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Trump to OK railroad to Alaska Locked

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Posted by SD70Dude on Sunday, October 4, 2020 11:00 PM

tree68

Heck, a good many residents of this area relate more to Canada than to NYC.  

If we build a wall to keep you out, will you pay for it?

Greetings from Alberta

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Posted by zugmann on Sunday, October 4, 2020 10:25 PM

tree68
There are efforts to split NY into two, or even three autonomous regions.  I think most upstate residents would be more than happy to pay a little more in taxes to be free of the albatross that is NYC and have a leader who is attuned to upstate rather than pandering to the city.

I think it would be more than a *little more* in taxes.  Be careful what you wish for - you may get it!

 

It's been fun.  But it isn't much fun anymore.   Signing off for now. 


  

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Posted by tree68 on Sunday, October 4, 2020 10:23 PM

zugmann
But on the othe side of the coin, doesn't a lot of the money in the NY state coffers come from teh southern end?  So the argument of rural vs urban is always a pointless one.  Both are needed. 

There are efforts to split NY into two, or even three autonomous regions.  I think most upstate residents would be more than happy to pay a little more in taxes to be free of the albatross that is NYC and have a leader who is attuned to upstate rather than pandering to the city.

Heck, a good many residents of this area relate more to Canada than to NYC.  

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Posted by zugmann on Sunday, October 4, 2020 10:03 PM

tree68
We see this very issue in NY.  NYC elects the governor.  The current incumbent cares little for the people who live north of Westchester County. It's a standing joke in the north country that people in the city wouldn't recognize a cow if they saw one, and most have never seen one.   If you put the rural areas out of business, the city dwellers won't have any milk for their latte. Of course, people are moving out of NYC in record numbers.  Cuomo and de Blasio are two of U-Hauls best salesmen.

But on the othe side of the coin, doesn't a lot of the money in the NY state coffers come from teh southern end?  So the argument of rural vs urban is always a pointless one.  Both are needed. 

It's been fun.  But it isn't much fun anymore.   Signing off for now. 


  

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Posted by MidlandMike on Sunday, October 4, 2020 9:45 PM

In California, according to Wiki:

Of the 19,696,371 California voters registered for the November 6, 2018, general election:
  • 43.5% were Democrats.
  • 24.0% were Republicans.
  • 5.0% were affiliated with other political parties.
  • 27.5% were unaffiliated ("Decline to State" or "No Party Preference") voters.

With so many independent voters, they have elected republican governors, most recently Arnold S., and have sent Nixon, Reagan, and Bush Sr. to the oval office.  So California, as I said before, is not a political monolith.  And as has been pointed out, NY and CA together only make up little more than 10% of US population.

I have heard a lot of reasons why the founders may have started with an Electoral College, but as with other expediences such as tolerating slavery and only white male property owners allowed to vote, the EC also needs to be assigned historical artifact status.  There is no political construction that justifies something other than "one person, one vote"

 
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Posted by tree68 on Sunday, October 4, 2020 7:48 PM

charlie hebdo
The trend is that people increasingly live in metro areas (urban + suburban) vs rural: 86% vs 14%

We see this very issue in NY.  NYC elects the governor.  The current incumbent cares little for the people who live north of Westchester County.

It's a standing joke in the north country that people in the city wouldn't recognize a cow if they saw one, and most have never seen one.  

If you put the rural areas out of business, the city dwellers won't have any milk for their latte.

Of course, people are moving out of NYC in record numbers.  Cuomo and de Blasio are two of U-Hauls best salesmen.

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Posted by charlie hebdo on Sunday, October 4, 2020 6:45 PM

https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2018/05/22/demographic-and-economic-trends-in-urban-suburban-and-rural-communities/

The trend is that people increasingly live in metro areas (urban + suburban) vs rural: 86% vs 14%

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Posted by BaltACD on Sunday, October 4, 2020 6:40 PM

zugmann
 
tree68
The point is that 36 million is more than the total population of several states combined.   

Government for the people, or a government for the land area? 

Land area won in 2016.

Never too old to have a happy childhood!

              

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Posted by zugmann on Sunday, October 4, 2020 6:37 PM

tree68
The point is that 36 million is more than the total population of several states combined.  

Government for the people, or a government for the land area? 

It's been fun.  But it isn't much fun anymore.   Signing off for now. 


  

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Posted by tree68 on Sunday, October 4, 2020 6:36 PM

charlie hebdo
#1. UM disavowed the article since it was purely personal by the author.

Didn't plan to bring the whole article - only the map.  

The point is that 36 million is more than the total population of several states combined.  

