Gun ownership right Vs Voting right?

[woodwork201]

In several nations where guns were registered, they did in fact take them away. This is what happened in Australia and the UK, for example.

And while it is true that the 2nd Amendment would make this more difficult for this government to do that, the current Court precedent only protects ownership of handguns, so technically, the ATF could be used to seize all rifles. That would be substantially easier to do if all rifles are registered.

The current court has already shown, by a margin of 7 to 2, that it doesn't care at all about the Constitution. They are a bunch of weak cowards and they won't defend the right to keep and bear arms. And even if they did, the left will stack the court.

 

[woodwork201]

With all this, why are you afraid to register guns?

Give one good reason why I should register my guns.

 

[Utilitarian]

In several nations where guns were registered, they did in fact take them away. This is what happened in Australia and the UK, for example.

And while it is true that the 2nd Amendment would make this more difficult for this government to do that, the current Court precedent only protects ownership of handguns, so technically, the ATF could be used to seize all rifles. That would be substantially easier to do if all rifles are registered.

The current court has already shown, by a margin of 7 to 2, that it doesn't care at all about the Constitution. They are a bunch of weak cowards and they won't defend the right to keep and bear arms. And even if they did, the left will stack the court.

I think the current Court composition is just conservative enough to expand on the precedent for the 2nd Amendment if a proper case reaches them. If Biden ends up replacing Thomas or stacking the Court, obviously, that would change.

 

[frigidweirdo]

Last time I check both are constitutional rights. However, I never hear leftists complaining about ID/background check to buy a gun from licensed gun dealers.

Well, it shows both sides are massively inconsistent, really.

Both sides have their "thing" and they pound it so that people don't think about the real issues.

Voting is a right. But having an EQUAL VOTE isn't. It's strange.

It's literally like "well, you voted, no fuck off, we chose this guy and your vote didn't play any part in the matter"

Similar to when I went to Hong Kong once and read a newspaper, some "professor" from some Chinese university wrote "they have three people to choose from, that's democracy, why are they complaining?" when they could choose between three Xi hacks.

 

[frigidweirdo]

With all this, why are you afraid to register guns?

Give one good reason why I should register my guns.

Because you live in a society where there are rules that people should obey in order for society to function.

 

[Utilitarian]

With all this, why are you afraid to register guns?

Give one good reason why I should register my guns.

Because you live in a society where there are rules that people should obey in order for society to function.

That logic can be used to justify just about any law.

 

[frigidweirdo]

With all this, why are you afraid to register guns?

Give one good reason why I should register my guns.

Because you live in a society where there are rules that people should obey in order for society to function.

That logic can be used to justify just about any law.

Sure it could.

Society makes rules.

Society in the US made a rule about the government not being able to stop individuals from owning weapons. And yet society also says that the government can stop individuals from owning weapons.

If you make rules, you either abide by them, or change them.

The problem in the US is the political system (First Past The Post) is so bad that nothing sensible happens, oversight is poor to non-existent, people's votes don't matter, the rich control everything.

So, when someone else controls your political system and you let it happen, then you agree for them to tell you what to do with your life.

 

[Utilitarian]

With all this, why are you afraid to register guns?

Give one good reason why I should register my guns.

Because you live in a society where there are rules that people should obey in order for society to function.

That logic can be used to justify just about any law.

Sure it could.

Society makes rules.

Society in the US made a rule about the government not being able to stop individuals from owning weapons. And yet society also says that the government can stop individuals from owning weapons.

If you make rules, you either abide by them, or change them.

The problem in the US is the political system (First Past The Post) is so bad that nothing sensible happens, oversight is poor to non-existent, people's votes don't matter, the rich control everything.

So, when someone else controls your political system and you let it happen, then you agree for them to tell you what to do with your life.

There is some truth to this. But revolutions don't happen overnight.

 

[frigidweirdo]

With all this, why are you afraid to register guns?

Give one good reason why I should register my guns.

Because you live in a society where there are rules that people should obey in order for society to function.

That logic can be used to justify just about any law.

Sure it could.

Society makes rules.

Society in the US made a rule about the government not being able to stop individuals from owning weapons. And yet society also says that the government can stop individuals from owning weapons.

If you make rules, you either abide by them, or change them.

The problem in the US is the political system (First Past The Post) is so bad that nothing sensible happens, oversight is poor to non-existent, people's votes don't matter, the rich control everything.

So, when someone else controls your political system and you let it happen, then you agree for them to tell you what to do with your life.

There is some truth to this. But revolutions don't happen overnight.

They don't. In the US revolutions only happen if some rich person or politician (American or otherwise) stands to gain something.

The people as a force are zombies. Tell people about Proportional Representation, some Republicans are like "PR is mob rule". Seriously, can you imagine an individual saying they prefer to vote in a pointless election rather than having one person, one vote?

The rich tell them PR is bad. They understand what they need to say.

