Re: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] [POLITICS] Was the 2004 Election Stolen?

["Jonathan King" <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

On 6/2/06, Vern Green <EMAIL:PROTECTED> wrote:
> I see what you are saying, but apparently the pokking did not work
> this time. Something changed.

Obviously, but it's a newsworthy surprise that something changed.
Personally, I think the answer is that people really did lie to the
pollsters.

> Look, you democrats cannot have it both ways.

You know something, Vern?  You don't know very much about me.
Specifically, you don't know my voting history.  So if you want to
vent at somebody, I think it would be polite to choose somebody who
wasn't the person who was being very patient last night explaining
what exit polling really was in what was a pretty much non-partisan
context.

But now here's another non-partisan issue:

> > The electoral college is an undemocratic piece of crock that should be
> > jettisoned like lots of other things we've gotten rid of since the
> > 18th century.  I mean, why does everybody have this love affair with
> > the electoral college as some noble institution but yet nobody ever
> > regrets passing the ammendment that allowed the direct election of
> > senators?  I mean, it's exactly the same kind of thing.
> >
> How is it the same thing?

Both were/are undemocratic and both processes have lead to people
winning who did not have the support of a pluarality of the voters.
Al Gore got more votes than Bush in 2000, but did not become president
because of the Electoral College.  Abraham Lincoln essentially got
more votes to be senator than Stephen Douglas in 1858, but did not
become senator in Illinois because there was no direct election of
senators.

There is no principled reason why somebody from Wyoming should have
substantially more voting power for president than you have in
California or than I have in Missouri.  You would obviously object if
we let some people from Wyoming or Vermont or the District of Columbia
vote multiple times for president, or told you that, as a California
resident, we wouldn't count all of your votes for the same office.
Yet the EC has exactly this effect on your voting power.  If you must
keep the EC for some reason, we could at least increase the number of
representatives in congress so that the disparity is less large (and
the districts themselves might be more representative).

> I can see how they are both about state
> representation, but that is where the similiarities end. I can't
> believe that anyone would want a situation where New York and
> California residents pick our president year after year.

Uh...but they don't.  And they never have.  To be honest, I don't see
why people would want a system where the people in Wyoming have 6
times the voting power of the Springfield, MO metropolitan area.

[snip]

> I am not sure it is fair to call you intellectually dishonest,

Bye, Vern.  I value intellectual honesty in all of its forms.  I
welcome debate on the issues.  I am willing to back up whatever I say
with evidence.  If you're not sure whether or not I'm intellectually
dishonest, then either I'm wasting my time typing replies to what you
post, or you really are trying to insult me.  In neither case does it
make sense for
me to reply to you, or for you to read anything I say.  Hey, I might
be trying to trick you after all, right?

jking

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