How do we get rid of this stupid U.S. Constitution anyway?

[Zinegata]

States cannot have their representation reduced in the Senate and states cannot be changed in size or jurisdiction by the federal government. Except for Texas, but that's another story. No matter what kind of piecemeal fixes you implement, you're stuck with the broken Senate body whose very existence is a punch in the throat to the idea of republicanism. There is no way to get around that with the current U.S. Constitution.

Uh, here I have to disagree with you somewhat. I'm aware that each state of the union gets two Senators regardless of population size, but that's actually the point. The reason why you have two houses of Congress is because you want to have two different perspectives - one from a district level, and one from a state level.

Now, that ain't a perfect setup, but if you want purely proportional representation then you're better off with a single house of congress and do away with the Senate permanently. Or maybe just switch straight to a Parliamentary system.

In the Philippines, we don't have one guaranteed Senator per province. Instead, Senators are elected via national popular vote, with the top 12 getting Senate seats. Unfortunately, this also lets some crackpot actors get Senate seats as they have more name recognition than actual politicians .

[Lago PARANOIA]

Uh, here I have to disagree with you somewhat. I'm aware that each state of the union gets two Senators regardless of population size, but that's actually the point. The reason why you have two houses of Congress is because you want to have two different perspectives - one from a district level, and one from a state level.

So what about the state perspective? In political terms, a state isn't like some sapient entity or even a corporation where the whole is stronger than the sum of its parts or exists independently of the people in it; the state is its people. And if the body where states make their voices heard isn't representing the people in it fairly then it has no reason to exist unless you're against the idea of democracy.

This would be a solvable problem if you could redraw the borders of states to enforce 'one man, one vote'. But the U.S. Constitution specifically disallows that. Not surprising; at the time, it'd be like if the Council of the European Union had a provision where it said that the United Kingdom could have a portion of France in order to balance the population and give the places equal representation in that body.

Now, that ain't a perfect setup, but if you want purely proportional representation then you're better off with a single house of congress and do away with the Senate permanently. Or maybe just switch straight to a Parliamentary system.

Not an unworkable idea. Nonetheless, I support the bicameral system mostly because it A.) prevents that repulsive American practice of being forced to punish someone you support in order to make the party as a whole accountable B.) promotes the idea of the 'responsible' party and C.) prevents a Parliament from becoming too insulated from the needs of individual districts.

In the lower (or upper, whichever) house you should vote for someone who you best feels represents your district. This person is directly elected. In the upper (or lower, whichever) you vote for a party. The reason why you do this is so that the party isn't incentivized to keep corrupt or obsolete deadwood - this is why individual representatives poll higher than the party at large. The party fields its best and brightest and if someone individually fucks up they're out the door without the problem of having someone entrenched in their district.

[Zinegata]

So what about the state perspective? In political terms, a state isn't like some sapient entity or even a corporation where the whole is stronger than the sum of its parts or exists independently of the people in it; the state is its people. And if the body where states make their voices heard isn't representing the people in it fairly then it has no reason to exist unless you're against the idea of democracy.

In theory, each state should be somewhat culturally and economically different from each other to have its own interest, and it may end up getting trampled by the majority without disproportionate representation.

In the Philippines for instance, our Muslims get treated very, very shittily. We eventually gave them autonomy and special powers within their regions. In Lebanon, they even go as far as to specifcy that certain members of the government MUST come from a specific minority - i.e. the Vice President must be from the Christian bloc, etc...

[Username17]

The States have two problems:

The first is that we are over two hundred years into this country and have the most mobile people on Earth. The lines that were drawn up at the beginning are now pretty much meaningless in most cases. It would be like preserving the power of the individual satraps that went into India or the fiefdoms of warlords that went into China, except that even that shit is more relevant today, because the United States gelled three times longer ago than those countries did.