 

[Winco]

With all this, why are you afraid to register guns?

Give one good reason why I should register my guns.

My one good reason is.....
What are you afraid of?

we register cars, boats, houses...etc
Wtf are you worried about?

 

[Utilitarian]

With all this, why are you afraid to register guns?

Give one good reason why I should register my guns.

Because you live in a society where there are rules that people should obey in order for society to function.

That logic can be used to justify just about any law.

Sure it could.

Society makes rules.

Society in the US made a rule about the government not being able to stop individuals from owning weapons. And yet society also says that the government can stop individuals from owning weapons.

If you make rules, you either abide by them, or change them.

The problem in the US is the political system (First Past The Post) is so bad that nothing sensible happens, oversight is poor to non-existent, people's votes don't matter, the rich control everything.

So, when someone else controls your political system and you let it happen, then you agree for them to tell you what to do with your life.

There is some truth to this. But revolutions don't happen overnight.

They don't. In the US revolutions only happen if some rich person or politician (American or otherwise) stands to gain something.

The people as a force are zombies. Tell people about Proportional Representation, some Republicans are like "PR is mob rule". Seriously, can you imagine an individual saying they prefer to vote in a pointless election rather than having one person, one vote?

The rich tell them PR is bad. They understand what they need to say.

Well, it depends on how PR would be implemented. The reason why going to a national popular vote for the presidency is bad is because it ignores the role of states. Even though the bloated federal government makes it hard to see sometimes, our system was intended to be a union of states, not just a union of people. Before the Civil War, it was a voluntary union of states. Now, it would seem to be a forced union, but there are mechanisms in place for peaceful secession, which would be a logical course of action for a lot of the country if we ever actually make the presidency a simple popular vote.

PR is something that is fine when you don't have things to consider like states' rights. This is why it's perfectly sensible for representation within a state (like for the governor, the state legislature, House members, or Senators).

 

[frigidweirdo]

With all this, why are you afraid to register guns?

Give one good reason why I should register my guns.

Because you live in a society where there are rules that people should obey in order for society to function.

That logic can be used to justify just about any law.

Sure it could.

Society makes rules.

Society in the US made a rule about the government not being able to stop individuals from owning weapons. And yet society also says that the government can stop individuals from owning weapons.

If you make rules, you either abide by them, or change them.

The problem in the US is the political system (First Past The Post) is so bad that nothing sensible happens, oversight is poor to non-existent, people's votes don't matter, the rich control everything.

So, when someone else controls your political system and you let it happen, then you agree for them to tell you what to do with your life.

There is some truth to this. But revolutions don't happen overnight.

They don't. In the US revolutions only happen if some rich person or politician (American or otherwise) stands to gain something.

The people as a force are zombies. Tell people about Proportional Representation, some Republicans are like "PR is mob rule". Seriously, can you imagine an individual saying they prefer to vote in a pointless election rather than having one person, one vote?

The rich tell them PR is bad. They understand what they need to say.

Well, it depends on how PR would be implemented. The reason why going to a national popular vote for the presidency is bad is because it ignores the role of states. Even though the bloated federal government makes it hard to see sometimes, our system was intended to be a union of states, not just a union of people. Before the Civil War, it was a voluntary union of states. Now, it would seem to be a forced union, but there are mechanisms in place for peaceful secession, which would be a logical course of action for a lot of the country if we ever actually make the presidency a simple popular vote.

PR is something that is fine when you don't have things to consider like states' rights. This is why it's perfectly sensible for representation within a state (like for the governor, the state legislature, House members, or Senators).

The problem is the EC ignores the states.

In 2020 only 14 of the 50 states were within 10% between the Rep and the Dem.

In 2016 that was only 10 states.

Many states get ignored. The amount of money going into "battleground states" is huge. The candidates will base a lot of their investment on those few states.

Wyoming, which has the most powerful vote (on paper) at about 4 times the power of Texas and California, is totally ignored because Wyoming is ALWAYS going to vote Republican (and if they didn't, the Democrats would win by the biggest landslide since Washington).

But that's not half the story. The states only get to choose between Republicans and Democrats anyway. There are so few third party candidates that are viable.

So, a state like California, which is split in two. You have the conservative farmers and the liberal city dwellers. The state doesn't matter, the state is divided, not enough for the conservative side to have any say in anything. The farming side gets totally ignored.

California will never be split up because it's not in the interests of the Democrats to have a conservative state getting another two Senate seats and more presidential votes.

So, it doesn't benefit "California", it merely benefits the liberals in California.

As for how PR should be done. The Germans have PR and FPTP together, but PR decides the make up of the Bundestag.

In 2017 the CDU/CSU would have had 77% of the seats with 37.2% of the votes.

With PR they got 200 out of 709 seats from 33% of the vote, that's about 34.5% of the seats (if I remember correctly). They also lost 4.2% of the vote because people have MORE CHOICE with PR.

