Abolish the senate but people in this thread elected Trump and Biden. Defund the police Pack the courts Abolish the Senate If your team keeps losing, maybe you should just cut to the chase and start executing the opposition. Works well for North Korea.
Again, you can have equal representation in a representative government. A democratic republic, a representative democracy
I've mostly read "outrage" articles of Republican politicians joke-not-joking about killing politicians from the other side. Maybe that resentment is some Freudian projection among the right,
the Senate taking care of business and getting the job done!! https://thehill.com/policy/defense/585920-senate-approves-sweeping-defense-bill excerpt: The Senate on Wednesday passed a sweeping defense policy bill on an 89-10 vote, ending a weeks-long standoff that had stalled work on the legislation. The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which sets spending top-lines and policy for the Pentagon, passed the House last week and now goes to President Biden’s desk, where he’s expected to sign it. “For the past six years, Congress worked on a bipartisan basis to pass an annual defense authorization act without fail. …With so many priorities to balance, I thank my colleagues for working hard over these last few months, both in committee and off the food, to get NDAA done,” Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said.
There should be a Senate, but if were going to go back to how the founders set it up, we absolutely need more Reps and SCOTUS justices to match the population increase and increase of federal circuits. Hell, you can even mitigate the politicization of the court by making it so that every circuit court must be represented. The Senate can work if Senators actually represent their state instead of blindly following McConnell or Schumer. Bring back earmarks and pork so bills can pass. Actually negotiate and vote on the floor instead of these back-room deals where you know how the vote will go ahead of time.
Why would one believe some people are more deserving of representation than others based on geographic location (within the same country)? I asked if you supported affirmative action and you balked at the question, but if the map above represents to you the senate being a good idea, I still find it an interesting and fair question. Also, the map is a bit confusing. LA co is individually more populated than any individual blue colored state, but not anywhere near them combined of course.
I think the bolded misunderstands one aspect of Senatorial representation. Senators more directly represent the "states" themselves, i.e., the interests of the "states," rather than the more focused interests of the "citizens" in those states. (Obviously they do both; but this is why there is a bicameral legislature.) The House of Representatives more directly represent the citizens, directly. The do not have a representative role to pursue the interests of their entire state (generally speaking) but rather have the similar representational role of pursuing the interests of their respective "districts." Obviously the system is not perfect. No political system is perfect. This is the probably the best not-perfect system out there, though.
Excellent point Juice, they spend (it seems) all there time b****ing and moaning about the other side and do not get anything done. Represent your state and quit being led my old timers who time is up. And for gosh sakes, they spend more time tweeting then actually working, and GOD forbid one person from either side says something in error then all hell breaks loose and there incompetent............the whole thing is bringing me down and I`m wondering if we will ever get out of this spiral of BS we get deeper in every day. I don't see one person bringing this country together, I have very low expectations for the next few years and whoever is elected in 2024 wont do anything to make it better, they will just want to make sure "there' side is taken care of.
California, Texas, Florida, and New York combined account for nearly 33% of the country's population, and combined they account for just 6% of the Senate's representatives. For a federal law to be passed, which can affect all of the people within the country, it must go through the Senate. This seems incompatible with a healthy and functioning Democracy, to me. People do not have equal representation. If you look at it through federal tax revenue collected vs federal representation of those 4 states, it's an even more glaring discrepancy, one could make the case of it being a case of taxation without representation and whatnot, although I wouldn't.
So do you ultimately support the idea / mechanism of affirmative action in particular circumstances? In New Zealand for example, the Maori people are given unequal representation within their parliament, which is not democratic in the sense of completely equal representation. Personally, the geography angle doesn't seem like just grounds for such representative discrepancy, but I can understand there being functions put in place that disrupt equal representation, not really sure if I agree with it though.
affirmative action is a really, really, REALLY complicated topic. This is not a simple "yes or no" question or issue. If I balked as you say at you asking about this earlier, I apologize. But it's a complicated topic that, no joke, deserves its own thread. And there are lots of different "flavors" of affirmative action: workplace, educational, political, etc etc. It would be helpful to define terms and context.
Id actually argue that the indigenous nations, who are considered seperate countries by US law and existing treaties, should have seperate representation. Theyre probably the most affected by federal law but have no say
