It's come to California a little sooner than the rest of the country, because in California, democracy is more perfected than anywhere else in America. This leads to popular referenda with questions like:
- Do you want a gold house and a rocket car? Yes. No.
- Do you want to pay for it? Yes. No.
However there are people who would like to bring more perfected democracy to the rest of America. Here's one:
Wasn't that scary?
It is to anybody who lives in New York, Illinois, or California, because they already know how that works. See, the guy in the video says the presidential candidates will need to campaign everywhere instead of just battleground states. BS. With the presidential election decided by popular vote, candidates won't even have to waste money on commercials in Boise or Des Moines anymore. Just as the Illinois governor's race is decided in Cook County and Peoria doesn't matter more than spit on a griddle, so the presidential election will be decided in the BosWash, Chicago, and SoCal megalopolii and you kids in New Mexico might as well sleep in that day.
Just think how much fun that will be!
How much hope do mere mortals have?
ReplyDeleteSneering elitism, anyone? How about 100 million pissed-off "mere mortals" with guns?
Jim
The first video was little more than a hit piece against the Unions, while not mentioning the other big money wasters like the free giveaways and other boondoggles. IMO, that is what makes the Republicans as big a waste of a vote as the Dems. The only difference between the two parties is who they give my money to after they take it from me.
ReplyDeleteThe second video is the scary one. The map linked below supports your position that the populated states will win elections. Los Angeles, NYC, Miami, Detroit, and Chicago will decide the Presidency.
http://tinyurl.com/5eosza
Reminds me of a line from a movie ...
ReplyDeleteKid #1 (in deep despair): We're screwed.
Kid #2: Hey, I don't want to hear that negative attitude!
Kid #1 (with over-emphasized cheerfulness): We're screwed!
Not like our three electoral college votes mean much anyway.
ReplyDeleteI keep thinking maybe NM ought to split into a whole bunch of states on county lines. We'd get a lot more electoral votes, then. :D
As horrible an idea as a national popular vote would be (and I say that after reading a couple of books both pro- and con- the Electoral College), the guy's exactly right: the method by which this formulation is proposed is entirely within the framework of the Electoral College - it's pure federalism to allow each state to decide how they want to allocate their Electors, so if a state like Utah wants to disregard the actual preference of its own citizens in favor of the national preference, we in Texas can't very well tell them they can't.
ReplyDeleteWe can call 'em styoopid, though.
Oh, I didn't say it was un-Constitutional. It's every bit as Constitutional as drawing electors from a hat or selling raffle tickets for electoral college votes. Although considerably dumber.
ReplyDeleteNo, I know - I didn't mean to imply that's what you were saying. Just remarking that the people dumb enough to want such a thing are actually starting to get smart enough to propose it in a legal & Constitutional way.
ReplyDelete"# Do you want a gold house and a rocket car? Yes. No."
ReplyDeleteRocket cars would make baby Gaia cry, which is why in November Californians instead approved a bond to finance a dubious $10 billion high speed rail project.
Voting booths should have credit card readers so that the cost of any boondoggle would be divided among the idiots who voted for it.
I'm reminded of the adage that "democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner." There's a reason we're a representative republic and not a democracy.
ReplyDeleteHeck, I thought this was White Oak ARMAMENT and we were going to see this guy do something useful, like build out an AR.
ReplyDelete"The first video was little more than a hit piece against the Unions,"
ReplyDeleteNothing wrong with that.
Reason may be ungrammatical and unreadable (at times) but the Wookie Suiters there find an acorn (or an ACORN)most of the time.
Shootin' Buddy
Aww, you mean the votes of our two most prominent citizens, Mr. F. Man and Mr. L. Boy won't count?
ReplyDelete'Course there's a bit of trouble getting UPS to bring the ingredients for their rather specialized dietary requirements, but I'm sure we'll figure something out.
wv: dicatoo. Baby's First Despot.
Even within a given region the Pols can safely ignore the need for popular appeal if the region is well Gerrymandered and ACORN does their job right, faking ballots and counting the deceased.
ReplyDeleteIt's too late to save California. Which is a good thing. The only way out is bankruptcy.
ReplyDeleteHopefully the rest of the country will pay attention as Cali defaults.
Saw today that the Taxinator and his buds are proposing a 15% flat tax to replace the existing state progressive income tax.
ReplyDeleteNext they'll be proposing to dump welfare---Oh, wait! They just did! Libs are dropping like flies in shock that their favorite RINO would do sich a thang.
Who'd a thunkit. Hell must have 6' of snow by now.
A state cannot, by federal law, file bankruptcy. They are obligated to pay the debt. This question has been asked in Illinois already. We will either have to raise taxes, cut spending or both, but we (the State of Illinois)cannot default.
ReplyDelete"Voting booths should have credit card readers so that the cost of any boondoggle would be divided among the idiots who voted for it."
ReplyDeleteWINNAH!
(And guess who's kid just moved to SFO after 15 years in Knoxville??)
In 1991, Colorado was calling it Californication - Californians fleeing the taxes back home, yet demanding the same destructive and obscene level of spending and services that required the punitive taxes.
ReplyDeleteThe scary part here, people, is not that California was the nation to foot their bills. The scary part is all the fleeing insurrectionists, intent on destroying the other states, too, using the same agendas and demands. Have any moved into your congressional district, yet?
One SF novel advocates that a voter must earn at least $1 more than they receive in benefits or entitlements from the government.
ReplyDeleteAnother executes the chief executive one year after taking office.
Who knows what science fiction might come up with next? In "The General's President" a business guy from Duluth (in Minnesota) gets the White House - after Congress passes amendments preventing collection of taxes at the Federal level, and preventing spending more than actual revenue intake.
Maureen F. McHugh's "China Mountain Zhang" follows an architect under China-owned America (the Chinese bought the country after it went bankrupt).
David Brin's "The Postman" and Gordon Dickson's "Wolf and Iron" - and Palmer's "Emergence" - all just follow "the collapse" of everything.
The UAV remote control bombing planes are straight out of "David's Sling", as are hoppers and other cheap weapons of war.
We have had Christopher Buckley's "The White House Mess" (snark on President Reagan), movies like Kevin Kline's "Dave", like "Dick", and like "The American President". I thought that Billy Bob Thornton's President of the US in Live Actually was believable and disrespectful at the same time.
Fiction has prepared us for almost anything from Obama and company. Too bad we haven't planed out and countered the worst scenarios - as we watch the worst of the Carter and Clinton eras being re-enacted.
The Fudgie Ghost says:
ReplyDeleteCouldn't they have re-shot this video without the annoying scraping sounds every couple of seconds?
How can I take this guy seriously with production values like that?
I'm just sayin' . . .
word verification: "hallne" Ikea furniture series. . .
I keep thinking maybe NM ought to split into a whole bunch of states on county lines.
ReplyDeleteTexas too. Even if you discounted Houston, Beaumont-Port Arthur, D-FW, El Paso, Austin-San Antonio and the Rio Grande Valley, we'd have over 200 electoral votes. Now, if the damn Republicans would give us someone better to vote for than McCain...