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#327 Nov 29 2016 at 9:46 PM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:
TirithRR wrote:
As for the disenfranchisement issue... I don't have any problem with Electors being split up. Rather than by congressional district (subject to gerrymandering),...


Electors are not voted by district, and are thus not subject to gerrymandering. The candidate who receives the most total votes in a state wins the entire states electoral delegation. That's our "winner takes all" system, which is in effect in all but two states (Maine and Nebraska). Unless you're speaking of state lines themselves being subject to gerrymandering? Given that we don't change state lines every 10 years that's really not an issue IMO.


That is what I mean. Currently almost every State is all or nothing, splitting the House EC by congressional district would have been the "obvious" chioce, but the comment was that instead of dividing up the EC votes by who won the congressional districts (which would make the EC subject to gerrymandering) instead, doing the division by popular vote explained after.

Edit:
Should be noted I don't care _who_ actually wins. My suggestions were not based on making sure one party or the other wins or loses. My suggestions were merely made to keep an EC system where smaller, less populated States would still have weighted heavier per person (but still smaller overall) value, while not ignoring the popular vote in those states that end up being 49.9 - 50.1 (I'm ignoring third parties at the moment).

Edited, Nov 29th 2016 11:04pm by TirithRR
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#328 Nov 29 2016 at 10:05 PM Rating: Decent
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Samira wrote:
The thing that always worries me about scrapping social programs, not to mention schools, is that we've been there before and it didn't work out for most people. There was hunger, there was ignorance, there were seemingly intractable social problems that public education and welfare programs demonstrably helped.


Let me clarify that I'm speaking only of federally funded programs, which serve less to provide tons of needed funding, but more to be used as as carrot to control and influence existing state funded programs. These things are decidedly outside the control of most voters, but affects them quite a bit. Via pure executive action, the department of education can decide the requirements for grants for state and locally funded schools. Now, they don't have to take the money, but that last 10% of funding does come in handy, and if it means inserting X into the curriculum, or following Y standards for testing, that's not so great a price, right? You nor I, nor pretty much anyone ever gets to vote on that stuff. It's done behind the scenes, but has a pretty large effect.

Similar deal with things like transportation. It would be one thing if our legislature simply passed laws establishing some standards for things and moved on. But no. What often happens is that interstate funding is dangled in front of the states and used to influence all sorts of things from light rail construction, to HOV lane requirements, to bike paths. The voters in the states get more or less zero say in these sorts of decisions. Which is arguably the greatest disenfranchisement of all.

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Do publicly funded programs need to be curated? Of course. Should they be scrapped? That depends on how far you want the poorest citizens among us to regress, and how fast.


Again. I'm talking about federal funding. I'm not even against regulation. But be honest and above board about it and actually pass legislation that regulates things. The process of funding a government agency, and basically just handing it the power to create rules for how states and cities can qualify for the funding dollars is pure extortion. The "rule be exception" we've seen over and over in the ACA is a classic example of this. Doubly so since in that case, it became increasingly obvious that the executive decisions had little to do with making health care "better", and everything to do with trying to gloss over the glaring flaws in the original legislation so as to limit the amount of voter outrage.

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Secondarily, putting money into the hands of poor and working class people is good for the economy. Giving it to CEOs is not.


Except that if the government is putting money into the hands of the poor and working class in return for zero productive labor output, while the CEO is handing that money out via employment (which means greater productive labor output than the cost), the result over time is decreased productive labor output. Which in turn means lower GDP growth rates. Which means fewer job opportunities, and fewer advancement opportunities in your job, and general economic sluggishness. You know, kinda like what we've seen under Obama. It is demonstrably bad for the economy for the government to do this. It may be good for the poor and working class people in the short term, but it's not good for the economy at all.

