Poll

This is a uniquely informed and diverse group to survey on any question, most definitely this one.  At this point, for whom would you cast your ballot?

Trump
19 (46.3%)
Biden
9 (22%)
Sanders
8 (19.5%)
Booker
4 (9.8%)
Klobuchar
1 (2.4%)

Total Members Voted: 41

Voting closed: March 21, 2019, 04:39:47 PM

Author Topic: 2020 Vision  (Read 124068 times)

spirit4earth

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Re: 2020 Vision
« Reply #690 on: April 28, 2019, 08:10:44 AM »
Yeah but,

If the electoral system were to be eliminated entirely the rural/less populated state vote would be all but silenced.  However, as it currently stands, the urban city states are diluted to the point that the coastal states (most populated) have less representation then rural states.
You could argue that that's what the senate is for.  Wyoming gets the same representation as California there.  The senate is just half of 1 of branch, but it has plenty of power.  Maybe the senate is enough of a nod to making sure that small states' interests aren't overrun by larger ones, while the electoral college goes too far in favoring small states.

Electoral college is part of our system of government.   We don't give the states "a nod".  States have power, no need to whittle away at it.

Systems can be, and often need to be, changed.

RideTheGlide

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Re: 2020 Vision
« Reply #691 on: April 28, 2019, 08:30:59 AM »
Yeah but,

If the electoral system were to be eliminated entirely the rural/less populated state vote would be all but silenced.  However, as it currently stands, the urban city states are diluted to the point that the coastal states (most populated) have less representation then rural states.
You could argue that that's what the senate is for.  Wyoming gets the same representation as California there.  The senate is just half of 1 of branch, but it has plenty of power.  Maybe the senate is enough of a nod to making sure that small states' interests aren't overrun by larger ones, while the electoral college goes too far in favoring small states.

Electoral college is part of our system of government.   We don't give the states "a nod".  States have power, no need to whittle away at it.

Systems can be, and often need to be, changed.
Agreed. Most of the reasons for  giving states so much power are historical and no longer relevant. Not all, but most. They no longer have militias; the military is federal. They no longer have to send electors to the capitol on horseback to cast the votes for the state. I am not proposing stripping them of all power; there are a number of things that they should be able to legislate within the state. But giving the citizens of small states substantially more voting power in electing the president is ridiculous. California gets 55 electoral votes for 37.3 million people (2010 Census), or one electoral vote for approximately each 680,000 people. Wyoming receives 3 votes for its 568,000 people, or about one per 190,000.
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Bean

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Re: 2020 Vision
« Reply #692 on: April 28, 2019, 08:50:56 AM »
I think we could all, (myself included) brush up on our civic studies to better understand the burdens and responsibilities of all the major positions and branches in government, federal, state and local, and how together they are a system of checks and balances. 


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Re: 2020 Vision
« Reply #693 on: April 28, 2019, 09:03:39 AM »
I’ll tell you why you spend so much on R&D. It’s because otherwise little of value would be created. Without the innovations that your universities make, the drug companies would never get anywhere. You can’t impose a full market system on medical research without it becoming as corrupt as politics. And you don’t want that when your life depends on it.

Furthermore, big pharma and other medical businesses are a large income generator for the US.

But you can’t rely on them making the initial basic science discoveries that underpin advances in medicine. Hell, you can’t even really rely on them bringing to market the best or most cost-effective products.

The drug companies fund most of university drug research now.  If the taxpayer is going to fund research that is fine, but why would we give the return to the drug companies/universities?  These are incredibly profitable groups?  Why add to that with no return?  We assist in research and they charge us grossly inflated rates.  I see no equity in that.
« Last Edit: April 28, 2019, 09:05:11 AM by Admin »

pdxmike

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Re: 2020 Vision
« Reply #694 on: April 28, 2019, 10:28:08 AM »
Yeah but,

If the electoral system were to be eliminated entirely the rural/less populated state vote would be all but silenced.  However, as it currently stands, the urban city states are diluted to the point that the coastal states (most populated) have less representation then rural states.
You could argue that that's what the senate is for.  Wyoming gets the same representation as California there.  The senate is just half of 1 of branch, but it has plenty of power.  Maybe the senate is enough of a nod to making sure that small states' interests aren't overrun by larger ones, while the electoral college goes too far in favoring small states.