The second is that the United States is simply too powerful as a whole to be able to afford veto powers to tiny regional minorities. Even if "Montanans" were a distinct people that could reliably tell themselves from Idahoans, Wyomingians, or even Canadians from the Prairies, which they fucking aren't, the harsh reality is that 2% of the upper house of parliament of the most powerful empire to ever exist is actually more power than half a million people can control. The last time this subject came up, we went through the campaign finances of a senator from Wyoming and found that he was not only pulling down seven figures, but that his top donors were all from out of state.

Let's look at Montana. Well, he again is sitting on more than two million dollars, let's look at his top five donors:

• Aetna Inc - Health Insurance company based in Connecticut
  Express Scripts - Health Insurance Company based in Missouri
  Akin, Gump et al - A lobbying money laundering service for the tech and communications industries
  KKR & Co - A financial shellgame company based in New York
  Schering-Plough Corp - a pharmaceutical company based in New Jersey (a subsidiary of Merck)

OK? First of all, I think it is obvious that the honorable senator from Montana is basically in the pocket of big pharma. Secondly, basically all of his money is coming from out of state. Indeed, a lot of that is coming from out of the country, considering that Akin, Gump et al are laundering money from sources like "Samsung USA", which isn't really a US company at all, and Merck is like 50% German.

But does he represent Montana? Why would he? He is pulling down seven figures a year from a shadowy cabal of out-of-state healthcare and technology interests, what can the people of Montana offer him to compete with that? The harsh reality is that a senate vote from Montana is worth more than all of the Montanans put together, and the market has priced it accordingly.

Regional representation of the kind the founders imagined the senate would provide is simply not possible for a country as powerful as the United States of America.

-Username17

[Gx1080]

All that sounds nice and dandy, but it kinda runs into problems.

a)The US is a federation, not a nation. Is simply too huge for letting a central goverment handle everything. Simple logistics. And there IS cultural variance between states, like it or not. Or are you going to tell me that Texas is like California?

b)Digital elections are simply way too vulnerable. With the kind of interests on stake there will be hackers that will sabotage it. Even Japan has manual elections:

https://foolawecon.wordpress.com/2009/0 ... re-manual/

[tzor]

Carter didn't had the balls neccesary for foreign policy:

I don't think you can accuse Carter of a lack of balls. I doubt you would work inside a nuclear reactor.

Homer Simpson worked in a nuclear power plant and he didn't have any balls whatsoever. (But that was because they couldn't draw them if they wanted to ...)

I don't see how working in Navy Sumbarines in any way, shape or form either (1) makes you a nuclear engineer or (2) gives you balls. I lived with Naval ROTC students in college; I damn know well the sweet spot that is the submarine program; not only was it the best paying job, but you can't even spend the shit so when you get out ... BAM ... instant goodies in your bank account. It was a highly sought after position.

Picking on the Jimmy Carter myth

One myth correction, however. President Carter was a submarine officer, but he was not a nuclear engineer.

He graduated from the US Naval Academy in June 1946 (he entered in 1943 with the class of 1947, but his class was in a war-driven accelerated 3 year program) with an undesignated bachelor of science degree. Even if the Naval Academy had offered a majors program for his class, it is unlikely that it would have included Nuclear Engineering as a option – after all, the Manhattan Project was a dark secret for most of his time at Annapolis.

After graduation, Jimmy Carter served as a surface warfare officer for a two years and then volunteered for the submarine force. He served in a variety of billets, including engineer officer of diesel submarines and qualified to command submarines.

In November 1952, he began a three month temporary duty assignment at the Naval Reactor branch. He started nuclear power school (a six month course of study that leads to operator training) in March, 1953. In July 1953, his father passed away and he resigned his commission to run the family peanut farm. He was discharged from active duty on 9 October, 1953. According to an old friend of mine who served as Rickover’s personnel officer at Naval Reactors, LT Carter did not complete nuclear power school because of the need to take care of business at home.

The prototype for the USS Nautilus was completed in Idaho in May 1953, so LT Carter might have had some opportunity to see it in action before leaving the Navy. However, the USS Nautilus did not go to sea until January 17, 1955, so there is no possibility that he ever qualified to stand watch on a nuclear powered submarine.

So let's recap for the hard to understand.

