08-17-2020, 11:55 PM
(08-17-2020, 11:30 PM)hollodero Wrote: Oh, right... it really doesn't matter.
One thing that interests me about that. How comes you can live in California and time and again have to face the reality that your vote really does not matter, that all your electors will turn blue, unrelentingly, and yet you do not come to hate the electoral college. I find that surprising.
That's a good question. Largely because I respect the Framers vision, that we are a collection of states with largely independent, but wholly dependent governments. The Senate exists as it does for this exact reason, to guard against the tyranny of the majority. You see many leftists tout the rule of the majority now, but would have reviled it during the age of segregation or opposition to same sex marriage. As Franklin stated, democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what to have for dinner. Popular rule is a good and desireable thing, most of the time. When it isn't it as vile and reprehensible as any government.
Quote:Yeah well, this might be a matter of perspective or even one of definition.
I just imagine if Erdogan and Turkey first impose an absurd and preposterous burden (what was it in the US, funding pensions 75 years in advance? something like that) on an otherwise profitable post office. By that just accidentally gaining a governmental stranglehold over it, because hey they need some funding now with these totally unprecedented laws. And then, an election comes, and Erdogan fears mail in ballots might just undo him. So he runs a presidential propaganda campaign against mail in ballots, full of lies, false claims, accusations of fraud, wild conspiracies, that in his words are true everywhere but Fl...istanbul for there he has a buddy governor and he might just win there.
And then he remembers the post office stranglehold and that he has a buddy running things there, a guy who has shares with post office competitors, who gave him lots of money, who just loves him some Recep Tayyip. Now isn't that nice, that sure helps things along. Let's just not fund the post office properly, just let them struggle, sabotage maybe a bit and put some machines away, make sure there is doubt ballots will even arrive in time. See who's sending in mail ballots now. Whos get lost, whos never arrive. Might seem proper that mail in ballots can't be done at all, right? So sorry folks, also sorry to all the people that didn't get their medicine and stuff because of that. Sweet, right? Now Erdogan sure wouldn't be as dumb as to lay out that plan openly, in fact Erdogan might never try that in the first place. There's a great chance there'd be mass protests on the street.
Which leads me to a) How are Americans so chill about that and b) of course, now I don't know if that is a tyrannical system, but it sure is an authoriatarian one, one that undermines all american ideals of democracy. That's not me interpreting stuff. But hey, maybe that still is not quite tyrannical yet. An armed populace sure doesn't do anything about it though.
Because it's not sustainable, our system doesn't allow it. This is hardly the first time such measures have been used in the US. The ship has always righted itself. Whether it does again I suppose remains to be seen, but I have faith that it will. Although, we may be near the base of the wick at this point. Hopefully someone can come along and recast the mold. It sure as hell isn't Biden or Harris.
