Summations Only

Well, no. (There's no evidence that "competent" politicians are any better at getting through the Senate filibuster than incompetent ones.) What happened is that most of you grew up during an unusual age when ideological lines - liberal vs. conservative - cut across party lines due to the legacy of civil rights in the south and the lack of movement conservativism pre-Goldwater.With conservative Dems from the south and liberal Republicans in the north, you'd get votes that looked bipartisan but we're really just people voting along the lines of two meta-parties that had each mad members among both Democrats and Republicans. But with the rise of movement conservatives, conservatives all migrated to the Republican party and everybody else went to the Democrats. There's still a few "blue dog" conservative Democrats who hold legacy seats, basically, but for the most part the parties have aligned themselves along the ideological divide that has always been there but was disguised by the party system. That's why it seems "normal" for the Senate to be a bipartisan place, that's why it seems like there's been this enormous decline in bipartisanship, but it was always an illusion. It's the bipartisan Senate that really represents the departure from the historical trend.Politicians haven't gotten any worse than they used to be; what's actually happened is that the political parties better represent their natural constituencies. It's just that the rules of the Senate don't make it a place where legislation can successfully pass when your senators represent a country divided into two competing ideologies. In a better-designed body, the party that won elections and gained a majority would be allowed to implement the agenda that the American people nominated. If that agenda was a failure, then the majority party would lose elections and the minority party could enact their agenda. Bipartisanship by alternation.The current rules of the Senate require the consent of the minority to avoid gridlock, but give the minority every incentive not to cooperate (since voters will ascribe any and all legislative successes to the majority party, or even more absurdly, to the President.) Paralysis is the inevitable (and foreseeable) result. It has nothing to do with the personality of our politicians or their competence, and everything to do with the system we elect them into.

But you keep avoiding the issue. Why should states, and not citizens, be represented?What's the merit in representing a land area? All you said was "people from rural states know why." Well, I'm from four rural states, Jar, and it makes zero sense to me. And I suspect it makes zero sense to you, you just don't want to admit it to me.

Now you're just acting like an idiot.It was a compromise. It didn't exactly have resounding support, particularly at a Constitutional convention that had just experienced the paralysis and gridlock of the Articles of Confederation, and many oft he Founding Fathers were afraid that a disproportionate Senate would give too much power to the minority.And they were correct. But, ol' Jar thinks he knows better than the founding fathers!

No, they're not. We had a war about that, and the "sovereign states in a voluntary union" lost and lost hard. (I know you southern folks act like that never happened - "war of Northern aggression", lol! - but get the memo, it was 150 years ago.)Now we're a strong central government with almost all "sovereign powers" delegated to the Federal government. Like I said, what carried a slight majority 220 years ago might not be a good idea any more. Well, but that's exactly it - they don't have their own interests. The issues that face somebody are much more a function of the kind of municipality they live in - rural, suburban, urban - than they are of what state they live in. The notion that there's some natural shared interest that unites the concerns of a Colorado rancher and a schoolteacher in Denver, but isn't also shared by a schoolteacher in Minneapolis, is nonsensical. States in the US are just an arbitrary geographical demarcation that unites a bunch of people who, really, aren't terribly alike.Neighbors should share representation. But nobody over in Kearney is my neighbor. There's no issue that affects us that doesn't also affect people who live in Minnesota and Texas. Any geographical area larger than a municipality should be administered by the Federal government, so that poor schoolchildren in Louisiana can enjoy some portion of the enormous revenue of Texas. They shouldn't be impoverished just because there's an arbitrary boundary between them. Jesus Christ! I don't want to live in a "democracy laboratory." I want to live in a goddamn country that is adequately governed. "Laboratories of democracy", what a fucking idiotic idea. Our public infrastructure is falling down around our ears. It's not time for fucking Mr. Wizard up in here, it's time for the government to do the hard work of governing.

Well, I'm glad the Senate can bestir itself to declare November 23rd National Fish Tacos Day, or what the fuck ever, but in the meantime nobody has a job, corporate fatcats are stealing everything in the country that isn't nailed down, people who own their homes outright are being forclosed on by banks they've never done business with, and the polar ice caps are melting all around our assholes.So pardon me for not thinking that the Senate is working, since by "working" you appear to mean "less useful than tits on a steer."