1. Never served in a "nuclear submarine" as they didn't exist
2. Never was a nuclear engineer
3. Never completed nuclear power school
4. None of the above has squat to do with diplomatic balls

[tzor]

The States have two problems:

No Frank, they have a plethora of problems. The perfect doesn't exist. What's your solution? I'll bet that it has far more problems. The two you list are non problems.

The first is that we are over two hundred years into this country and have the most mobile people on Earth. The lines that were drawn up at the beginning are now pretty much meaningless in most cases.

First of all mobility is a good thing. I don't see why you think this is somehow a negative. Should Europe give up nations because citizens of the EU can freely move from one country to the other?

Federalism doesn't require specific lines. But it does require lines. Town lines, county lines, state lines and federal lines.

The second is that the United States is simply too powerful as a whole to be able to afford veto powers to tiny regional minorities.

"As a whole?" I thought the whole was the sum of its parts. You are, indriectly arguing for the tyrany of the majority. I can understand how someone who wants the all power ever living monolithic breaucratic government wouldn't understand that it is only a matter of time before YOU become that "tuny regional minority" that is being oppressed (or downright exterminated) by the majority.

Mobility doesn't mean squat. You are where you live. If you are not, why the fuck did you move there? How can you assume if a person doesn't bell loyal to the locality where they live, or the county/state that they actually give a fuck about being a member of the nation state?

[Kaelik]

a)The US is a federation, not a nation. Is simply too huge for letting a central goverment handle everything. Simple logistics.

You are an idiot.

The state of Texas can't handle the state of texas, that's why it delegates authority to County and City officials.

The British Parliament can't handle Britain, which is why they delegate authority.

Congress having non enumerated powers doesn't mean that it's impossible for Congress to delegate, only that Congress has total power, and therefore, per Supremacy clause, states have only the power Congress chooses to delegate.

[Akula]

Carter didn't had the balls neccesary for foreign policy:

I don't think you can accuse Carter of a lack of balls. I doubt you would work inside a nuclear reactor.

Homer Simpson worked in a nuclear power plant and he didn't have any balls whatsoever. (But that was because they couldn't draw them if they wanted to ...)

So let's recap for the hard to understand.

1. Never served in a "nuclear submarine" as they didn't exist
2. Never was a nuclear engineer
3. Never completed nuclear power school
4. None of the above has squat to do with diplomatic balls

Try reading what I wrote, since you may notice I never said carter was working on a sub. If you indulge the lazy quoting of wikipedia, the incident I was alluding to:

On December 12, 1952, an accident with the experimental NRX reactor at Atomic Energy of Canada’s Chalk River Laboratories caused a partial meltdown. The resulting explosion caused millions of liters of radioactive water to flood the reactor building’s basement, and the reactor’s core was no longer usable.[16] Carter was now ordered to Chalk River, joining other Canadian and American service personnel. He was the officer in charge of the U.S. team assisting in the shutdown of the Chalk River Nuclear Reactor.[17]
Once they arrived, Carter's team used a model of the reactor to practice the steps necessary to disassemble the reactor and seal it off. During execution of the actual disassembly each team member, including Carter, donned protective gear, was lowered individually into the reactor, stayed for only a few seconds at a time to minimize exposure to radiation, and used hand tools to loosen bolts, remove nuts and take the other steps necessary to complete the disassembly process.

He may never have commanded a nuclear sub, but he did work inside a nuclear reactor when radiation contamination was bad enough that the whole thing needed to be shut down. I would say you need balls to risk your life like that.

[tzor]

He may never have commanded a nuclear sub, but he did work inside a nuclear reactor when radiation contamination was bad enough that the whole thing needed to be shut down. I would say you need balls to risk your life like that.

No, not in 1952. I'm pretty much aware of the evolution of understanding of radiation and contanimation dangers in the 20th century and on the later side, there was very little information available and anything known was certainly not availabe at Carter's secutiry level clearane. We were still actively conducting nuclear weapon tests at the time and even years later were routinely placing contanimation trails over inhabitated areas. We completely fucked up the disaster plan for a nuclear reactor meltdown some seven years later. It would be four years until the US finally admitted that the Marshal Islands were "by far the most contaminated place in the world."

