The Decline of Proportional Representation in America

www.Thirty-Thousand.org

Audio interview here. Click the small grey play button at the bottom.



After you've read the general concept of it all, vote in the poll.

 

The "Fixed composition" of "435" Representatives is not in the US Constitution.

"Fixed composition" means less representation,.

 

you need direct democracy so 300 millions would represent 300 millions

 

I'd prefer anarchism if we'd go that route.. or at least anarcho-communism.

Do you approve of 51% controlling the other 49% of the population?

 

Anarcho-communism Barcelona 1936-1939?

 

Trust me, you don't want communism. You may think you do but once you get it you realise that's not what you signed up for. The problem is that shared ownership of everything simply doesn't work.

I'm not a big fan of the 51% controlling the rest, but democracy is still probably the best political system. At least you have some control over those in the lead.
I don't see how anarchism could possibly work.

 

Proportionate representation, income tax, WW1 - that whole military industrial complex has its roots in the global 1913-1917 "communist" or "socialist" or whatever revolution you want to call it.

Don't doubt it for a second, there was a real global revolution in this timeframe and it simply adopted a local feel in the nations who were radically changed, almost overnight: Russia, Mexico, Ireland, England, USA...

In very few cases did the revolution result in decentralization (Ireland) - in most of the countries it was all about consolidating more power into fewer hands. And not just political power, it was really about financial and industrial power. Here in America, we gave a lot of lip service to breaking up monopolies, but the reality of the balance sheets and stock ownerships were really just cementing the status quo of cartels and monopolistic sector domination. With the industries integrated into a government machine that could manipulate market conditions to favor one business over another, the stage was set for the last 80 years of methodical consolidation.

But Orwell's account made it sound like so much exciting fun!

And hey, Barcelona turned out alright. In fact I can't think of anywhere else I'd rather be, other than maybe somewhere warmer at this time of year

The way I see communism is that its about community. It works great when association is voluntary and the scale is small. Think of a hippy commune or the old Jewish kibbutz. Its great as long as you're free to leave and find a new community that fits your outlook.

 

I said IF we went that route.. I'm a libertarian personally.

What about a republic, you don't think it's the best system?

 

Not only has the US population grown during that period but so too has the world population. The world has grown bigger and more complex. No system is ideal. Democracy of some sort gives people some level of representation. No doubt big institutions have more power. I don't see an ideal...but to keep muddling through.

 

there isn't much of a difference between a republic and a democracy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic

 

isn't the number of political parties (2) more a problem than the number of reps?

 

I think the present system isn't perfect. It works for me sometimes then sometimes not. But then... any Democracy will be that way.

What do you suggest?

 

More of a problem than we give credit for..

More representation as my original post suggests.

 

Oh OK.

What number or approximate number would you say would represent an even keel or a situation you'd be comfortable with?

 

How about this for a crazy idea? How about we elect 3 different presidents. One from the 2 elite controlled parties(dems, republicans) and one from the peoples party(libertarian or independent party). This would provide checks and balances, or how about doing away with this bs electoral college? I mean anything would be better then what we got now. We need a system where a person isnt elected by special interest group support or by how much money he can raise?

 

As many as it takes to expect to know your representative personally. 12,000 maybe. That way I don't have to make phone calls or send snail mail when they forget who they're representing, I can just meet them in person and ring their neck.

Convenience. Remember when they used to tar and feather?

 

one for every 25,000? That seems good to me. Also, ties would be less likely.

 

Just to rethink this:

With 300 million citizens

at one representative to the US government for every 25,000 citizens ....that would mean ......12,000 representatives.

At one for every 12,000 folks...double the number of reps.

If you took it back to where it was initially at about one rep for every 40,000....

That would be about 7500 representatives.

All of them are crazy numbers. Can you cite a representative organization with at minimum 7500 members?

 

Consider that the more representatives you have the more you dilute the power of their vote individually.

That person is still going to be a human being so your argument to convince them to vote a particular way will have to have the same amount of merit. Whether your meeting them face to face or not. The only difference is the vote you affected is a lot less powerful.

So you'd still need to get neighboring constituents to effect more representatives (A LOT more out of 12,000). So in effect having more representatives wouldn't change anything..... besides making things a lot more complicated and putting a whole lot more salaries on the tax payer's payroll.

 

Organization? Not many "organizations" have 300+ million members.. Few countries have that many or more citizens, and only one has the freedoms we (are supposed to) have. Now do you want to talk in terms of ratios, not just big numbers?

New Hampshire state house representatives represent roughly 3,750 NH residents. NH population is roughly 1.5 million. 400 state house seats.

It's common for people to just look at numbers alone, and if they're big, isolate them from the rest. Not math-oriented? that's fine. Numbers usually represent something more than a number.

Uh, and that's a bad thing, how? It's actually a safeguard against special interest groups and political bribery. So, how's that a bad thing?

What does "still being a human being" have anything to do with it? What's better, a representative who's more in touch with their constituents or one who's completely out of touch?

And suddenly you consider the American taxpayer.. now if only you could factor them into all of your arguments.