You mention trying things before and having them not work out well. Wealth transfer as an alternative to productive employment falls into that category as well. And it pretty much always fails miserably. If the government hands you $30k in benefits, it cost our economy $30k to do that (those dollars had to come from somewhere, right?). If you receive $30k in salary for your work, it not only doesn't cost the economy anything, but it actually grows the economy. You provided more in labor value than you "cost". Which means more profits, more growth, and more future opportunity for the next crop of people looking for a job.

The idea that money in the hands of the rich is somehow at odds with economic prosperity for the regular folks is just plain wrong. Assuming that most people don't want to live their entire lives as working poor, relying on the government to make up the difference, then how do they accomplish that? No amount of government benefits will ever make you not be poor. Only employment can do that (either self employment or working for someone else). And for that to happen, you kinda have to have "rich" people to hire you (or have enough yourself to self invest). And successful (and even "big") businesses, with sufficient profits to expand their employee base is one of the greatest sources of that. Just as convincing people that he didn't exist was the greatest trick of the Devil, convincing working class and poor people that big business, corporations, and "the rich" are their economic enemies has been the greatest trick of the political Left.

Nothing could be more wrong.
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#329 Nov 29 2016 at 10:39 PM Rating: Decent
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TirithRR wrote:
gbaji wrote:
Electors are not voted by district, and are thus not subject to gerrymandering. The candidate who receives the most total votes in a state wins the entire states electoral delegation. That's our "winner takes all" system, which is in effect in all but two states (Maine and Nebraska). Unless you're speaking of state lines themselves being subject to gerrymandering? Given that we don't change state lines every 10 years that's really not an issue IMO.


That is what I mean. Currently almost every State is all or nothing, splitting the House EC by congressional district would have been the "obvious" chioce, but the comment was that instead of dividing up the EC votes by who won the congressional districts (which would make the EC subject to gerrymandering) instead, doing the division by popular vote explained after.


We don't divide up the EC votes by who won the congressional districts. No state does this. They are all apportioned by popular vote count. Either in a "winner takes all" method (whichever candidate gets the most votes in the state wins all of the EC votes for the state), or a proportional system, where based on the total statewide popular vote count, the EC votes are divided among the candidates (usually with the bonus two going to whomever won the most total votes).

Assuming I'm reading you correctly, you were thinking about recommending assigning them based on district counts, but then rejected that for gerrymandering reasons, and decided that proportional popular statewide vote is better? Just making sure I understand you. If so, then yes, this is how two states do it, but everyone else does winner takes all.

Quote:
Should be noted I don't care _who_ actually wins. My suggestions were not based on making sure one party or the other wins or loses. My suggestions were merely made to keep an EC system where smaller, less populated States would still have weighted heavier per person (but still smaller overall) value, while not ignoring the popular vote in those states that end up being 49.9 - 50.1 (I'm ignoring third parties at the moment).


Yeah. The problem though is that issue of states themselves being sovereign and having a direct vested interest in the rules and regulations that the federal government imposes on them. Most states use a winner takes all method because it (in theory at least) requires that candidates have to spend time trying to win the state, which in turn means making campaign promises that maybe resonate with the citizens of that state. Under a proportional EC system, a state where the voter affiliations are close (51-49), there's little reason for candidates to spend much time in those states, much less make much in the way of promises. Think about it. In a state like Ohio, with 18 EC votes, you might gain just 3 votes for a ton of effort. Under a winner takes all system, both parties have 18 electoral votes on the line, and both will go to the state, canvas it, and make tons of promises to the people living there (which presumably in some way appeals specifically to voters in Ohio in this example).

It's in a state's best interest to adopt a winner takes all system, since that will garner the most attention from candidates. This would actually hurt most states. Even in states where there's already a baked in party advantage, it's not necessarily a benefit. A GOP candidate isn't going to win California no matter how much time he spends there. In a proportional system, he's going to win a percentage (like 30-35% I suppose). But how much will he move that number by spending a ton of time there, versus just a little? That's hard to say. A million votes there might gain him a few EC votes. But a million votes in other states, might gain him many more. You're still in a scenario where states that are battleground states will get the most attention because of the bonus votes.