 

[Utilitarian]

With all this, why are you afraid to register guns?

Give one good reason why I should register my guns.

Because you live in a society where there are rules that people should obey in order for society to function.

That logic can be used to justify just about any law.

Sure it could.

Society makes rules.

Society in the US made a rule about the government not being able to stop individuals from owning weapons. And yet society also says that the government can stop individuals from owning weapons.

If you make rules, you either abide by them, or change them.

The problem in the US is the political system (First Past The Post) is so bad that nothing sensible happens, oversight is poor to non-existent, people's votes don't matter, the rich control everything.

So, when someone else controls your political system and you let it happen, then you agree for them to tell you what to do with your life.

There is some truth to this. But revolutions don't happen overnight.

They don't. In the US revolutions only happen if some rich person or politician (American or otherwise) stands to gain something.

The people as a force are zombies. Tell people about Proportional Representation, some Republicans are like "PR is mob rule". Seriously, can you imagine an individual saying they prefer to vote in a pointless election rather than having one person, one vote?

The rich tell them PR is bad. They understand what they need to say.

Well, it depends on how PR would be implemented. The reason why going to a national popular vote for the presidency is bad is because it ignores the role of states. Even though the bloated federal government makes it hard to see sometimes, our system was intended to be a union of states, not just a union of people. Before the Civil War, it was a voluntary union of states. Now, it would seem to be a forced union, but there are mechanisms in place for peaceful secession, which would be a logical course of action for a lot of the country if we ever actually make the presidency a simple popular vote.

PR is something that is fine when you don't have things to consider like states' rights. This is why it's perfectly sensible for representation within a state (like for the governor, the state legislature, House members, or Senators).

The problem is the EC ignores the states.

In 2020 only 14 of the 50 states were within 10% between the Rep and the Dem.

In 2016 that was only 10 states.

Many states get ignored. The amount of money going into "battleground states" is huge. The candidates will base a lot of their investment on those few states.

Wyoming, which has the most powerful vote (on paper) at about 4 times the power of Texas and California, is totally ignored because Wyoming is ALWAYS going to vote Republican (and if they didn't, the Democrats would win by the biggest landslide since Washington).

But that's not half the story. The states only get to choose between Republicans and Democrats anyway. There are so few third party candidates that are viable.

So, a state like California, which is split in two. You have the conservative farmers and the liberal city dwellers. The state doesn't matter, the state is divided, not enough for the conservative side to have any say in anything. The farming side gets totally ignored.

California will never be split up because it's not in the interests of the Democrats to have a conservative state getting another two Senate seats and more presidential votes.

So, it doesn't benefit "California", it merely benefits the liberals in California.

As for how PR should be done. The Germans have PR and FPTP together, but PR decides the make up of the Bundestag.

In 2017 the CDU/CSU would have had 77% of the seats with 37.2% of the votes.

With PR they got 200 out of 709 seats from 33% of the vote, that's about 34.5% of the seats (if I remember correctly). They also lost 4.2% of the vote because people have MORE CHOICE with PR.

A simple fix for the EC would be to end winner-takes-all. If each state gave a percentage of its electoral votes to the popular vote winner within the state, then the EC vote tally would more closely resemble the national popular vote while still allowing for state representation.

I suppose you could reform things further by having PR elections within each state for the presidency, but the total vote for the presidency wouldn't technically be considered PR.

 

[frigidweirdo]

With all this, why are you afraid to register guns?

Give one good reason why I should register my guns.

Because you live in a society where there are rules that people should obey in order for society to function.

That logic can be used to justify just about any law.

Sure it could.

Society makes rules.

Society in the US made a rule about the government not being able to stop individuals from owning weapons. And yet society also says that the government can stop individuals from owning weapons.

If you make rules, you either abide by them, or change them.

The problem in the US is the political system (First Past The Post) is so bad that nothing sensible happens, oversight is poor to non-existent, people's votes don't matter, the rich control everything.

So, when someone else controls your political system and you let it happen, then you agree for them to tell you what to do with your life.

There is some truth to this. But revolutions don't happen overnight.

They don't. In the US revolutions only happen if some rich person or politician (American or otherwise) stands to gain something.

The people as a force are zombies. Tell people about Proportional Representation, some Republicans are like "PR is mob rule". Seriously, can you imagine an individual saying they prefer to vote in a pointless election rather than having one person, one vote?

The rich tell them PR is bad. They understand what they need to say.

Well, it depends on how PR would be implemented. The reason why going to a national popular vote for the presidency is bad is because it ignores the role of states. Even though the bloated federal government makes it hard to see sometimes, our system was intended to be a union of states, not just a union of people. Before the Civil War, it was a voluntary union of states. Now, it would seem to be a forced union, but there are mechanisms in place for peaceful secession, which would be a logical course of action for a lot of the country if we ever actually make the presidency a simple popular vote.

