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Amend the Constitution to eliminate the Senate?

Should the Constitution be amended to eliminate the Senate?

  • Total voters
    62
Kal'Stang said:
I did because that is exactly what he is wanting. He wants a state which has far more people to have more power than a state with less people instead of the states being on equal footing when being represented. His claim of Wyoming having 70% more power than California ignores the fact that the 70% "increase in power" in actuality just puts Wyoming on direct equal footing with California, preventing California from dictating what happens in Wyoming. Two VERY different states with VERY different cultures and needs and wants.

How can you have a "representative democracy" when the reps from your state have less power than some other state that just happens to have more people? The word "representative" is about representing what the people in their particular state needs/wants. This cannot be done if you have some other states representative over riding your states representative just because they have more people. That would make it to where California is representing Wyoming also.
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CA has 53 representatives in the house

WY has 1 representative in the house
 
Kal'Stang said:
There's your problem. We don't have a system where some peoples votes are weighted more heavilly than others in national matters. They are all equal.
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So tell me about the vote for electors for President of the United States and why they are not all equal in the power they wield?

http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20121105/discuss/711059952/

a small part of the article

Presidential elections are occasions for frustration in Illinois: We get ignored by the campaigns, the winner of our state gets all 20 of our electoral votes, no matter how close the popular vote, and we have far less clout in the Electoral College than citizens from much smaller states. It's true. The seven smallest states in population have more electoral votes than Illinois, even though they have just 41 percent as many residents. Alaska, Delaware, Montana, the Dakotas, Vermont and Wyoming have just 5.27 million people according to the 2010 census, compared to our 12.8 million. Yet those states have 21 electoral votes. The 12 least populous states also have fewer people than Illinois (11.9 million), but have more than twice as many electoral votes (41).

In other words, there is one electoral vote per 251,129 residents of the seven smallest states, compared to one electoral vote per 641,531 Illinoisans. People from those small states have more than 2.5 times the clout per resident in electing the president. Wyoming has 3.4 times has much clout per resident as Illinois.
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Who gets to be President of the USA is most certainly a national matter - to use your qualifier. Why should a voter in Wyoming have three and a half times the impact of a voter in a different state?
 
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ernst barkmann said:
simple, becuase the founders divided power in congress, between the states and the people, so that neither one, could be tyrannical , ..so power is divided.

by putting congress in only the hands of the people with the 17th, this leads to mob rule, or majority rule.

The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, selfappointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny-- federalist 47
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MOB RULE is a right wing pejorative for majority rule as used in this thread. It is intended to be insulting as well as blatantly false.
 
ernst barkmann said:
if you act as a majority ,to take away rights of the minority it is.........and that is what happens every time, when you have majority rule.
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When did this happen in the USA?
 
Kal'Stang said:
What is the justification for having a system where the majority of people can stifle the minority in matters within the Constitution?
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Lincoln said it best..... a government of the people, by the people and for the people. How else can you decide the will of the people other than by the people themselves?

Now can you answer my question which you reversed on me?
 
Kal'Stang said:
What is the justification for having a system where the majority of people can stifle the minority in matters within the Constitution?
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Funny, I thought they supported the little guy.
 
Kal'Stang said:
Why are you unable to address what I stated without resorting to your usual semantical debate tactics? If words and definitions mean something then you should have no problem addressing what I stated as the words and definitions are the same for both you and me.
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You introduced the word. Not me. I asked you to define it so I can understand what you mean by it.

Why are you impotent to do this basic element of standard debate?
 
ernst barkmann said:
mob rule was around before the republicans came into being
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So what? That is irrelevant and has nothing to do with how it is used by modern right wingers as an insulting pejorative.
 
haymarket said:
So tell me about the vote for electors for President of the United States and why they are not all equal in the power they wield?

Electoral College favors small states - DailyHerald.com

a small part of the article



Who gets to be President of the USA is most certainly a national matter - to use your qualifier. Why should a voter in Wyoming have three and a half times the impact of a voter in a different state?
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Perhaps you didn't read my previous posts? Despite your quote of it that is....

Kal'Stang said:
When it comes to voting in our representitives, I absolutely do believe in one person one vote with equal weight to the votes. When it comes to enacting laws, hell no. Mob rule always leads to someone getting oppressed and stripped of their rights. Current day example would be SSM. There is no valid reason to deny homosexuals marrying each other.
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Your example is of voting in our representatives. That includes the President. As such I fully believe that the Electoral system should be gotten rid of.

When it comes to laws however, each district should have one vote and no more.
 
haymarket said:
So what? That is irrelevant and has nothing to do with how it is used by modern right wingers as an insulting pejorative.
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it is you who want only direct power in the hands of the people...........that is democracy.........and its majority rule.

majority rule leads to mob rule......history has proven that.
 
haymarket said:
You introduced the word. Not me. I asked you to define it so I can understand what you mean by it.