It would make things "different", but I'm not sure it would make anything "better". It would only be likely to change the outcome in cases where there's a large discrepancy in the popular vote versus EC vote (such as in this election). But honestly, the conditions where that happens are ones we really want to discourage as a country. They represent a case where one party focuses its message on a small number of densely populated geographical regions of the country. I know that this is an unpopular notion right at this moment, but I really do believe that our system should most reward the candidate who won in a broad swath of the country (even if narrowly) over one that won a small portion of it by very large margins. We want our president to be looking at and representing the interests of the entire country, not just the densely populated coastal regions. Because what's good for those areas may not be good at all for the rest of the country. And that's a pretty freaking large amount of territory.

Edited, Nov 29th 2016 8:46pm by gbaji
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#330 Nov 29 2016 at 11:10 PM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:
We don't divide up the EC votes by who won the congressional districts. No state does this. They are all apportioned by popular vote count. Either in a "winner takes all" method (whichever candidate gets the most votes in the state wins all of the EC votes for the state), or a proportional system, where based on the total statewide popular vote count, the EC votes are divided among the candidates (usually with the bonus two going to whomever won the most total votes).

Assuming I'm reading you correctly, you were thinking about recommending assigning them based on district counts, but then rejected that for gerrymandering reasons, and decided that proportional popular statewide vote is better? Just making sure I understand you. If so, then yes, this is how two states do it, but everyone else does winner takes all.


No... you don't get it at all. I wasn't explaining how anything currently works. I was merely saying that instead of doing a winner takes all, they could split it up. But splitting it up by the "obvious" choice (districts) would make gerrymandering affect the results. So instead divide by popular result of the state (as explained after).

Whether or not it makes a difference to the overall results, isn't really the point. It was to merely make those "disenfranchised" voters have something to show for their vote.

Edited, Nov 30th 2016 12:15am by TirithRR
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#331 Nov 29 2016 at 11:26 PM Rating: Excellent
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gbaji wrote:
You have to have something before it can be taken away.

As I said, pretty standard conservative mindset Smiley: laugh
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#332 Nov 29 2016 at 11:30 PM Rating: Excellent
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gbaji wrote:
We don't divide up the EC votes by who won the congressional districts. No state does this.

Maine and Nebraska both do this. Winning a Congressional district within the state gets you that district's elector. If, by some quirk of fate, only six people voted in NE-3 and four of them vote for the Democrat and every single person in the rest of the state voted Republican, the Democrat would still get one EV despite the state's popular vote being 99.995% in favor of the Republican.

Also, HI SAMIRA!

Edited, Nov 29th 2016 11:31pm by Jophiel
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#333 Nov 29 2016 at 11:37 PM Rating: Good
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Jophiel wrote:
gbaji wrote:
We don't divide up the EC votes by who won the congressional districts. No state does this.

Maine and Nebraska both do this. Winning a Congressional district within the state gets you that district's elector. If, by some quirk of fate, only six people voted in NE-3 and four of them vote for the Democrat and every single person in the rest of the state voted Republican, the Democrat would still get one EV despite the state's popular vote being 99.995% in favor of the Republican.


Damned gerrymandering.
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#334 Nov 30 2016 at 12:11 AM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:
Friar Bijou wrote:
gbaji wrote:
I would love for us to simply eliminate social security, and medicare, and welfare, 1*and the department of education, and pretty much 2*all social spending programs.


1* So if a given state decides that it's citizens will have to figure out how to educate their kids because the state defunded all public schools, you're OK with that?
Sure. You know, since that would require the citizens of that one individual state voting to decide not to spend tax dollars on education, right?
Uh, wrong. Are you retarded? Or, as I've cunjectured before brain damaged?

The citizens don't vote on the state's budget. The legislature does.
gbaji wrote:
bijou wrote:
2*. So you advocate crippling the US military by removing (among other things) school lunch programs, you're OK with that?