PR is something that is fine when you don't have things to consider like states' rights. This is why it's perfectly sensible for representation within a state (like for the governor, the state legislature, House members, or Senators).

The problem is the EC ignores the states.

In 2020 only 14 of the 50 states were within 10% between the Rep and the Dem.

In 2016 that was only 10 states.

Many states get ignored. The amount of money going into "battleground states" is huge. The candidates will base a lot of their investment on those few states.

Wyoming, which has the most powerful vote (on paper) at about 4 times the power of Texas and California, is totally ignored because Wyoming is ALWAYS going to vote Republican (and if they didn't, the Democrats would win by the biggest landslide since Washington).

But that's not half the story. The states only get to choose between Republicans and Democrats anyway. There are so few third party candidates that are viable.

So, a state like California, which is split in two. You have the conservative farmers and the liberal city dwellers. The state doesn't matter, the state is divided, not enough for the conservative side to have any say in anything. The farming side gets totally ignored.

California will never be split up because it's not in the interests of the Democrats to have a conservative state getting another two Senate seats and more presidential votes.

So, it doesn't benefit "California", it merely benefits the liberals in California.

As for how PR should be done. The Germans have PR and FPTP together, but PR decides the make up of the Bundestag.

In 2017 the CDU/CSU would have had 77% of the seats with 37.2% of the votes.

With PR they got 200 out of 709 seats from 33% of the vote, that's about 34.5% of the seats (if I remember correctly). They also lost 4.2% of the vote because people have MORE CHOICE with PR.

A simple fix for the EC would be to end winner-takes-all. If each state gave a percentage of its electoral votes to the popular vote winner within the state, then the EC vote tally would more closely resemble the national popular vote while still allowing for state representation.

I suppose you could reform things further by having PR elections within each state for the presidency, but the total vote for the presidency wouldn't technically be considered PR.

Well yes.

The question is here is that people in California will then get a lot of choice (except they won't).

Imagine California has 55 EC votes. Which means if any party gets 2% of the vote, they'll get an EC seat.

Imagine Wyoming with 3 EC votes. Which means if any party gets 33% of the vote, they'll get an EC seat.

Doesn't seem fair, does it?

Also, only Reps and Dems will be viable. Conservative or Liberal parties (other than Rep or Dem) will know that their participation will result in a national loss for the main conservative or liberal party.

Straight PR doesn't work for a presidential election. France has a system whereby there's a runoff with two candidates. Germany has it where the leader is the leader of the party with the most votes in the Bundestag (and some random dude as president which is a pointless office).

But with either of those system for leader of the country and PR in, at the very least, the House would increase the number of political parties and make the presidency more competitive.

Even better would be the executive being split up, so different parts of the job of the executive go to individuals with individual platforms for what to do. So like defense, education, the economy etc etc.

 

[Utilitarian]

With all this, why are you afraid to register guns?

Give one good reason why I should register my guns.

Because you live in a society where there are rules that people should obey in order for society to function.

That logic can be used to justify just about any law.

Sure it could.

Society makes rules.

Society in the US made a rule about the government not being able to stop individuals from owning weapons. And yet society also says that the government can stop individuals from owning weapons.

If you make rules, you either abide by them, or change them.

The problem in the US is the political system (First Past The Post) is so bad that nothing sensible happens, oversight is poor to non-existent, people's votes don't matter, the rich control everything.

So, when someone else controls your political system and you let it happen, then you agree for them to tell you what to do with your life.

There is some truth to this. But revolutions don't happen overnight.

They don't. In the US revolutions only happen if some rich person or politician (American or otherwise) stands to gain something.

The people as a force are zombies. Tell people about Proportional Representation, some Republicans are like "PR is mob rule". Seriously, can you imagine an individual saying they prefer to vote in a pointless election rather than having one person, one vote?

The rich tell them PR is bad. They understand what they need to say.

Well, it depends on how PR would be implemented. The reason why going to a national popular vote for the presidency is bad is because it ignores the role of states. Even though the bloated federal government makes it hard to see sometimes, our system was intended to be a union of states, not just a union of people. Before the Civil War, it was a voluntary union of states. Now, it would seem to be a forced union, but there are mechanisms in place for peaceful secession, which would be a logical course of action for a lot of the country if we ever actually make the presidency a simple popular vote.

PR is something that is fine when you don't have things to consider like states' rights. This is why it's perfectly sensible for representation within a state (like for the governor, the state legislature, House members, or Senators).

The problem is the EC ignores the states.

In 2020 only 14 of the 50 states were within 10% between the Rep and the Dem.

In 2016 that was only 10 states.

Many states get ignored. The amount of money going into "battleground states" is huge. The candidates will base a lot of their investment on those few states.

