Home » General Discussions » Heated Discussions and Debates » As if we could pretend this wouldn't come around...
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| As if we could pretend this wouldn't come around... [message #130825] |
Tue, 04 January 2005 17:49   |
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cowmisfit
Messages: 2035
Registered: May 2003
Karma: 0
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General (2 Stars) |
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| cowmisfit |
| warranto |
| cowmisfit |
| warranto |
Really now?
Shoot Americans! They support Terrorism!
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The ones that are saying they support them, and down with bush cause we all know he's hitler, should be sent to iraq or france or something to live just because there simply idiots, the ones that actually act and go to iraq and help train / fund / give intelligence to the enemy, sure shoot them.
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I didn't say Iraq.. I said terrorists. Iraq is NOT the only "terrorist" in the world.
Regardles, be sure to pass your desires to kill the Americans involved in training/finding/providing intelligent to Al Queda. I believe a few presedential figures were involved, perhaps some military generals and CIA members were involved in that... I can't believe you'd be willing to kill Americans involved in something they thought was right.
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You always try to take anything specific i say , and generalize it to crap that doesn't even have to do with the subject in order to make me seem like an idiot. Its sad.
Im speaking of americans that
PROTECT terrorist (and since you'll probebly come up with some comment that comes out your ass like OMG LIK SOILDERS HELP PROTECT OSSAMA'S BROTHERS AND SISTERS AND SOME TERRORIST OMFG LIK U R DUMB crap, i mean those who aid them in hiding from our men and woman in arms who are trying to find them and bring them to justice or stop an attack),
that GIVE THEM HELP IN HARMING OUR CITIIZENS (once again you'll come back with some dumbass comment like "OMFG LIKE GUESS WHAT THE TERRORIST IN IRAQ ARE FIGHTING WITH NOW OMFG LIK WEAPONS FROM U 1!@!1!@!!!@11" , I mean americans who go and train to get terrorist in to america, and help the get clearence and such to succeed in an attack *and they KNOW they are going to preforme the attack, not someone who was fooled and didn't have any thought of it *
GIVE THEM MONEY TO HELP ATTACK OUR (and since you all think im soooo anti everyone else *your retards for even trying to say that*) PEOPLE AND YOUR PEOPLE. (And since you'll insert one of your thoughtless comebacks such as "WELL GUESS WHAT AMERICANS GAVE HIM MONEY BEFORE THE 9/11 AND HE"S USING IT AGAINST U !@!!!@!!!!" i mean people who are funnling funds they knowingly will buy terrorist weapons, passports and fake documents and such to help pull out an attack.
And about your adding "finding" , its funding, not finding, why the hell would i be agaisnt the people that are trying to find the terrorist and kill them :rolleyes:
Okay *INSERT YOUR PATHETIC OMG LIK U CAN"T SPELL OMFG comebacks HERE*
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^^^ RIght there buddy. :rolleyes:
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| As if we could pretend this wouldn't come around... [message #130866] |
Tue, 04 January 2005 20:51 |
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splnwezel
Messages: 46
Registered: October 2004
Location: Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Karma: 0
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Recruit |
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Wow... I am glad I am Canadian... the only thing I really have to complain about is that all our tax dollars get funnelled towards the provinces that vote for the controlling party. Sigh... the only real problem with representative democracy... but I still think Canada's election process makes more sense than America's.
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into Orca engines...
[GDE]splnwezel
http://www.gdeclan.net
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| As if we could pretend this wouldn't come around... [message #130964] |
Wed, 05 January 2005 14:35 |
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Hydra
Messages: 827
Registered: September 2003
Location: Atlanta, GA
Karma: 0
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Colonel |
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The mechanics of the electoral college, straight from the Constitution:
| U.S. Constitution, Article II, Section 1 |
Each state shall appoint, in such manner as the legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors, equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the state may be entitled in the Congress, but no Senator or Representative, or person holding an office of trust or profit under the United States, shall be appointed an elector.
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This sentence is particularly crucial, which is why I'm commenting on it now.
This gives the power to only the state legislatures to decide how the electors are chosen. If the legislatures chose, they could lawfully allow people named Bubba Joe to popularly elect the electors; hell, they don't even have to have a popular vote for electors at all! If they wanted, they could make it where only the State's governor or General Assembly can appoint electors!
| Quote: |
The electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for two persons, of whom one at least shall not be an inhabitant of the same state as themselves. And they shall make a list of all the persons voted for, and of the number of votes for each; which list they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the Government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates, and the votes shall then be counted. The person having the greatest number of votes shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed; and if there be more than one who have such majority, and have an equal number of votes, then the House of Representatives shall immediately choose by ballot one of them for President; and if no person have a majority, then from the five highest on the list the said house shall in like manner choose the President. But in choosing the president, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice. In every case, after the choice of the President, the person having the greatest number of votes of the electors shall be the Vice-President. But if there should remain two or more who have equal votes, the Senate shall choose from them by ballot the Vice-President.
