Essentially the claim that nothing can be known and that our senses lie all the time, that reason tends to favor our desires. Some people claim that and say they maintain a matter of suspending judgment on just about everything.
They call it Pyrrhonism and try to apply that non judging attitude to all of life. It claims that much of strife is based on human belief and opinions. That when we value what is good we suffer if we don’t have it and struggle to hold it when we do, I’m guessing valuing something as bad works the same way. So by maintaining an attitude of permanent indecision you “free your mind” from worry and find tranquility. Seems somewhat like Buddhism and that religion is pretty large. But I have to wonder how sound that is and whether or not it is practical? It has some points to it though, our senses are easily fooled so why believe them? Reason tends to be influenced by our desires and emotions. Can what we get from such things really be called knowledge?
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
You've pointed out that our senses and reason aren't 100% accurate. Okay. It does not follow from this that they are useless. An instrument with a 99% reliability rating is still a hell of a lot better than nothing. Especially if we act scientifically: make repeated observations and compare notes with other observers. The results of this can absolutely be called knowledge. Knowledge is not the same thing as total certainty. We may not be correct about everything, but we're correct about enough things to, e.g., build airplanes that fly. So why on earth should we just sit on our hands and gaze at our navels while we wait for perfect information to come along? We have mountains of evidence that we don't need perfect information to get things done. In the face of that evidence, how is indecision rational?
You've brought up the UK situation a couple of times Spirit and I can't disagree with you the situation is not ideal. But we only have 4 'States' that make up the union and one of those States accounts for 84% of the total population you are very quickly going to run into massive issues if you try and give each state roughly equal representation in the House of Commons.
Atleast in the US you have 50 states so and disparity between the ideal numbers of representatives and the actual number they have is going to spread over a larger number of states so the effect on each individual state is reduced.
Sure. Yours is a sadly acute case. An extreme example for illustrative purposes.
I will add, though, that while the situation in America was never that disproportionate, Virginia was pretty massive back in the original-thirteen days.
Lol, they were all slave states. There were no free states. Let's start there.
You've asked me to take your education on American history seriously, so I'm going to assume that you know perfectly well the legal, political, and practical differences between the northern states and the southern ones on the subject of slavery, and are being willfully obtuse here in an attempt to score some meaningless points, rather than simply displaying a shocking level of ignorance as a less charitable reader might think.
Then let's ask a very simple question: If you're going to assign seats to your legislator based on population size, do you need to know who counts as a person?
One simple question deserves another: when slaves can't vote, does counting them (wholly or fractionally) for the purpose of apportioning political power to those who own them give them any justice, or does it compound the injustice? And another: after slavery has been abolished, does any citizen not count as one whole person for apportionment? And another: if every citizen today does count as one whole person for apportionment, then what the hell were you talking about when you said that "skipping the electoral college" would "finally give people whole votes"?
If you want to have a meaningful discussion about this aspect of the American political system, then you need to make a coherent point. But if you just want to make nonsensical leaps so that you can feel smug about your outstanding moral bravery in denouncing slavery as a bad thing, then you need to do that somewhere else.
It's a truncated decimal expansion. Totally different. If you like, you can continue the expansion by proclaiming Pi Hour at 1 AM, Pi Minute at 1:59, and so on. But on the 22nd of July, you're just sort of... done.
You misunderstand my point. I'm not suggesting it's a winning argument. Certainly, the US government would never allow their ability to collect Income Tax to be overturned. But, as for it being settled law, that's not entirely accurate or even relevant. Many issues have been seen as settled law only to be completely thrown out and replaced a century later: slavery, voting rights (who can vote), gay marriage, gun ownership, and a multitude of other things have been radically altered from the way they were for decades. Slavery was legal in the South. That was a matter of settled law until the Civil War began.
Yes, slavery and voting rights were settled law. That's why, when it came time to alter them, we changed the law. Nobody is suggesting that it is impossible to amend the Constitution to overturn the 16th Amendment the way we amended the Constitution to abolish slavery. We can amend the Constitution to say anything we like. That's what the amendment process is for. But what you were suggesting was totally different: that the 16th Amendment as it currently stands is somehow invalid or improper. That is not true. That is the legal equivalent of a Bigfoot story.