Kings County (Brooklyn) alone has twice the population of Nebraska.

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Posted by charlie hebdo on Sunday, October 4, 2020 6:02 PM

#1. UM disavowed the article since it was purely personal by the author.

#2. It does not support your contention. 

LA Metro 2010 census was about 13 million. SF was 4.7 million.  NYC was 18.3 million.  Total = 36 million.  US population was 310 million. 

Why would you think the votes of people in LA County should be equal to those of dwellers in some remote county in Wyoming?  

One person,  one vote should be universal.  And Nebraska does fine with a single chamber legislature. 

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Posted by charlie hebdo on Sunday, October 4, 2020 5:58 PM

#1. UM disavowed the article since it was purely personal by the author.

#2. It does not support your contention. 

LA Metro 2010 census was about 13 million. SF was 4.7 million.  NYC was 18.3 million.  Total = 36 million.  US population was 310 million. 

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Posted by tree68 on Sunday, October 4, 2020 4:37 PM

charlie hebdo
Utter nonsense. Try Googling the metro areas. 

How's this?  University of Michigan

You'll have to click on the icon.

 

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Posted by Paul of Covington on Sunday, October 4, 2020 4:20 PM

   People can be very inventive when looking for reasons why one person's vote should count for more than another's.

_____________ 

  "A stranger's just a friend you ain't met yet." --- Dave Gardner

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Posted by charlie hebdo on Sunday, October 4, 2020 3:44 PM

tree68

 

 
Overmod
Only if the rest of you stay home will LA, NYC, and SF elect the President...

 

LA, NYC, and SFO have more votes than most of the rest of the country...

Look at a map of how counties voted in the last election - 90% of the country is red.

 

 

Utter nonsense posted by a city hater. Try Googling the metro areas. 

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Posted by charlie hebdo on Sunday, October 4, 2020 3:43 PM

tree68

 

 
Overmod
Only if the rest of you stay home will LA, NYC, and SF elect the President...

 

LA, NYC, and SFO have more votes than most of the rest of the country...

Look at a map of how counties voted in the last election - 90% of the country is red.

 

 

Utter nonsense. Try Googling the metro areas. 

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Posted by tree68 on Sunday, October 4, 2020 3:09 PM

Overmod
Only if the rest of you stay home will LA, NYC, and SF elect the President...

LA, NYC, and SFO have more votes than most of the rest of the country...

Look at a map of how counties voted in the last election - 90% of the country is red.

 

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Posted by Overmod on Sunday, October 4, 2020 1:58 AM

tree68
So LA, NYC, and SFO elect the president and the rest of us can stay home...

Only if the rest of you stay home will LA, NYC, and SF elect the President...

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Posted by blue streak 1 on Sunday, October 4, 2020 1:01 AM

The Deniese route might have the ability to connect with the White Pass RR with some connecting construction..  That could allow for the mineral resources on the inactive portion and the areas past the inactive end to be mined ? 

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Posted by SD60MAC9500 on Saturday, October 3, 2020 10:41 PM
 

zugmann

 

 
tree68
So LA, NYC, and SFO elect the president and the rest of us can stay home...

 

PSR voting.   

 

 

PSV Precision Scheduled Voting

 

All voters line up into a single file after checking in. At the first row of voting booths a block of voters will be dropped off. The file of voters will continue to the other voting booths to drop off more blocks of voters. After that inital file of voters is gone a second one comes in and moves the already voted blocks out into the parking lot. 

 
 
Rahhhhhhhhh!!!!
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Posted by charlie hebdo on Saturday, October 3, 2020 9:58 PM

tree68

 

 
MidlandMike
We need to get away from the idea of states electing national offices, and get to where people elect their national leaders. 

 

So LA, NYC, and SFO elect the president and the rest of us can stay home...

 

 

An uttrrly preposterous statement designed to keep the people divided. It's how a selfish minority retain control

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Posted by zugmann on Saturday, October 3, 2020 9:38 PM

tree68
So LA, NYC, and SFO elect the president and the rest of us can stay home...

PSR voting.   

It's been fun.  But it isn't much fun anymore.   Signing off for now. 


  

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Posted by tree68 on Saturday, October 3, 2020 9:33 PM

MidlandMike
We need to get away from the idea of states electing national offices, and get to where people elect their national leaders. 

So LA, NYC, and SFO elect the president and the rest of us can stay home...

LarryWhistling
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Posted by kgbw49 on Saturday, October 3, 2020 9:15 PM

States determine how their electoral votes are apportioned.