But are they the right bills? Do they address the issues that face us? Are they the best solutions that the government can bring to bear on the problem, or are they the "solutions" that will appease special interests and mollify the people?There's no "misrepresentation", Jar. It's time for you to retire that played-out line of attack. "It really is that simple."

You can't look at the Cornhusker Kickback and not tell me that it's the Senate where senators are able to extract significant concessions, due to the fact that every senator is de facto granted the President's veto power.Once again, Jar, I'm forced to wonder if you're even paying attention. You keep saying it's "simple" but none of this is simple. And you keep lying to dodge the questions I'm putting to you. But that's the problem - nobody knows what their Congressmen do. Especially their senators. Less than 26% of voters know what the Senate "filibuster" is, and the rules of the Senate - anonymous holds, anonymous votes, the filibuster - diffuse responsibility for obstruction.Senators want it to be like that. They want to be able to use a de facto veto power to hold up legislation and extract concessions with little to no public remark. They want to be able to use anonymous holds. They want to be able to diffuse responsibility, precisely so that voters cannot hold them accountable for it.

Maybe you'd like to revisit whether you're actually contributing anything to this thread. I keep asking questions and you keep repeating that they're "nonsense", "misrepresentations" (of what?), and then evading them. Speaking of msirepresentations, that's a complete misrepresentation of what I said.If I lie to you and conceal the truth, it's not that you're uneducated, it's that I'm dissembling. The blame has to be put on the Senators and on the rules of the Senate that basically prevent any voter from ascribing legislative outcomes to anybody's agency. Except that it's the Senators, and not the electorate, who determine the rules by which the Senate operates.

The original vision of the Founding Fathers was that they would be selected, not elected. We amended how that works. Why not further amend the original vision of the Senate?It's always been the purpose of the Senate to pervert the notion of democracy. I'm still waiting for you to explain how that's a good thing, or how I would "just know" that it is by virtue of being a resident of a rural state.

So how is that worse than a tyranny of the minority? At some point, you have to govern by the consent - and the consensus - of the governed. You can't just say "OMG tyranny of the majority" and somehow handwave all the much larger problems that stem from a small group of elites thinking that they can responsibly wield absolute power over those they govern.We already have an outfit meant to give disproportionate weight to the claims of minorities against the law; it's called the courts. Why do we need a Senate? What is gained by allowing the <1% of Americans who live in Montana to overrule the 54% of Americans who live in cities? I think we're getting at the same thing. I would add that the Senate sure as hell didn't do very much for Indians and slaves; was there ever a time when the Senate actually prevented "tyranny of the majority"?

Yes, insomuch as its the rules of the Senate that so tremendously bias the Federal government towards the status quo.Fun fact you may appreciate, Mod - not only does our Federal government have a "representation of states" Senate, our states have senates, too. How the fuck does that make any sense?Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.

How would you know if they did?And what candidate would place themselves at such an enormous disadvantage by refusing? If they can credibly win, why wouldn't they get corporate backing?

Because the out of the thousand-plus people involved in a presidential campaign, only the low-skilled ones work for free. Because national airtime costs several hundred thousand dollars per second.Because the only way to win is to show up, and that means that you have to put your face and your message before as many Americans as possible, and that costs an enormous outlay of cash. So the only plausible presidential contenders are those who either can attract enormous sums in donations or those who already have a substantial amount of money.

It's too bad your evasions aren't more entertaining. Would you like another shot at actually responding to the questions that were put to you?

I know what it refers to, but thank you for stating it so clearly.Regardless I still don't see how the Senate is somehow a bulwark against this kind of tyranny. For one thing, Congress has never found it particularly difficult to discriminate against minorities; DOMA passed both the House and the Senate. The Senate filibustered the Civil Rights Act. Rather than serving as a protection against the "tyranny of the majority", hasn't the Senate been an instrument of it? Well, ok, so it seems like that's a different kind of tyranny than what I'm thinking of. But did the Senate really ever accomplish that? I can't imagine either of us want to troll 220 years of Senate history (booooring) but I wonder if there's some obvious example I'm just not thinking of. Frankly I'm just not sold on this notion that the "large" states have some kind of natural interest against the "small" ones, even in 1790.Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.