Why are you impotent to do this basic element of standard debate?
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I've introduced a lot of words. :shrug: I don't see you asking for the definition of each and every single one of those words. All that you are doing is trying to play the semantical game. Its not going to work. My definition is the same as your and yours is the same as mine. Thats how words and their definitions work. Neither you nor I can change the meaning of those words. Indeed the fact that you are trying to play the semantical game is just evidence that you cannot address my statement with out trying to spin.
 
ernst barkmann said:
i am stating what mob rule is, democracy means majority rule....and sooner or later that majority will turn on the minority, and that is from history.
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While you are making predictions - so we can see how powerful your powers of prediction are - can you give me next weeks winning Power Ball numbers?

then please answer my question about when in US history the majority voted to take away rights from the minority?
 
many of you , are wanting to rip the guts of the federal government structure right out of the constitution, and remove the last few checks and balances of government, and seek to destroy republican government, and turn us into a democracy......no wonder America is failing!
 
haymarket said:
While you are making predictions - so we can see how powerful your powers of prediction are - can you give me next weeks winning Power Ball numbers?

then please answer my question about when in US history the majority voted to take away rights from the minority?
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even you cannot be this clueless, i am discussing the move towards much deeper majority rule now, and what its effects will be in the future...
 
haymarket said:
MOB RULE is a right wing pejorative for majority rule as used in this thread. It is intended to be insulting as well as blatantly false.
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Wrong. Mob rule is just that. Mob rule. It is not dependent on neither the right nor the left. I find it interesting that you think that it is being used to insult the left as indicated by your words of "right wing pejorative".
 
francois60 said:
The system is designed to require shifting coalitions. In theory, ten big states could band together and rule the nation if we had proportional representation. Obviously that won't happen because those states have too many conflicting interests. But the smaller states worried enough about that that they required approval for all laws not just from a popular house, but also a Senate, which by definition means a majority of states agree when something gets passed.

So any law requires that not only 51% of the people support it, but also at least 26 states.

Also, understand that the majority of governance is at the state and local level. The federal government only has a limited set of responsibilities, and I think it does make sense for the states to be in general agreement when deciding to let the federal government do various things for that reason.

If we transitioned to a government where the federal government had unlimited powers, and the states were simply administrative districts, then a Senate would make no sense. But as long as states are self-governing, and vastly different in how they self-govern, they also need a say in how the federal government.
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haymarket said:
How do any of these examples for state or local laws dealing with a state or local problem justify allowing a system where the votes of some people are weighted more heavilly than others in national matters?
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haymarket said:
What is the justification for having a system where a minority of people can stifle the will of a much larger majority in matters within the Constitution?
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Kal'Stang said:
There's your problem. We don't have a system where some peoples votes are weighted more heavilly than others in national matters. They are all equal.
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Kal'Stang said:
What is the justification for having a system where the majority of people can stifle the minority in matters within the Constitution?
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This shows haymarket just bypasses and ignores the answers he doesn't like, and continues on making the same claim as though no one has responded. francois60 actually gave him a pretty good answer, but that won't help haymarket justify ignorantly restructuring our government.
 
Morality Games said:
You're mistaking lobbyists for advisors. Advisors provide impartial insight that aids their rulers in implementing policy that achieves a balance between interested parties and allows civilization to progress.

Lobbyists use every ounce of influence they can muster (and some of them have quite a lot) to have policy reflect that they are the most important thing in the republic and that the entire republic and all the people within it should break to serve their organization's needs.

Ordinarily I would say lobbyists are better than having no kind of advisor, but frankly the practice has become so corrupt it wouldn't matter much if incompetent rulers started implementing policy unilaterally without consulting anyone. That's pretty much what it amounts to.
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When did we get rulers?
 
Kal'Stang said:
And how many Seanators are there? 2 from Wyoming and 2 from California.
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yes, at first it was only to be 1, then they choose two.

remember when the senate was created it was to represent the states and not the people, and give every state equal footing in government.
 
Kal'Stang said:
Perhaps you didn't read my previous posts? Despite your quote of it that is....



Your example is of voting in our representatives. That includes the President. As such I fully believe that the Electoral system should be gotten rid of.

When it comes to laws however, each district should have one vote and no more.
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Perhaps you shouldn't let him change the subject. ;)
 
Kal'Stang said:
I've introduced a lot of words. :shrug: I don't see you asking for the definition of each and every single one of those words.
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It was the word SUPPRESSED which was crucial to your position. Thus it is the word you need to define.
 
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