Electoral college is part of our system of government.   We don't give the states "a nod".  States have power, no need to whittle away at it.
"Nod"is accurate.  I don't know what you think it means.

The electoral college doesn't increase or decrease states' rights or power overall, so there's no "whittling away" involved.  It just changes the balance of power in favor of small-population states at the expense of large population states. Or maybe more accurately, it makes a vote by a voter in a small state count more than one from a voter in a large state.  That's certainly something worth questioning.

Slavery, no voting for women, no income tax...those were part of government as well.  Things can change.  I'm just mentioning some reasons why it makes sense.  Saying it should remain because it's there now isn't a convincing reason to me.



Area 10

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Re: 2020 Vision
« Reply #695 on: April 28, 2019, 11:37:51 AM »
I’ll tell you why you spend so much on R&D. It’s because otherwise little of value would be created. Without the innovations that your universities make, the drug companies would never get anywhere. You can’t impose a full market system on medical research without it becoming as corrupt as politics. And you don’t want that when your life depends on it.

Furthermore, big pharma and other medical businesses are a large income generator for the US.

But you can’t rely on them making the initial basic science discoveries that underpin advances in medicine. Hell, you can’t even really rely on them bringing to market the best or most cost-effective products.

The drug companies fund most of university drug research now.  If the taxpayer is going to fund research that is fine, but why would we give the return to the drug companies/universities?  These are incredibly profitable groups?  Why add to that with no return?  We assist in research and they charge us grossly inflated rates.  I see no equity in that.
I agree entirely with the view the taxpayer should be getting a return on their investment - which is why I posted that video of AOC making that point.

How a new drug ends up on the market is a complex process, and there are interactions between academia and industry at various stages.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/01/13/376801357/u-s-funding-of-health-research-stalls-as-other-nations-rev-up?t=1556476381668

However I think one has to make a distinction between basic and  translational science, and this is where I think your answer doesn't fully represent the situation. I was referring to the basic science: the knowledge base upon which new drug discoveries are made, not about how new drugs come to market. Big pharma doesn't play so much of a role in the *basic science*. That comes out of the universities, by and large, and will be funded by you the taxpayer though grants given directly to the Principal Investigators (e.g. from NIH). Companies will not often invest at that level because the work is too high-risk, financially. But if a discovery is made that might lead to a new drug (or any other form of) treatment, the medical companies typically get involved then, to run trials (sometimes with further contributions in part from the taxpayer too). Running trials etc is part of the translational science phase. The basic science phase is more usually some egghead in a university dreaming up a new theory and then sitting in his or her lab with their small team and trying their theory out. Now, of course, there are many institutes and departments where there is substantial blurring of the boundaries between education and industry. But if you ask the scientists who they work for, they will typically either say the university or the drug company, and be quite clear about that in their own mind.

The point that AOC was leading to - and with which I agree entirely - is that where the taxpayer has paid for the basic science that has led to the discovery that leads to the drug, the taxpayer should get a return on their investment, which was in effect analogous to putting money into a startup. The scientists who made the discovery should also perhaps also be more recognized: Under the current system, a university researcher could make a huge discovery that might end up saving the lives of millions of people, but actually not benefit from it financially at all (nor the university that paid their salary). That doesn't seem right, or desirable in terms of encouraging future discoveries: Scientists, overwhelmingly, do not do what they do for money. It's a passion. But it would help greatly expand the science base - to the good of us all- if being a top medical scientist was as aspirational a job as being on the board of a drug company. Instead, you've probably got salesmen that work for the drug companies earning far more than the scientists who make the discoveries, and going into science is a very uncertain and long-fought career choice. That's another consequence of living in an "ultra-capitalist" society, where people are not rewarded according to the societal value of what they do (in fact, it often almost seems the exact opposite).

This has unintended consequences that are far-reaching. For instance, if you come from a minority which is typically economically disadvantaged, it will be much harder for you to embark on a career as a scientist than someone who can rely upon the "bank of mom and dad" to see them through the inevitable many years of training, poorly-paid post-doc jobs and periods between post-doctoral posts etc. It is currently a huge financial risk to embark on a career as a university-based scientist. If you come from a poor background, you are likely to be much less tolerant of taking that risk. And so, you end up with relatively few minorities in the upper echelons of science, and so the scientific agendas risk reflecting that lack of diversity.