How does eliminating school lunch programs cripple the US military?
School lunches were started because a huge amount of draftees during WWII were 4F (unfit for duty) because they were malnourished,,,like *rickets* malnourished. As I've mentioned before.


Idiot.
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#335 Nov 30 2016 at 12:39 AM Rating: Decent
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TirithRR wrote:
gbaji wrote:
Assuming I'm reading you correctly, you were thinking about recommending assigning them based on district counts, but then rejected that for gerrymandering reasons, and decided that proportional popular statewide vote is better? Just making sure I understand you. If so, then yes, this is how two states do it, but everyone else does winner takes all.


No... you don't get it at all. I wasn't explaining how anything currently works. I was merely saying that instead of doing a winner takes all, they could split it up. But splitting it up by the "obvious" choice (districts) would make gerrymandering affect the results. So instead divide by popular result of the state (as explained after).


Ok. I think I got it in the second pass here.

Quote:
Whether or not it makes a difference to the overall results, isn't really the point. It was to merely make those "disenfranchised" voters have something to show for their vote.


Yeah. I get that. Not saying I disagree, just that the states tends to prefer to have winner take all systems, because it makes the candidates have to fight harder for the wins. Obviously, that leaves the skewed states out in the cold a bit, but they are still out in the cold pretty much either way. How much effort is a candidate going to put in to affect the vote to maybe flip one EC vote his way? I mean, who knows? Maybe under this system, candidates would put tons of effort in all over the place, and we'd get a lot of potential swing in popular vote totals in each state as a result. Or maybe they're realize after a few cycles that they couldn't really flip much in either direction and go elsewhere.

Hard to say.
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#336 Nov 30 2016 at 12:42 AM Rating: Decent
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Jophiel wrote:
gbaji wrote:
You have to have something before it can be taken away.

As I said, pretty standard conservative mindset Smiley: laugh


And pretty standard liberal mindset to argue that the absence of something you never had is the equivalent of having it taken away from you. Which I happen to think is just plain bizarre since it more or less has zero bounds. OMG! You didn't let us vote based on the number of pets we own! You're disenfranchising pet lovers! You didn't give me a free pony! You've taken my pony away, you darn pony thief!
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#337 Nov 30 2016 at 12:45 AM Rating: Good
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I really don't want to argue semantics, but I do want to point out that to disenfranchise someone means to deprive them of something, deprive meaning to deny access or use of. So yes, you can disenfranchise someone of something they have never had.
#338 Nov 30 2016 at 12:45 AM Rating: Decent
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Jophiel wrote:
gbaji wrote:
We don't divide up the EC votes by who won the congressional districts. No state does this.

Maine and Nebraska both do this. Winning a Congressional district within the state gets you that district's elector. If, by some quirk of fate, only six people voted in NE-3 and four of them vote for the Democrat and every single person in the rest of the state voted Republican, the Democrat would still get one EV despite the state's popular vote being 99.995% in favor of the Republican.


Oh. Um... Brain fart there. I was thinking of the rest, then added in the exceptions of Maine and Nebraska after writing that. Yeah. Their systems are really dorked up IMO. It's like the worst of both worlds.
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#339 Nov 30 2016 at 12:59 AM Rating: Decent
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Friar Bijou wrote:
gbaji wrote:
Sure. You know, since that would require the citizens of that one individual state voting to decide not to spend tax dollars on education, right?
Uh, wrong. Are you retarded? Or, as I've cunjectured before brain damaged?

The citizens don't vote on the state's budget. The legislature does.


Um... Ok. The citizens have to elect a state legislatures which in turn decides to not fund any public education. I'm reasonably certain that, unlike a host of federal issues that get lost in the shuffle of election year campaigning, the voters aren't going to miss the whole "not funding education anymore" movement among their legislative body.

