Miriam:
Hot diggety digged
The Electoral College is rigged!
The Election is also rigged!
It is hard to tell.
The difference between
The riggers, the rigged and the riggee!
Whoop Dee Dee.
Richard
On 12/4/2016 8:03 PM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
A lot of people are like you in that respect. But unfortunately, things are not as clearly defined in real life. There are if's, and's, and but's, all sorts of subtleties. In other words, things are not just black or white, but lots of different shades of gray in between. Trump won electoral college votes, but the electoral college is rigged. He lost the popular vote, even though the popular vote is also rigged in favor of Republicans because of the way it is administered in states with Republican administrations which add regulations for voting that automatically disqualify likely Democratic voters. And then there are the faulty voting machines, the ones with no verifiable paper ballots. So if this kind of win had taken place in Russia, with all its inadequacies, everyone would be talking about how undemocratic the Russian government is. But it took place in America so by definition, everything must be acceptable.
Uh uh! Not true!
Miriam
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*From:* blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] *On Behalf Of *Richard Driscoll
*Sent:* Sunday, December 04, 2016 8:20 PM
*To:* blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
*Subject:* [blind-democracy] Re: The Electoral College
Miriam:
I am unable to deal with "ifs" "ands" or "what ifs". These thoughts do not exist in my world. I must deal with things and occurrences as they exist. In this case Trump has not lost. He won in accordance with the rules and regulations. This is what I must deal with and not other possible conditions.
Richard
On 12/3/2016 2:19 PM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
How one sees reality, is very much influenced by one's value system. Additionally, people tend to interpret things from their political prospective. So, the author of the article, obviously doesn't trust the democratic process because he doesn't trust the judgment of most people. However, had Trump lost, the article might have been written very differently. In the same light, people are very upset about Trump's promise to deport millions of immigrants, but there was not all that much criticism by liberal groups and Democratic politicians of Obama's mass deportations.
Miriam
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*From:* blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] *On Behalf Of *Richard Driscoll
*Sent:* Saturday, December 03, 2016 3:15 PM
*To:* blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
*Subject:* [blind-democracy] The Electoral College
All:
The following article was copied from the ACB Chat List and was submitted by Diego Demaya.
I await your condemnations.
Quote We (still) need the Electoral College
It seems bizarre that the person with the most votes doesn't win the presidency
- that is until you open up a book, read what the Founding Fathers were doing,
and grasp the significance and importance of federalism in the lasting success
of our American Republic.
Sadly, since many choose not to do that and instead appear driven solely by their
political passions, we're enduring another spate of "abandon the undemocratic
Electoral College" fits.
Contrary to the conventional wisdom of those who paid no attention in
government class, ours is not a democracy, and we would never want it to be.
The Founders feared a mass democracy, where a large faction could vote
themselves favor from the pockets of smaller factions. The interests of big
states, they reasoned, should not override the needs of the small states;
coastal towns should not exercise supreme authority over the vastly different
concerns of a landlocked western frontier; industrial northern states should
not wield unlimited power over the heads of the agrarian southern states just
because they're more populated.
That's why the House of Representatives was intentionally designed as the only part of
our national government that would be directly elected by the people. Since the House
was to represent people's local interests, it made sense to have representatives chosen
directly by a majority of voters in those small residential districts. But other parts
of the national government were to be representative not of "the people," but
of the interests of the states.
It's why the Senate was originally designed as a body whose members were chosen
by the states' legislatures, not citizens. And it's why when it came to
choosing a national executive, the Founders rejected James Wilson's suggestion
that the president be elected by popular vote and turned to James Madison to
craft an Electoral College - a non-permanent body of electors chosen every four
years among the states to convene for the sole purpose of selecting the
national candidate most suited for the office of president.
Why is the Electoral College so critical to keep around? For the very same
reason it was critical in 1787. Our factions today may not be north-south,
coastal-frontier, or even industrial-agrarian. But there are still varying
interests and factions of the country that must be tempered. There are the
interests and expectations of the heavily populated urban centers, and there
are the interests and needs of the less populated (but far more expansive)
rural regions. Those who would discard the Electoral College would upend the
Founders' intent to guard against the tyranny of the majority. A simple look
at a county-by-county breakdown of the 2016 election shows why.
Geographically speaking, though she won more votes, Hillary Clinton won only
17% of the country. Without the Electoral College, then, the regional
interests of 83% of the nation would have been unrepresented by their chief
executive. That would be a destabilizing reality with dangerous implications
for the future of American politics. Donald Trump said himself that he could
have won the popular vote if he had focused his campaign only on major cities
and the issues that appealed to them.
Imagine the kind of candidates and campaign we would engender if both nominees
needed only to appeal to urban voters. Consider the disconnect between a
leader chosen every four years by two metropolitan strips (Boston-New
York-Washington, and San Francisco-Los Angeles-San Diego) and the remainder of
the country.
The national executive was designed to represent the national interest, and the
Electoral College sees to that brilliantly. It prevents the office from being
occupied by someone who encapsulates the interests of a powerful majority
faction (in this case, urban interests) that is not representative of the
national body politic.
I can sincerely understand the frustration of those whose candidate won
overwhelming majorities of urban voter districts but lost because she could not
persuade a significant number of voters in virtually every other region of the
country.
But rather than attack the Electoral College as being unjust - a system
enshrined in our federal Constitution that acts to preserve the essence of
federalism more than maybe any other vestige remaining from 1787 - perhaps
their energies would be better spent finding candidates whose message appeals
to more than one faction (numerous as they may be) of the electorate. That is,
after all, precisely what the Founders intended.
Peter Heck is a speaker, author, and teacher. Follow him at @peterheck,
emailpeter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:peter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> , or
visitwww.peterheck.com.
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Unquote
