Hey Mary,
Welcome back fellow traveler....
> RICK:
> Democracy is explicitly named as Intellectual value by Pirsig
> on p.187-188 in LILA. Did anyone consider that it was our democratically
> elected leaders who made this decision? A mob outcry has strong-armed our
> chosen decision makers into changing their minds. Is this what democracy
> means?
>
> MARY:
> Yes. A mob outcry strong-armed our elected leaders into office, after
all.
rick: I assume you're refering to the storming of the site of the Palm Beach
County recount by overly zealous republican supporters. A dark and sad
episode for democracy it was indeed. Yet suprisingly, you go on to
claim....
> RICK:
> Should society force its will on government whenever it's displeased
> by the decisions of elected leaders?
>
> MARY: Absolutely!
rick: But Mary, this attitude is precisely what led to the electoral
tactics you seemingly object to above. Or are you just being sarcastic...?
> RICK:
> Is nobody bothered by this?
>
> MARY:
> I guess I'm bothered that you are bothered - especially since the US is
not
> a true Democracy anyway. If it were, GW Bush would not be President.
> Right?
rick: I take it this is a swipe at the electoral collage system. Gore won
the popular vote, but not the electoral vote and therefore not the
presidency. There certainly is something that feels very undemocratic about
a result like that. But the electoral collage system has its pros and cons.
On the upside, it assures that the voices of those in states with smaller
populations will not be forever ignored in favor of those states with larger
populations. On the downside, it can occasionally lead to counter-intuitive
results like those in the most recent election. It's a trade-off.
But if that bothers you, consider this.... Under the electoral collage,
each state is entitled to a number of electoral votes equal to the sum of
the number of representitives in the House and Congress that the state has.
As each state is automatically entitled to 2 senators and 1 representitive,
this means that a state will always have at least 3 electoral votes.
Therefore, in principle, if the population of a given state were to somehow
dwindle down to 4 people (2 senators, 1 representitive and 1 other person),
those 4 people would have 3 electoral votes for president all to
themselves... making them as powerful as states with populations thousands
of times larger. How's that for bizarre?
It is said that evil can never be eradicated because all solutions breed
new problems.... the electoral collage is great example of this maxim in
action. Of course, we could try fixing it....but who knows what that would
lead to....?
Welcome back,
rick
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