You do understand that 90% of all public education funding already comes from state and local sources, right? Eliminating the federal department of education (or at least trimming it to a mere standards setting body), would not really affect education much at all, except to allow tax dollars to remain in the hands of the states and/or the people, who could then chose to spend it how they wished instead of having it laundered through a federal system with 49 other "bosses".


Quote:
gbaji wrote:
bijou wrote:
2*. So you advocate crippling the US military by removing (among other things) school lunch programs, you're OK with that?


How does eliminating school lunch programs cripple the US military?
School lunches were started because a huge amount of draftees during WWII were 4F (unfit for duty) because they were malnourished,,,like *rickets* malnourished. As I've mentioned before.


Um... You seem to have a problem with tenses. I'm talking about eliminating (future tense) school lunch programs, not hopping in a time machine and preventing it from ever having been created in the first place. I'm reasonably certain that in today's US, no one's going to suffer the kinds of malnutrition that existed during the freaking Great Depression if we fail to provide them with a free lunch at school.

And let me mention (again) that 'm only talking about federal programs. If a state want to provide free meals to students, they're free to do so. And they might just do a much better job of it, for less money too.
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#340 Nov 30 2016 at 1:00 AM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:
If the government hands you $30k in benefits, it cost our economy $30k to do that (those dollars had to come from somewhere, right?).
If the government hands you back $5000 for having a mortgage every year it costs our economy $5000 to do that (those dollars had to come from somewhere, right?)
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#341 Nov 30 2016 at 1:07 AM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:
I'm talking about eliminating (future tense) school lunch programs, not hopping in a time machine and preventing it from ever having been created in the first place. I'm reasonably certain that in today's US, no one's going to suffer the kinds of malnutrition that existed during the freaking Great Depression if we fail to provide them with a free lunch at school.
You are "reasonably certain" about a lot of things you are demonstrably wrong about. Even in this very thread.

"Brain fart"? Really? YOU WERE WRONG.

ALSO: The "States" don't command a federal military, you idiot.
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#342 Nov 30 2016 at 1:22 AM Rating: Decent
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Allegory wrote:
I really don't want to argue semantics, but I do want to point out that to disenfranchise someone means to deprive them of something, deprive meaning to deny access or use of. So yes, you can disenfranchise someone of something they have never had.


You're really stretching the meaning and usage of the term there though. The prefix "dis" generally means "apart", or "sundered" (as in, to remove something). Yeah, it can also be used to refer to general opposition (or lack), but I don't think that applies in this case. You're talking about people who do have a right to vote, but they vote for X, which in turn votes for Y. To say that the voters are disenfranchised because they don't vote directly on Y is, as I said, quite a stretch.

This isn't about absence of a vote at all, but how their vote affects an outcome. And again, this revolves around the difference in how a democracy works versus a republic. One could also argue that because the voters are not allowed to vote on bills in congress, that they are "disenfranchised", but you'd have to be really pedantic to try to make that argument. They don't not vote on bills in congress because their right to vote has been stripped from them (or even because they never had a right to vote), but because our system uses representation at the federal level. You vote for a member of congress, who in turn votes on the bills. In the same way, you vote for an electoral delegation, who in turn vote for the president. That's a difference in process, not disenfranchisement.


Now, you could argue (and I think a couple people have) that in states where the party vote tallies are largely skewed, the EC disenfranchises them relative to a popular vote since votes past the point of majority in a state don't count, and ones that have no chance of changing that majority are largely wasted. Again though, I wouldn't argue that's disenfranchisement, but merely the effect of having a skewed vote. One could equally argue that once a majority is reached in any vote for anything, that additional votes are not needed, and thus wasted, as were the votes cast on a failed cause (could have had zero votes, and the same outcome would result, right?). Since you are voting to determine the EC delegation, your vote "counts" just as much as it does in any other thing you've ever voted for in your life. One side just won that vote by a large margin is all.