Wyoming, which has the most powerful vote (on paper) at about 4 times the power of Texas and California, is totally ignored because Wyoming is ALWAYS going to vote Republican (and if they didn't, the Democrats would win by the biggest landslide since Washington).

But that's not half the story. The states only get to choose between Republicans and Democrats anyway. There are so few third party candidates that are viable.

So, a state like California, which is split in two. You have the conservative farmers and the liberal city dwellers. The state doesn't matter, the state is divided, not enough for the conservative side to have any say in anything. The farming side gets totally ignored.

California will never be split up because it's not in the interests of the Democrats to have a conservative state getting another two Senate seats and more presidential votes.

So, it doesn't benefit "California", it merely benefits the liberals in California.

As for how PR should be done. The Germans have PR and FPTP together, but PR decides the make up of the Bundestag.

In 2017 the CDU/CSU would have had 77% of the seats with 37.2% of the votes.

With PR they got 200 out of 709 seats from 33% of the vote, that's about 34.5% of the seats (if I remember correctly). They also lost 4.2% of the vote because people have MORE CHOICE with PR.

A simple fix for the EC would be to end winner-takes-all. If each state gave a percentage of its electoral votes to the popular vote winner within the state, then the EC vote tally would more closely resemble the national popular vote while still allowing for state representation.

I suppose you could reform things further by having PR elections within each state for the presidency, but the total vote for the presidency wouldn't technically be considered PR.

Well yes.

The question is here is that people in California will then get a lot of choice (except they won't).

Imagine California has 55 EC votes. Which means if any party gets 2% of the vote, they'll get an EC seat.

Imagine Wyoming with 3 EC votes. Which means if any party gets 33% of the vote, they'll get an EC seat.

Doesn't seem fair, does it?

Also, only Reps and Dems will be viable. Conservative or Liberal parties (other than Rep or Dem) will know that their participation will result in a national loss for the main conservative or liberal party.

Straight PR doesn't work for a presidential election. France has a system whereby there's a runoff with two candidates. Germany has it where the leader is the leader of the party with the most votes in the Bundestag (and some random dude as president which is a pointless office).

But with either of those system for leader of the country and PR in, at the very least, the House would increase the number of political parties and make the presidency more competitive.

Even better would be the executive being split up, so different parts of the job of the executive go to individuals with individual platforms for what to do. So like defense, education, the economy etc etc.

Well, there's a simple fix there as well. Expand the number of House seats. This would more accurately represent the distribution of population in each state, and it would reduce the "social distance" between a given House member and his/her constituents. Right now, it's something like 850,000 people per district (on average). We could get that down to something like 100,000 per district if we multiplied the House by about 8 times.

Of course, doing that would require a way to conduct legislation remotely. You really don't want that many people crammed into a single building. So, each state could probably have a base of operations for its US House members. They could even use each of their state capitals for this.

Another benefit to doing this would be that gerrymandering would become a lot harder. When you have to divide things up to this degree in the larger population states, it's harder to just cherrypick locations with certain party affiliations. Of course, there is another alternative that could be done -- make all House members at-large in each state. That would end gerrymandering altogether.

Yes, there would still be room for improvement for opening up third parties, but all of this would be a vast improvement from the status quo.

 

[frigidweirdo]

With all this, why are you afraid to register guns?

Give one good reason why I should register my guns.

Because you live in a society where there are rules that people should obey in order for society to function.

That logic can be used to justify just about any law.

Sure it could.

Society makes rules.

Society in the US made a rule about the government not being able to stop individuals from owning weapons. And yet society also says that the government can stop individuals from owning weapons.

If you make rules, you either abide by them, or change them.

The problem in the US is the political system (First Past The Post) is so bad that nothing sensible happens, oversight is poor to non-existent, people's votes don't matter, the rich control everything.

So, when someone else controls your political system and you let it happen, then you agree for them to tell you what to do with your life.

There is some truth to this. But revolutions don't happen overnight.

They don't. In the US revolutions only happen if some rich person or politician (American or otherwise) stands to gain something.

The people as a force are zombies. Tell people about Proportional Representation, some Republicans are like "PR is mob rule". Seriously, can you imagine an individual saying they prefer to vote in a pointless election rather than having one person, one vote?

The rich tell them PR is bad. They understand what they need to say.

Well, it depends on how PR would be implemented. The reason why going to a national popular vote for the presidency is bad is because it ignores the role of states. Even though the bloated federal government makes it hard to see sometimes, our system was intended to be a union of states, not just a union of people. Before the Civil War, it was a voluntary union of states. Now, it would seem to be a forced union, but there are mechanisms in place for peaceful secession, which would be a logical course of action for a lot of the country if we ever actually make the presidency a simple popular vote.

PR is something that is fine when you don't have things to consider like states' rights. This is why it's perfectly sensible for representation within a state (like for the governor, the state legislature, House members, or Senators).

The problem is the EC ignores the states.

