Globally, Broad Support for Representative and Direct Democracy

[Dill]

(10-18-2017, 06:16 PM)hollodero Wrote: I did not argue any of that as far asI 'm aware. Of course the senate is disproportionate representation when broken down to cizizen numbers, but you're a federalistic country (as is mine, as little as we are), so I get the principle. There's a senate, a chamber that takes that aspect into account. I did not so much question that as questioning an addtional -additional - need to also imply disproportionate represantation in the other chamber and when it comes to electing a president. To quote Pat's numbers, "California gets 1 electoral vote for every 713,636 citizens. Wyoming gets 1 for every 195,167 citizens". And even though a senate does also exist, it's argued that this is just the way to go to protect a minority against a majority. Which in the end can just as well lead to the minority ruling over the majority, like in a sense it happened when Trump won even though losing the popular vote.

Mind you, I do not say he shouldn't have won and it was unfair and it's not about Trump or anyone else. It's just hard to defend in principle for me, as I think the most democratic way to go would indeed be: Every citizen votes, all votes are collected in one big bowl, and whoever gets most votes win. - There might be good reason to abandon that principle; protecting the political opinions of a minority against a larger population number, however, doesn't seem like one of them.

And this is what JustWin said: "But it's a smaller, less populous echo chamber that has less impact on voting. / And I've worked all over the US, big cities and small cities.  Conservative values and politics were not worn on the sleeve in podunk towns....But in the "liberal meccas" the BS can't be avoided." - this very much looks like saying "city votes are more influenced by BS echo chambers and hence it's perfectly fine to let these votes count less". I can be corrected any time though.

The goal of checks and balances is not to insure that no majority or minority is ever in power. It is assumed one or the other will be every election. The "balance" to that is that they are "checked" by further elections. As majorities--made of different interest groups -- become too powerful, they generate opposition and internal frictions. People go to the other side. Another, differently composed majority forms. So no permanent majority can permanently control a minority. In theory. The framers were classical liberals, building their conception of market self-regulation (e.g. of supply and demand) into government.

If all the votes are thrown in one big bowl, I don't see how the checks and balances would continue. It is a proposal which seems to erase the state.

I'm not sure what you mean about protecting the political "opinions" of the minority in a discussion about proportional representation.  The issue is minority representation--but here "minority" is more broadly conceived than the usual identities. People living in large beautiful states like Montana are a minority when it comes to federal representation, with only ONE congressman. Neighboring Wyoming, South Dakota, and North Dakota are in the same boat. Collectively they don't have the population of Houston. Pittsburgh has more people than Alaska.

Final point, I thin Justwin's talk of echo chambers was a response to my comment about why rural folks tend to be more conservatives.