It would only be disenfranchisement if we actually used a popular vote in this case, and for some reason chose to deny voting to a group of people. That's not the case.
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#343 Nov 30 2016 at 1:34 AM Rating: Default
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Friar Bijou wrote:
gbaji wrote:
I'm talking about eliminating (future tense) school lunch programs, not hopping in a time machine and preventing it from ever having been created in the first place. I'm reasonably certain that in today's US, no one's going to suffer the kinds of malnutrition that existed during the freaking Great Depression if we fail to provide them with a free lunch at school.
You are "reasonably certain" about a lot of things you are demonstrably wrong about. Even in this very thread.


I'm not demonstrably wrong here. Are you seriously arguing that if we eliminated the free lunch programs in our K-12 schools that this would have such an impact on nutrition that we'd have a hard time finding enough healthy people to serve in the military? Really? Cause that's pretty darn insane.

Quote:
ALSO: The "States" don't command a federal military, you idiot.


I never said they did. I said, quite clearly, that maintaining a military is one of the few proper duties of the federal government. Note that nowhere in that list is "provide K-12 education for all citizens", or "ensure everyone has good health", or "provide for the elderly in retirement", or "make sure kids get a balanced diet", or a whole list of things that our federal government is currently engaged in.

There are, however 6 different elements in that list dealing specifically with various forms of military:

US Constitution wrote:
To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;

To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;

To provide and maintain a navy;

To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;

To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;



But what do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
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#344 Nov 30 2016 at 1:51 AM Rating: Decent
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gbaji wrote:
And pretty standard liberal mindset to argue that the absence of something you never had is the equivalent of having it taken away from you.


Friar Bijou wrote:
gbaji wrote:
If the government hands you $30k in benefits, it cost our economy $30k to do that (those dollars had to come from somewhere, right?).
If the government hands you back $5000 for having a mortgage every year it costs our economy $5000 to do that (those dollars had to come from somewhere, right?)


Hehe. There you go. The government doesn't hand that money to the taxpayer, it takes less money from them. Once again, you prove that liberals don't grasp the difference between not having something taken away, and being given something you never had (the corollary to the difference between having something taken away and the absence of something you never had in the first place, just in case you're going there. Both rely on the same inability to grasp the concept of property). The homeowner earned that $5000. It's his. The tax laws determine how much of the money he has earned he is required to pay to the government, and have determined that he can deduct an amount equal to the interest on a mortgage for a primary dwelling. We can debate the issue of the mortgage interest deduction, but it is not remotely the same as the government giving someone money that they never earned in the first place.

Again, taking less money from me is not the same as giving me money. It's amazing to me how hard it is for liberals to grasp this incredibly simple concept.

Nice try though.

Edited, Nov 30th 2016 12:03am by gbaji
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#345 Nov 30 2016 at 6:23 AM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:
Jophiel wrote:
gbaji wrote:
We don't divide up the EC votes by who won the congressional districts. No state does this.

Maine and Nebraska both do this. Winning a Congressional district within the state gets you that district's elector. If, by some quirk of fate, only six people voted in NE-3 and four of them vote for the Democrat and every single person in the rest of the state voted Republican, the Democrat would still get one EV despite the state's popular vote being 99.995% in favor of the Republican.


Oh. Um... Brain **** there. I was thinking of the rest, then added in the exceptions of Maine and Nebraska after writing that. Yeah. Their systems are really dorked up IMO. It's like the worst of both worlds.


...

...

Their system is literally just the electoral college using districts in the same way the country uses states...
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#346 Nov 30 2016 at 7:59 AM Rating: Excellent
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gbaji wrote:
And pretty standard liberal mindset to argue that the absence of something you never had is the equivalent of having it taken away from you. Which I happen to think is just plain bizarre since it more or less has zero bounds. OMG! You didn't let us vote based on the number of pets we own! You're disenfranchising pet lovers! You didn't give me a free pony! You've taken my pony away, you darn pony thief!

