rights under the Constitution.

I don't care about the Federalist Paper's reasoning for the electoral college, it simply makes no sense, especially in a Constitutional Republic.

 

That is great that you force every country to comply with centralized rules, but it also have side effects. E.g. Brexit and other types of rebellions like Poland and Hungary.
So it is not that all smooth especially when Germans dictates other nations how to live their lives.

 

You totally missed it there!

In the European democracies,
-women can (sometimes even must) vote;
-LGBT have legal rights;
-medically controled abortion has been legalized under certain conditions.

So, you get 0/3!

Why can't a republic also be a democracy?

Get out of your bubble from time to time.

 

I don't think those in New Jersey would, today, propose the New Jersey Plan, nor do I think those in Virginia--at least a few years ago--would recommend the Virginia Plan. Centers of massive population have changed in the Democrats' favor. The Electoral College was a compromise. Now that Democrats are increasing in number to the point where they are, more and more, winning the popular vote, they want to do away with that guarantee, which was fundamental to unification of the states. Doing away with the Electoral College is tantamount to ripping up the contract agreed upon in the Constitutional Convention, and is in pure violation of our founding principles.

 

Want to know how many Brits recently questioned now think that Brexit is a colossal mistake? From here:

Half the country think Brexit was a bad move. That percentage can only go up and up and up!

What myopic people like you do NOT understand is that the more "common" is a market the stronger it is. There is no longer in place international taxation tariffs and that has strengthened trade amongst the EU. You badly need a lesson in international economics.

 

You don't seem to understand the fundamental principal of an election. Any mechanism that distorts the popular-vote (which is the sole genuine expression of the peoples' will) is unacceptable in any decent democracy.

The Electoral College was conceived and passed as law in 1804, when the country was barely 8 years old. And at a time when there was no other democratic country on earth. (Except France, but that failed when Napoleon came to power.)

As a nation we should know that any manipulation of the popular-vote is anti-democratic. Any country where the popular-vote FIVE TIMES in its history elects the loser of the popular-vote* needs to get its collective-head examined.

Which is why no other major democracy on earth employs an Electoral College. The countries which do so are Burundi, Estonia, India, Kazakhstan, Madagascar, Myanmar, Pakistan, Trinidad and Tobago and Vanuatu ...

 

I've been around here quite a while.

I think, rather, that the exchange is open and fair. Of course, I also go berserk from time-to-time and have been corrected.

 

Obsolete and anti-democratic the EC is both. It is also foundational to the preservation of The Union. Many of the original 13 states, and arguably every state that joined thereafter, did so with the understanding that the EC would remain in place as a check against the more populous states having a monopoly on national policies. There's plenty of arguments for getting rid of the EC, but all of them are incomplete without acknowledging that it would render the 'social contract' between StateGovs and FedGov effectively void and thereby legitimize secession. IOW, FedGov's authority over the states is precedentially dependent on the EC and the EC cannot be abolished without abolishing FedGovs authority over the states.

...which might be precisely what will prevent our widening partisan divide from devolving into a war...

 

On this nation, we give states a great deal of power, and states have become competitive just as some ideologies have recently- with no reservations about running over those less powerful. While much of the original concept had to do with slavery and allocated delegates, it has changed. It was and is a compromise- but one of those that has upsides as well as downsides. The left these days thinks you can destroy anything that they believe has a downside and harmony will somehow just take it's place- like eliminating the police, eliminating prisons. Gee; no arrest, but gee- unlimited crime. Very near-sighted thinking. One of the illustrations of this right now is the people in California planning to move to Georgia temporarily with the idea of usurping the vote of the citizens of Georgia to elect democratic senators to prevent the republicans retaining senate control. That IS manipulation of the popular vote and is anti-democratic.....

This is what people are capable of allowing; and a democracy must have systems to keep the scales in balance. It will never be perfect, but that doesn't means it's not as good as we can do at the moment. You don't just abolish what has been working, you improve it or devise an alternate method that is unquestionably better. I look at nations whose politics are so convoluted they consist of so many groups that none ever get a majority, and every administration is a coalition of enemies that invariably fails to do the job well.

It's getting old to say that America is so full of flaws it can't succeed when it has been the most successful nation in history. It's not perfect, and as Churchill said it's probably the worst possible system of government, except for all the others.

 

The Tenth Amendment is the underpinning of the Electoral College. The states, at least in theory, are, to a degree, sovereign, limited by the limited limitations engrained within our national charter. To get rid of the Electoral College, and make the presidential election results based purely on the total number from each state, flies in the face of that very notion of sovereignty.

 

Different parts of the country don't care what you may care about either. Some states are pro - gun and pro life while others are not. Green energy may be important to the coast but not to WV and Penn. Each state has it's own preference so why should they bend to the dictates of a couple populus states? We don't just have a couple sovereign states but 50 sovereign states and we all have a say.