No balls necessary ... just following orders.

[Daiba]

No, not in 1952.

Uh, no. The dangers of of large doses of radiation were very clear by 1952. Then, as now, most of the data came from studies of atomic bomb survivors from Japan. It was pretty well known that 600-800 rem of total body irradiation would lead you to a gruesome death. The per-worker limitation at that time was already down to 15 rem/year (for reference, the current limit is 5 rem/year for radiation workers), so they clearly knew a fair amount about the dangers of low-levels of exposure as well.

[tzor]

Apple, meet Orange. Radiation is not Contamination. The later is easy to mitigate, distance, shielding and time. They pretty much had the radiation thing licked by the time you got to the 50's and the procedures used then are more or less the same as they are today. The only real difference is that the detectors have gotten more complex to differentiate the various radiation types. Contamination, especically the effects of long term body accumulating heavy metals was definitely not known.

I'm sorry but BALLS is working on communication towers in Korea under enemy lines when the weather was around twenty below zero has balls. Anyone who charges up a battle line against enemy fire and the posibility of getting lead in their bodies has BALLS. Working with radiation doesn't require BALLS. Working with radiation can affect your balls, but that's completely different.

[Daiba]

They pretty much had the radiation thing licked by the time you got to the 50's

So, basically, you admit that the statements you made in your previous post:

No, not in 1952. I'm pretty much aware of the evolution of understanding of radiation and contanimation dangers in the 20th century and on the later side, there was very little information available and anything known was certainly not availabe at Carter's secutiry level clearane.

were lies or intentionally misleading. Thanks for clearing that up.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Tzor forgot his Alzhiemer's medication again. How adorable!

[RadiantPhoenix]

Alzhiemer's medication

I wasn't aware there was a cure.

[sabs]

Tzor just wants to drink the coolaid that Carter was a wimp.
Anything that detracts from that thought must be eradicated with extreme prejudice.

It's like how they turned Kerry's Silver medal into a negative.

[fbmf]

The Constitutional argument was way more interesting.

Game On,
fbmf

[sabs]

getting rid of Senators, or throwing the constitution is not the right way to go about fixing the political landscape.

1) Corporations are not people, fuck you, Corporations do not have a right to free speech, and even if they did, giving money anonymously to some jackass congressmonkey is not 'free speech'
2) cap individual donations at $1000/year/person. All donations must be publicly recorded. You should be able to find out who gave how much to who, at any time.
3) Limit private funding of campaigns, and require public funding.
4) 1 primary where everyone runs, the top 2 people to win the most votes, go into the main election, regardless of what party they are.
5) wipe out all of the 'Gentlemen's rules' in the Senate, and start over. No anonymous holds, no 'saying' you're going to filibuster, you actually have to stand there and read the fucking phonebook.

The hardest part, is encouraging a mutli-party system. Right now there's 1.5 parties. We have Republicans, and we have "everyone else whose kinda main stream", then we have a couple of fringe parties.

[Username17]

4) 1 primary where everyone runs, the top 2 people to win the most votes, go into the main election, regardless of what party they are.

That sort of thing is way too easy to game. For example, in the United States, 11 percent of people favor "Communism" over "Capitalism". In an open field, if the Communists put together a single candidate, they would get more votes in the open primary than Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Michelle Bachmann, and Ron Paul do individually.

I'm not saying that a general election between Obama and the candidate of the Communist Party of the USA wouldn't be funny, but I think it would be a clear failing of the democratic mandate.

I mean, I personally would totally vote for the CPUSA if it had a chance of winning, but having 11 percent of the electorate able to hijack politics like that simply because the conservatives have 12 candidates on the ballot is even sillier than what we have now. And chances are equally good that something retarded like the Tea Party or even the Segregationist Party would get to be in second place.