Yes, I know. When you're a conservative, civil rights is always something silly like wanting a pony or ice cream or whatever. Once again, typical conservative mindset.
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#347 Nov 30 2016 at 9:08 AM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:
I was playing on the comparison to high population versus low population density areas in the country.
You were arbitrarily assigning higher value to the lower population's contribution and devaluing the contributions of the higher population using an emotional and ultimately irrelevant factor to the already shaky analogy.
gbaji wrote:
Elections are won by those who show up.
Elections are won by strategically placed invisible lines that let people pretend they're unique snowflakes.
Jophiel wrote:
When you're a conservative, civil rights is always something silly like wanting a pony or ice cream or whatever.
We will have equal rights for all. Except Blacks, Asians, Hispanics, Jews, Gays, women, Muslims. Uhmm... Everybody who's not a white man. And I mean white-white, so no Italians, no Polish, just people from Ireland, England, and Scotland. But only certain parts of Scotland and Ireland. Just full blooded whites. No, you know what? Not even whites. Nobody gets any rights. Ahhh... America!
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#348 Nov 30 2016 at 10:10 AM Rating: Excellent
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gbaji wrote:
Your vote counts exactly as much if it's on the same day or a month later. Yes. I get the whole momentum thing, and you may have some small point there.
The perception is important for increasing turnout. It's one of the reasons Hawaii now has their polls close earlier in the day. They were having a problem with people not bothering to vote, because the election results were being announced at like 2pm local time, and people were seeing them and not bothering to visit the polling place because the "election was already over." This trickled down into local issues, as certain measures needed a specific voter turnout along with a certain % of the vote to pass. So while every vote counting the same still may be true in a technical sense, the reality is that it isn't perceived that way.

Same thing happens with voting in a primary. If people know a certain candidate already has the votes needed to secure the nomination they're less likely to turn out to vote, not only for the primary race itself, but also for other issues that may be on the ballot. Beyond feeling disenfranchised (I mean, no one likes having an important decision made before they get to have their input) it hurts local ballot measures and the like.

gbaji wrote:
Having a single vote on a single day may just result in a lot more buyer's remorse.
I'd imagine there may be a bit, but overall I'm not worried about this. Why? Because our country generally doesn't have limits on political campaigns. By the time primary voting itself gets started people have already been campaigning for months. If 6 months of propaganda, debates, whatever isn't enough time to make a decision I'm not sure to say there. That's a lot of exposure, and in the end you can pick up 90% of the information you'd need from the voters guide in the booth anyway.

gbaji wrote:
Remember that the party more or less has two objectives in a primary:

1. Produce a candidate with the best chance to win the presidency.

2. Produce a candidate who will use that office to effectively push the party's platform.
Which is to be expected of course. I'm not arguing that parties shouldn't act in their own self-interest, only how can we get those self-interests to align better with the those of the American people as a whole. Hence the goal of increasing participation in the primary elections.
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#349 Nov 30 2016 at 11:41 AM Rating: Excellent
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Jophiel wrote:
gbaji wrote:
We don't divide up the EC votes by who won the congressional districts. No state does this.

Maine and Nebraska both do this. Winning a Congressional district within the state gets you that district's elector. If, by some quirk of fate, only six people voted in NE-3 and four of them vote for the Democrat and every single person in the rest of the state voted Republican, the Democrat would still get one EV despite the state's popular vote being 99.995% in favor of the Republican.

Also, HI SAMIRA!

Edited, Nov 29th 2016 11:31pm by Jophiel



HI! I said "peep, I'm back" at some point but it got subsumed by a tsubaji wave of posts.

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#350 Nov 30 2016 at 11:48 AM Rating: Excellent
Liberal Conspiracy
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Good to see you still kickin'. You just now find your bookmark after they removed the forum links from the main site and stuffed us into the cellar?
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Belkira wrote:
Wow. Regular ol' Joph fan club in here.
#351 Nov 30 2016 at 12:05 PM Rating: Excellent
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I tried to give you free premium as a present, but that button doesn't work anymore apparently, which let me tell you is a shock.

Welcome back!
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