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This section is further amended by Amendment XII, which changes the last few sentences of that article, specifically referring to the election of the Vice-President:
| Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution |
The electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for Vice-President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and of all persons voted for as Vice-President, and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the Government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate; the President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted. The person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice. And if the House of Represntatives shall not choose a President whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March next following, then the Vice-President shall act as President, as in the case of death or other constitutional disability of the President. The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice-President, shall be the Vice-President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed, and if no person have a majority, then from the two highest on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice-President; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice. But no person consitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.
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There you have it, the mechanics of the electoral college.
Now, explain to me, please, how all of that doesn't "make any sense" nowadays. Be sure you actually read all of it so you know what you're talking about.
Walter Keith Koester: September 22, 1962 - March 15, 2005
God be with you, Uncle Wally.
 (<---New(ish) Prayer Group Forums)
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| As if we could pretend this wouldn't come around... [message #130979] |
Wed, 05 January 2005 15:52 |
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Fabian
Messages: 821
Registered: April 2003
Location: Boston, MA
Karma: 0
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Colonel |
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Keep in mind that I'm not trying to be hostile, I'm just presenting MY opinion as to why the Electoral College is a bad system.
An essay I had to write a long time ago:
America was founded on the notion that power should not rest in the elite, but that it should be held by the masses. The Government should have the consent from its people, and this consent comes from majority rule. With these ideas in mind, our country set forth into its experiment with democracy. Given the initial fragmented nature of the young nation, it fared relatively well.
It was decided, however, that the selection of our president would be conducted with an indirect election. While this wasn’t a democracy per se, it was the best our country could do given the massive shortcomings of communications technology of that era. There were no radios, no televisions, and no national newspapers (in fact, most people were illiterate). The idea of “an election� in and of itself was a revolutionary one. Counting the number of votes for each candidate on a national level would have been quite an undertaking. The Electoral College was a way of making this process more practical by allowing the counting to be done on a state level. It was also a way to keep the states unified (something that wasn’t a guarantee at the time) so each could have a say in who would be the president. The Electoral College made sense at the time, even if it didn’t maintain pure democratic ideals.
Times have changed though. We can travel to any point in the United States in hours, not weeks. We can send information to billions of people in under a second. We are now fully capable of holding a direct election for the United States presidency. We’re more than ready to move beyond the outdated Electoral College, and embrace direct elections like we already do for so many other state and local positions. If Afghanistan can do it, so can we.
An indirect election is not a true democracy. The Government needs to have the consent of the people to rule as stated in our Constitution, but the Electoral College can create a situation where a president finds himself in power, but the majority of the nation did not vote him in there. In fact, this has happened four times in our nation’s history. In electing a leader, one person’s vote is not the same as someone from a different state. Yet, all US citizens are supposed to have an equal say. Something is amiss here.
Take as an example, a state with twenty electoral points and a voter population of ten million. Now, say 5,000,001 people vote for one candidate and 4,999,999 people vote for the other. Because of the way the Electoral College works, this state could very well turn the election even though it was a tie for all intents and purposes. Those 4,999,999 votes for the other guy are transformed into votes for the “winner� since all twenty electoral votes would be going toward one person. Not only is this counter-intuitive to a democratic mindset, it’s needlessly complicated and illogical in this day and age. A possible solution would be to divvy out the electoral points in proportion to the percent the candidate won by (if someone gets 70% of the votes, they get 70% of the twenty points), but this would be a complicated version of a regular direct election, so why not go for the real deal? Another option is to make it so the winner of that state gets his 70%, but instead of the opponent getting 30%, they get nothing. But again, this is just needlessly complicated, and is only another substitute for a direct election.
Additionally, electors have been known to vote for a candidate other than the one they pledged to vote for. Most recently, Reagan lost an electoral point and Nixon lost one twice thanks to these so called “faithless electors.� Electors just get in the way of the democratic process. Why not out the middleman and just let the people speak?
The number of state representatives (which is based on the state’s population) plus the number of state senators determine the number of electoral points any state is granted. Any state needs at least one representative, which means that any state will have a minimum of three electoral points. In order for the Electoral College to be “fair,� however, the electoral points should be based on population. Voters in a state with a small population have more power than they deserve since they are guaranteed at least three electoral points.
Additionally, in the case of a tie under the Electoral College, the vote is thrown to the House. Having a very select and elite few decide an incredibly major part of our nation’s future regardless of what the people want sounds a lot more like an oligarchy than a democracy.
As a Massachusetts resident, my vote is not worth the same as a resident in California or Rhode Island, for example. That’s just not fair, period. America is old enough to graduate to a truer form of democracy.
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