When Joshua Norton claimed to be Emperor of the United States, one might have adopted a conspiratorial tone and insinuated that Congress did not recognize his claim because of its vested interest in holding onto power. But the first and foremost reason Congress didn't recognize his claim is because it wasn't true. It's as simple as that.
You are aware they are part of the same compromise, right? It even says so in your first wiki article.
Yes, they were being discussed at the same time and they pertained to the same question of congressional seat apportionment. I'll grant that much. But they were not the same compromise. The House-Senate split was a compromise between large states and small states. The three-fifths rule was a compromise between northern states and southern states. The two rules stand independent of each other. We can know this because the Great Compromise as proposed by the (northern, non-slaveholding) Connecticut delegation was a House-Senate split independent of a three-fifths rule: only free citizens would have counted. And we can know the Great Compromise can work this way in practice because it's worked this way since 1865.
So it does not make any sense to call the House-Senate split "a dumb relic of institutionalized slavery": it was not prompted by the institution of slavery, it was not adopted as a compromise with slavery, and functions just as intended without slavery. And in no way would getting rid of it "give people whole votes" as opposed to the three-fifths of a vote, because the Three-Fifths Compromise is already long gone, and even when it was still in force, at no point did anyone get three-fifths of a vote -- free people always got one, slaves always got zero, and the Three-Fifths Compromise never had anything to do with enfranchisement fractional or otherwise. Remember, for the purpose of seat apportionment, the slaveholders wanted slaves to count as whole persons, and the free states didn't.
The ACLU is a left-leaning organization that actually argues in favor of racial discrimination as long as it benefits minorities. To any logical person, Affirmative Action is clearly an example of discrimination. But, neither the ACLU nor the US government is willing to admit that on the basis that it would be unfair to minorities NOT to give them racial preferences.
You missed the point. No serious constitutional lawyer of any political affiliation is going to want to touch the argument against the 16th Amendment that you allege exists. It is, as you say of the First Amendment just a paragraph prior, a matter of settled law.
I think so. Democracy relies on people's views/interests actually being sufficiently represented among the candidates, else they have no choice that sufficiently represents them, and that goes against the point surely. With only two parties, which have only become increasingly polarised in rent years apparently, there will always be major sections of views and interests that aren't being represented. Third parties at least give a presence to more views and interests.
Are you taking into account candidates in the primary election, or are you only talking about the candidates in the general election?
I mean popular vote to determine the state vote. The states electoral college numbers could still be adjusted as they are now, but the state vote would be based directly on popular vote in that state.
It already is. A candidate gets the state's EC votes directly by winning the popular vote. (Well, except in Maine and Nebraska, and ruling out faithless electors.)
The existence of non-enumerated rights. It's how we can talk about a constitutional right to privacy, for instance, even though the right to privacy appears nowhere in the Constitution. More information.
Education may be mandated on the State level, but State laws cannot supercede Federal laws and if it was determined to be a violation on a Federal level, the States would not have the power to enforce it.
Read the Tenth Amendment again:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Additionally, the Department of Education which oversees public education is a Federal agency, not a State one. So, to claim that the States have any actual ownership over education is untrue.
The role of the federal Department of Education is more limited than a lot of people assume. According to its own website, it coordinates federal assistance to schools, collects data on education, focuses national attention on major issues, and enforces anti-discrimination law. It does not establish, administer, mandate, or accredit educational institutions at any level in this country. If you are looking for the laws that do those things, look in state and local statutes.
I understand the argument surrounding the 16th Ammendment. I said that there's an argument that can be made to de-legitimize the current tax code. And that's absolutely true. The fact that the courts have denied that argument means very little. For a century, the courts denied the argument that a black man is a person.
Trained lawyers in the ACLU and other watchdogs will howl at the faintest whiff of racial discrimination or other civil rights violations. These same lawyers won't go anywhere near 16th Amendment denialism cases. They, the experts on the relevant law, know that there is no argument there.
22/7 is Pi Approximation Day -- the day for those who have abdicated all pride in themselves and their work, who are willing to shrug their shoulders and say, "Good enough".
Our electoral college is a dumb relic of instutionalized slavery and really needs to go away. We no longer live in a country where we count some people as 3/5ths so we can finally give people whole votes by skipping the electoral college.