In 2020 only 14 of the 50 states were within 10% between the Rep and the Dem.

In 2016 that was only 10 states.

Many states get ignored. The amount of money going into "battleground states" is huge. The candidates will base a lot of their investment on those few states.

Wyoming, which has the most powerful vote (on paper) at about 4 times the power of Texas and California, is totally ignored because Wyoming is ALWAYS going to vote Republican (and if they didn't, the Democrats would win by the biggest landslide since Washington).

But that's not half the story. The states only get to choose between Republicans and Democrats anyway. There are so few third party candidates that are viable.

So, a state like California, which is split in two. You have the conservative farmers and the liberal city dwellers. The state doesn't matter, the state is divided, not enough for the conservative side to have any say in anything. The farming side gets totally ignored.

California will never be split up because it's not in the interests of the Democrats to have a conservative state getting another two Senate seats and more presidential votes.

So, it doesn't benefit "California", it merely benefits the liberals in California.

As for how PR should be done. The Germans have PR and FPTP together, but PR decides the make up of the Bundestag.

In 2017 the CDU/CSU would have had 77% of the seats with 37.2% of the votes.

With PR they got 200 out of 709 seats from 33% of the vote, that's about 34.5% of the seats (if I remember correctly). They also lost 4.2% of the vote because people have MORE CHOICE with PR.

A simple fix for the EC would be to end winner-takes-all. If each state gave a percentage of its electoral votes to the popular vote winner within the state, then the EC vote tally would more closely resemble the national popular vote while still allowing for state representation.

I suppose you could reform things further by having PR elections within each state for the presidency, but the total vote for the presidency wouldn't technically be considered PR.

Well yes.

The question is here is that people in California will then get a lot of choice (except they won't).

Imagine California has 55 EC votes. Which means if any party gets 2% of the vote, they'll get an EC seat.

Imagine Wyoming with 3 EC votes. Which means if any party gets 33% of the vote, they'll get an EC seat.

Doesn't seem fair, does it?

Also, only Reps and Dems will be viable. Conservative or Liberal parties (other than Rep or Dem) will know that their participation will result in a national loss for the main conservative or liberal party.

Straight PR doesn't work for a presidential election. France has a system whereby there's a runoff with two candidates. Germany has it where the leader is the leader of the party with the most votes in the Bundestag (and some random dude as president which is a pointless office).

But with either of those system for leader of the country and PR in, at the very least, the House would increase the number of political parties and make the presidency more competitive.

Even better would be the executive being split up, so different parts of the job of the executive go to individuals with individual platforms for what to do. So like defense, education, the economy etc etc.

Well, there's a simple fix there as well. Expand the number of House seats. This would more accurately represent the distribution of population in each state, and it would reduce the "social distance" between a given House member and his/her constituents. Right now, it's something like 850,000 people per district (on average). We could get that down to something like 100,000 per district if we multiplied the House by about 8 times.

Of course, doing that would require a way to conduct legislation remotely. You really don't want that many people crammed into a single building. So, each state could probably have a base of operations for its US House members. They could even use each of their state capitals for this.

Another benefit to doing this would be that gerrymandering would become a lot harder. When you have to divide things up to this degree in the larger population states, it's harder to just cherrypick locations with certain party affiliations. Of course, there is another alternative that could be done -- make all House members at-large in each state. That would end gerrymandering altogether.

Yes, there would still be room for improvement for opening up third parties, but all of this would be a vast improvement from the status quo.

The problem is, even if there were more representatives, most of those wouldn't get heard. The reality is that parties form policies.

In Germany you have six political parties. Traditional right, traditional left, center right, environmental left, further left and further right (not far-right or far-left, just further towards left and right than center parties and traditional parties).

Germany has a 5% cut off. Denmark has a 2% cut off point.

Denmark seems to have 10 political parties, 7 of which have over 5% of the vote. 9 have over 3% of the vote.

This is real choice.

With FPTP the US has two parties.

The UK has three political parties, two liberal parties fight each other and hand the Conservatives the win almost always. And then you have some regional parties, only one ever has an impact, which is the DUP who sometimes prop up an ailing Conservative Party and trying to get them to kill Catholics and save fetuses, or some nonsense like that.

India also has FPTP, instead of parties, it is alliances that are important. There are five alliances, though the third largest alliance got 25 million votes from 600 million cast, or 4% of the vote, they wouldn't even get elected in Germany.

Under a 2% cut off they'd have 4 alliances, though everyone knows there are only two alliances that can realistically win.

FPTP has been shown to benefit the larger parties, and destroy smaller parties, as it does in the US.

 

[Utilitarian]

The problem is, even if there were more representatives, most of those wouldn't get heard. The reality is that parties form policies.

In Germany you have six political parties. Traditional right, traditional left, center right, environmental left, further left and further right (not far-right or far-left, just further towards left and right than center parties and traditional parties).