Maine, for instance, apportions 2 electoral votes based on the popular vote of the state as a whole and then the other 2 go by the popular vote in the two Maine Congressional districts.

For the purposes of the Presidential election the Electoral College ensures each State has a significant say in the election of the President. Several have correctly stated that if there were no electoral college, the two or three largest states by population would select the President for all the others. In colonial times when the Constitution was voted on to replace the Articles of Confederation, had they not included the Electoral College it would have meant New York, Boston and Philadelphia would have picked every President in the history of the country. The Constitution would have never been signed. There likely would have ended up being two countries, one allowing slavery from Maryland and Virginia and everything south, and one free country north of there. Neither one would have been strong enough to hold off by themselves the eventual retaking by the British Empire, which at the time also allowed slavery.

These were the issues the Founding Fathers were dealing with at the time of the development of the Constitution. It was a completely different world. But they put in place a system to get buy-in from every State so they would vote in their state houses to join, which saved them all from being reconquered, and set up a framework to make slavery, which had been in place across the planet since Biblical times, eventually go away in 80 years.

I think the words "more perfect union" was an acknowledgement that it was not completely perfect - they were deliberately used instead of perfect. But it was what they could do in that time, under the realities of life at that time, and they put in place the tools for future generations to improve it, with an implicit charge to future generations to work to make it even more perfect.

We see that work in the Amendments over the generations, among other things, and the work of Congress and Presidents over the generations, put there by the Citizens of every state, and there is still more improving that can and will be done by current and future generations.

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Posted by MidlandMike on Saturday, October 3, 2020 8:59 PM

CMStPnP

 

 
MidlandMike
In my opinion, the Electoral college was one of the "original sins" of the nations founding.  They should not have compromised "one person, one vote". Ad

 

Then you would have 2-3 populous states choosing POTUS in close elections vs a wider base of states.    The intent of the electoral college in close elections is to make sure the wider base of the country is represented vs 1-2 large states.    I think it is a good idea because it forces on the candidate the burden they have to make a convincing case to the WHOLE country and not just concentrate on 1-2 large states to get elected President.     

 

The big states are not monoliths for one party and the rural states for the other party.  There are people for all parties in all states.  We need to get away from the idea of states electing national offices, and get to where people elect their national leaders.  

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Posted by Overmod on Saturday, October 3, 2020 8:32 PM

zugmann
Could we at least get rid of the winner-take-all for the 48 states that use it?

You'd certainly get no objection from me.  If you have to quantize "electors", it does occur to me that they should follow district regardless of simple majority in totting up their 'votes' in national elections.

That would make it more simple to fix the issue of electors 'deciding' to represent candidates other than those they were chosen to support, something that is sometimes fine to permit or tolerate in theory but damaging to democracy.  That's not to say they shouldn't be allowed to 'switch allegiance' after an election -- only that a comparable "election" should be needed to permit that to happen as part of a kind of 'review' process.   At least some of the Arrow impossibility distortions might be better addressed in such a case, too, as might be a great deal of hanging-chad ridiculousness if there is a need for close 'recounts'. 

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Posted by tree68 on Saturday, October 3, 2020 8:27 PM

zugmann
Could we at least get rid of the winner-take-all for the 48 states that use it? 

There was one state that for years cast their electoral votes for a "favorite son," no matter which actual candidate actually won there.

I'd be all for proportional allocation of the votes.

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Posted by zugmann on Saturday, October 3, 2020 8:23 PM

CMStPnP
I think it is a good idea because it forces on the candidate the burden they have to make a convincing case to the WHOLE country and not just concentrate on 1-2 large states to get elected President.     

*Looks around*

Isn't that pretty much what happens now?

Could we at least get rid of the winner-take-all for the 48 states that use it? 

It's been fun.  But it isn't much fun anymore.   Signing off for now. 


  

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Posted by charlie hebdo on Saturday, October 3, 2020 8:16 PM

Along with other gems such as slaves being counted as 3/5 persons for appotioning congressmen to slaveholding states. Or denying women the vote for over a century. Or states requiring one be a propert owner to vote.

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Posted by CMStPnP on Saturday, October 3, 2020 8:12 PM

MidlandMike
In my opinion, the Electoral college was one of the "original sins" of the nations founding.  They should not have compromised "one person, one vote". Ad

Then you would have 2-3 populous states choosing POTUS in close elections vs a wider base of states.    The intent of the electoral college in close elections is to make sure the wider base of the country is represented vs 1-2 large states.    I think it is a good idea because it forces on the candidate the burden they have to make a convincing case to the WHOLE country and not just concentrate on 1-2 large states to get elected President.     

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