You're conflating the two compromises you learned about in high school civics. The Electoral College is a consequence of the Great Compromise that based the House on population size but the Senate on statehood. The Three-Fifths Compromise pertaining to slavery was unrelated.
I think having a popular vote also probably makes sense.
For Californians and New Yorkers. Not so much for South Dakotans and Alaskans.
Are you watching what's happening in the UK right now between England and Scotland? Scotland's less populous so it's getting dragged out of the EU against its will? That's an extreme example of the situation that the makeup of the United States Congress (which is what's being reflected in the Electoral College) was constituted to avoid. The interests of the diverse states carry a certain weight irrespective of their population, plus additional weight dependent on their population.
You've pointed out that our senses and reason aren't 100% accurate. Okay. It does not follow from this that they are useless. An instrument with a 99% reliability rating is still a hell of a lot better than nothing. Especially if we act scientifically: make repeated observations and compare notes with other observers. The results of this can absolutely be called knowledge. Knowledge is not the same thing as total certainty. We may not be correct about everything, but we're correct about enough things to, e.g., build airplanes that fly. So why on earth should we just sit on our hands and gaze at our navels while we wait for perfect information to come along? We have mountains of evidence that we don't need perfect information to get things done. In the face of that evidence, how is indecision rational?
I will add, though, that while the situation in America was never that disproportionate, Virginia was pretty massive back in the original-thirteen days.
One simple question deserves another: when slaves can't vote, does counting them (wholly or fractionally) for the purpose of apportioning political power to those who own them give them any justice, or does it compound the injustice? And another: after slavery has been abolished, does any citizen not count as one whole person for apportionment? And another: if every citizen today does count as one whole person for apportionment, then what the hell were you talking about when you said that "skipping the electoral college" would "finally give people whole votes"?
If you want to have a meaningful discussion about this aspect of the American political system, then you need to make a coherent point. But if you just want to make nonsensical leaps so that you can feel smug about your outstanding moral bravery in denouncing slavery as a bad thing, then you need to do that somewhere else.
When Joshua Norton claimed to be Emperor of the United States, one might have adopted a conspiratorial tone and insinuated that Congress did not recognize his claim because of its vested interest in holding onto power. But the first and foremost reason Congress didn't recognize his claim is because it wasn't true. It's as simple as that.
So it does not make any sense to call the House-Senate split "a dumb relic of institutionalized slavery": it was not prompted by the institution of slavery, it was not adopted as a compromise with slavery, and functions just as intended without slavery. And in no way would getting rid of it "give people whole votes" as opposed to the three-fifths of a vote, because the Three-Fifths Compromise is already long gone, and even when it was still in force, at no point did anyone get three-fifths of a vote -- free people always got one, slaves always got zero, and the Three-Fifths Compromise never had anything to do with enfranchisement fractional or otherwise. Remember, for the purpose of seat apportionment, the slaveholders wanted slaves to count as whole persons, and the free states didn't.
It already is. A candidate gets the state's EC votes directly by winning the popular vote. (Well, except in Maine and Nebraska, and ruling out faithless electors.)
The role of the federal Department of Education is more limited than a lot of people assume. According to its own website, it coordinates federal assistance to schools, collects data on education, focuses national attention on major issues, and enforces anti-discrimination law. It does not establish, administer, mandate, or accredit educational institutions at any level in this country. If you are looking for the laws that do those things, look in state and local statutes.
Trained lawyers in the ACLU and other watchdogs will howl at the faintest whiff of racial discrimination or other civil rights violations. These same lawyers won't go anywhere near 16th Amendment denialism cases. They, the experts on the relevant law, know that there is no argument there.
And even then, only in base 10.
Redraw district borders through a special bipartisan committee rather than through the legislating body.
For Californians and New Yorkers. Not so much for South Dakotans and Alaskans.
Are you watching what's happening in the UK right now between England and Scotland? Scotland's less populous so it's getting dragged out of the EU against its will? That's an extreme example of the situation that the makeup of the United States Congress (which is what's being reflected in the Electoral College) was constituted to avoid. The interests of the diverse states carry a certain weight irrespective of their population, plus additional weight dependent on their population.