Germany has a 5% cut off. Denmark has a 2% cut off point.

Denmark seems to have 10 political parties, 7 of which have over 5% of the vote. 9 have over 3% of the vote.

This is real choice.

With FPTP the US has two parties.

The UK has three political parties, two liberal parties fight each other and hand the Conservatives the win almost always. And then you have some regional parties, only one ever has an impact, which is the DUP who sometimes prop up an ailing Conservative Party and trying to get them to kill Catholics and save fetuses, or some nonsense like that.

India also has FPTP, instead of parties, it is alliances that are important. There are five alliances, though the third largest alliance got 25 million votes from 600 million cast, or 4% of the vote, they wouldn't even get elected in Germany.

Under a 2% cut off they'd have 4 alliances, though everyone knows there are only two alliances that can realistically win.

FPTP has been shown to benefit the larger parties, and destroy smaller parties, as it does in the US.

I agree that some alternative voting form would be the ideal, whether it's instant runoff voting, approval voting, or single transferable votes. There are numerous ways to legitimize third parties.

 

[frigidweirdo]

The problem is, even if there were more representatives, most of those wouldn't get heard. The reality is that parties form policies.

In Germany you have six political parties. Traditional right, traditional left, center right, environmental left, further left and further right (not far-right or far-left, just further towards left and right than center parties and traditional parties).

Germany has a 5% cut off. Denmark has a 2% cut off point.

Denmark seems to have 10 political parties, 7 of which have over 5% of the vote. 9 have over 3% of the vote.

This is real choice.

With FPTP the US has two parties.

The UK has three political parties, two liberal parties fight each other and hand the Conservatives the win almost always. And then you have some regional parties, only one ever has an impact, which is the DUP who sometimes prop up an ailing Conservative Party and trying to get them to kill Catholics and save fetuses, or some nonsense like that.

India also has FPTP, instead of parties, it is alliances that are important. There are five alliances, though the third largest alliance got 25 million votes from 600 million cast, or 4% of the vote, they wouldn't even get elected in Germany.

Under a 2% cut off they'd have 4 alliances, though everyone knows there are only two alliances that can realistically win.

FPTP has been shown to benefit the larger parties, and destroy smaller parties, as it does in the US.

I agree that some alternative voting form would be the ideal, whether it's instant runoff voting, approval voting, or single transferable votes. There are numerous ways to legitimize third parties.

Yes, but PR is the best.

Firstly because it gives individuals proper choice. Choosing between two rubbish political parties is not choice.

Secondly because it makes the system much for flexible.

UKIP in the UK got 12.6% of the vote in 2015. They got one seat, and this was after fighting to get seats since 1993.

The AfD in Germany got 12.6% of the vote in 2017. They got 94 seats, and this was after being a political party for something like five years.

Germans wanted to send a message to the main conservative party that they didn't like the direction they were going in, but still wanted a conservative party. So they got their wish.

Thirdly there's far more oversight.

The least corrupt countries in the world use PR. It has more political parties attacking the main parties in charge of the government. It often forces political parties to negotiate policies in order to form coalitions, and the people can easily act against those they feel aren't acting in their best interest by voting them out very quickly.

 

[Utilitarian]

The problem is, even if there were more representatives, most of those wouldn't get heard. The reality is that parties form policies.

In Germany you have six political parties. Traditional right, traditional left, center right, environmental left, further left and further right (not far-right or far-left, just further towards left and right than center parties and traditional parties).

Germany has a 5% cut off. Denmark has a 2% cut off point.

Denmark seems to have 10 political parties, 7 of which have over 5% of the vote. 9 have over 3% of the vote.

This is real choice.

With FPTP the US has two parties.

The UK has three political parties, two liberal parties fight each other and hand the Conservatives the win almost always. And then you have some regional parties, only one ever has an impact, which is the DUP who sometimes prop up an ailing Conservative Party and trying to get them to kill Catholics and save fetuses, or some nonsense like that.

India also has FPTP, instead of parties, it is alliances that are important. There are five alliances, though the third largest alliance got 25 million votes from 600 million cast, or 4% of the vote, they wouldn't even get elected in Germany.

Under a 2% cut off they'd have 4 alliances, though everyone knows there are only two alliances that can realistically win.

FPTP has been shown to benefit the larger parties, and destroy smaller parties, as it does in the US.

I agree that some alternative voting form would be the ideal, whether it's instant runoff voting, approval voting, or single transferable votes. There are numerous ways to legitimize third parties.

Yes, but PR is the best.

Firstly because it gives individuals proper choice. Choosing between two rubbish political parties is not choice.

Secondly because it makes the system much for flexible.

UKIP in the UK got 12.6% of the vote in 2015. They got one seat, and this was after fighting to get seats since 1993.

The AfD in Germany got 12.6% of the vote in 2017. They got 94 seats, and this was after being a political party for something like five years.