-Username17

[Ancient History]

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Essay:Prob ... nstitution

I'd like to go back to this for a moment: these are almost all terrible ideas. At the best they're efforts to prevent gaming-the-system tactics like gerrymandering, which are well-meant if not fully considered, but at worse they're just missing-the-point nonsense like "populous states are under-represented" and "destruction of classified information should never occur," and then the complete mad-bastard-fantasy stuff like "no right to travel" and "the breakdown of the federal system."

[sabs]

Wow that website really is full of crazy. And some just, what the fuck I don't even understand that.

I don't even understand what he means by "Requirement to Maintain a Monopoly of Force"

National Referendums are a horrible idea. I understand what he's trying to fix, but a National Referendum is a horrid idea.

[sabs]

WTF

Splitting the Commander-in-Chief and Head of State Roles
For the record, I totally agree with you about the problem of Presidents and foreign policy. Here's what I propose: The Head of State (whom we currently view as the President and will have all of the other traditional executive powers), whenever there is a vacancy, suggests someone for the role who is approved by both Houses in Congress. The Commander-in-Chief has nearly lifetime tenure once approved by both Houses of Congress but can be subject to a Vote of Confidence, initiated by a majority of the U.S. Supreme Court or the President - sort of like how things worked in the American Revolutionary War. The Commander-in-Chief only has control of the military and domestic police and conducts foreign policy. The President still controls the rest of the executive branch and the federal bureaucracy, makes appointments to the U.S. Supreme Court, lights Christmas trees, etc. Both will still be way more powerful than the framers probably ever intended (or not, see John Adams) but because of politicization, continuity of policy, and power consolidation they should be separated once and for all. --Dr. Swordopolis (talk) 04:20, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Hey lets make sure the guy in charge of the police and military has a LIFETIME TENURE. What the HELL is wrong with these bastards?

[tzor]

No, not in 1952. I'm pretty much aware of the evolution of understanding of radiation and contanimation dangers in the 20th century and on the later side, there was very little information available and anything known was certainly not availabe at Carter's secutiry level clearane.

were lies or intentionally misleading. Thanks for clearing that up.

Neither. I've bolded the important part you apparently missed. "On the latter side" means the contamination part, not the radiation part.

[Lago PARANOIA]

getting rid of Senators, or throwing the constitution is not the right way to go about fixing the political landscape.

Did you ignore everything that Frank and I said about Senators or did you just not see it?

Do you actually think that Senators are a good idea and not a democracy-subverting anachronism? Please explain why. And if you don't think that they're a good idea, please explain how you can fix this issue without throwing out the U.S. constitution since it requires state representation and state powers and also forbids redrawing borders.

1) Corporations are not people, fuck you

Corporations as people are actually a pretty useful legal construct that's been around since post-Civil War America. If you want to prevent abuse like Citizens United there are better ways to get around that.

Hey lets make sure the guy in charge of the police and military has a LIFETIME TENURE. What the HELL is wrong with these bastards?

I wrote that, sabs, and I also said, though not in that section you quoted, that the commander-in-chief should be able to be subject to an at-will Vote of Confidence by Congress. The lifetime tenure is so that they don't have to run for re-election in the middle of a military operation. And considering that it's harder to unseat incumbents for political positions with unlimited terms (like state supreme court members where they actually run for election) this continually puts them in the hot seat.

At the best they're efforts to prevent gaming-the-system tactics like gerrymandering, which are well-meant if not fully considered, but at worse they're just missing-the-point nonsense like "populous states are under-represented" and "destruction of classified information should never occur," and then the complete mad-bastard-fantasy stuff like "no right to travel" and "the breakdown of the federal system."

I'd love to hear you break this down why they're bad ideas or why they're not fully thought through. Right now it sounds more like 'change is bad! Brrr!' stuff coming from you.

[Ancient History]

Hey lets make sure the guy in charge of the police and military has a LIFETIME TENURE. What the HELL is wrong with these bastards?

You have to admit, "Warlord-for-Life" is an awesome title.

Seriously though, there's a strong theme here of changing the basic apparatus of government to diffuse the authority of a central government while ensuring the consistency of long-term policies - even if they turn out to be bad ones. It's fundamentally about people that are afraid of change and lack of trust in authority.