Germans wanted to send a message to the main conservative party that they didn't like the direction they were going in, but still wanted a conservative party. So they got their wish.

Thirdly there's far more oversight.

The least corrupt countries in the world use PR. It has more political parties attacking the main parties in charge of the government. It often forces political parties to negotiate policies in order to form coalitions, and the people can easily act against those they feel aren't acting in their best interest by voting them out very quickly.

Maybe I'm mistaken here, but I thought that the 3 methods I mentioned are different forms of PR. Is PR a specific form of voting?

Instant runoff voting is similar to what France does for the presidency, for example. That's where you vote for your #1 preference and then your #2 preference. Instead of having a second runoff election, your vote simply shifts to your #2 choice if your #1 choice wasn't among the top 2 vote getters at #1.

Approval voting is where you get to vote for as many candidates for an office as you want, and then the total vote tally is done. Whoever got the most votes in total wins. So, if 10 candidates run for an office, you can choose to vote for 1, 2, all 10, or any other number in between.

Single transferable votes are kind of like instant runoff voting. Australia uses this system, and it works like this: Single transferable vote - Wikipedia

 

[frigidweirdo]

The problem is, even if there were more representatives, most of those wouldn't get heard. The reality is that parties form policies.

In Germany you have six political parties. Traditional right, traditional left, center right, environmental left, further left and further right (not far-right or far-left, just further towards left and right than center parties and traditional parties).

Germany has a 5% cut off. Denmark has a 2% cut off point.

Denmark seems to have 10 political parties, 7 of which have over 5% of the vote. 9 have over 3% of the vote.

This is real choice.

With FPTP the US has two parties.

The UK has three political parties, two liberal parties fight each other and hand the Conservatives the win almost always. And then you have some regional parties, only one ever has an impact, which is the DUP who sometimes prop up an ailing Conservative Party and trying to get them to kill Catholics and save fetuses, or some nonsense like that.

India also has FPTP, instead of parties, it is alliances that are important. There are five alliances, though the third largest alliance got 25 million votes from 600 million cast, or 4% of the vote, they wouldn't even get elected in Germany.

Under a 2% cut off they'd have 4 alliances, though everyone knows there are only two alliances that can realistically win.

FPTP has been shown to benefit the larger parties, and destroy smaller parties, as it does in the US.

I agree that some alternative voting form would be the ideal, whether it's instant runoff voting, approval voting, or single transferable votes. There are numerous ways to legitimize third parties.

Yes, but PR is the best.

Firstly because it gives individuals proper choice. Choosing between two rubbish political parties is not choice.

Secondly because it makes the system much for flexible.

UKIP in the UK got 12.6% of the vote in 2015. They got one seat, and this was after fighting to get seats since 1993.

The AfD in Germany got 12.6% of the vote in 2017. They got 94 seats, and this was after being a political party for something like five years.

Germans wanted to send a message to the main conservative party that they didn't like the direction they were going in, but still wanted a conservative party. So they got their wish.

Thirdly there's far more oversight.

The least corrupt countries in the world use PR. It has more political parties attacking the main parties in charge of the government. It often forces political parties to negotiate policies in order to form coalitions, and the people can easily act against those they feel aren't acting in their best interest by voting them out very quickly.

Maybe I'm mistaken here, but I thought that the 3 methods I mentioned are different forms of PR. Is PR a specific form of voting?

Instant runoff voting is similar to what France does for the presidency, for example. That's where you vote for your #1 preference and then your #2 preference. Instead of having a second runoff election, your vote simply shifts to your #2 choice if your #1 choice wasn't among the top 2 vote getters at #1.

Approval voting is where you get to vote for as many candidates for an office as you want, and then the total vote tally is done. Whoever got the most votes in total wins. So, if 10 candidates run for an office, you can choose to vote for 1, 2, all 10, or any other number in between.

Single transferable votes are kind of like instant runoff voting. Australia uses this system, and it works like this: Single transferable vote - Wikipedia

Instant runoff or Alternative Voting (AV) is like FPTP.

It is better than FPTP, but still not great as it'll often be done at constituent level.

So, the larger parties still gain an advantage here, because they're most likely to win the smaller battles.

Say for example 10% of the population likes the Fundamental Fundamentalists Socialist Party (FFS Party).

Then 40% like the Center Left Party(CLP)

In a PR election the 10% of the population would get somewhere between 10.5%-11.5% of the seats.

With AV or run off they'd most likely lose every seat they run for, because the CLP will almost always get more votes than them.

So, 10% want the FFS party but they get zero seats because they cannot get above the number of votes in any one constituency.

If it's for the presidency then it'd be better. However unless there's a history of other parties doing well in the House, you'd still get Rep v. Dem at the end of the day.

Unless you have a system where the whole country votes together (rather than as constituencies) then you'll have the larger parties doing proportionally better than the people want them to.