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Re: 2020 Vision
« Reply #696 on: April 28, 2019, 05:25:16 PM »
A little 1787 history

Quote
The disagreement over representation threatened to derail the ratification of the U.S. Constitution since delegates from both sides of the dispute vowed to reject the document if they didn’t get their way. The solution came in the form of a compromise proposed by statesmen Roger Sherman and Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut.

The Great Compromise created two legislative bodies in Congress.
Also known as the Sherman Compromise or the Connecticut Compromise, the deal combined proposals from the Virginia (large state) plan and the New Jersey (small state) plan.

The Great Compromise also skewed the electoral college.

The principle of protecting small states through equal representation in the Senate carries over into the electoral college, which elects the president, since the number of electoral votes designated to each state is based on a state’s combined number of representatives in the House and Senate.

That means, for example, even though Wyoming only has three votes in the electoral college, with the smallest population of all the states, each elector represents a far smaller group of people than each of the 55 electoral votes in the most populous state of California.

Two points I'd like to make.
1) I don't think the framers , in 1787, thought that there would be the huge differences in state population as there are today. They were looking at the difference between Virginia and New Jersey, not California and Wyoming.
2) It makes sense in the legislative branch to protect the smaller populous states because we need laws for all states regardless of population, BUT that is the legislative branch, not the executive branch. The President needs to answer to ALL citizens equally, not just those from smaller states.

jpeter

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Re: 2020 Vision
« Reply #697 on: April 28, 2019, 05:54:49 PM »
The USA is a republic of states.  Each state has representation in congress base on both population and the fact that it is a state.  The votes for president match this representation. 

I'm not saying this can not be changed.  My state of CT,  a small state,  passed a law to make my vote not count at all unless it matches the popular vote.  So our democrat party wanted us to give up our states rights.  Makes no sense for a small state to do.

I do think that the Electoral collage is a part of the definition of what makes us a republic. 

If you want Trump out of office,  then vote him out.  No need to change the rules if your side is so popular.  It is politically incorrect to support Trump.   So everyone in the D party thinks that he has no support.   

Notice that here, in the enlightened Standupzone,  TRUMP is at 46 percent after being in office for 2 years. 

JP

RideTheGlide

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Re: 2020 Vision
« Reply #698 on: April 28, 2019, 07:24:57 PM »
The USA is a republic of states.  Each state has representation in congress base on both population and the fact that it is a state.  The votes for president match this representation. 

I'm not saying this can not be changed.  My state of CT,  a small state,  passed a law to make my vote not count at all unless it matches the popular vote.  So our democrat party wanted us to give up our states rights.  Makes no sense for a small state to do.

I do think that the Electoral collage is a part of the definition of what makes us a republic. 

If you want Trump out of office,  then vote him out.  No need to change the rules if your side is so popular.  It is politically incorrect to support Trump.   So everyone in the D party thinks that he has no support.   

Notice that here, in the enlightened Standupzone,  TRUMP is at 46 percent after being in office for 2 years. 

JP

The electoral college has nothing to do with being a republic. You don't even have to have states. It just means that the people have representatives that pass the laws and govern. A democratic republic, with elected representatives, is a practical way to run a democracy, rather than have every proposed law voted on by everyone. The colonies did not all eagerly "gel" into a country; states rights were a way to still offer some independence and get everyone to agree on the establishment of a central government.
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pdxmike

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Re: 2020 Vision
« Reply #699 on: April 28, 2019, 09:42:09 PM »
The USA is a republic of states.  Each state has representation in congress base on both population and the fact that it is a state.  The votes for president match this representation. 

I'm not saying this can not be changed.  My state of CT,  a small state,  passed a law to make my vote not count at all unless it matches the popular vote.  So our democrat party wanted us to give up our states rights.  Makes no sense for a small state to do.

I do think that the Electoral collage is a part of the definition of what makes us a republic. 

If you want Trump out of office,  then vote him out.  No need to change the rules if your side is so popular.  It is politically incorrect to support Trump.   So everyone in the D party thinks that he has no support.   

Notice that here, in the enlightened Standupzone,  TRUMP is at 46 percent after being in office for 2 years. 

JP
If there were no electoral college, your state wouldn't have made a decision that creates a situation where even if every voter in your state voted for one candidate, every one of your electoral votes could go to his or her opponent.  Instead of that fiasco, I'd rather have no electoral college, with my vote counting the same as everyone else's.


Not sure why you're talking about Trump, "your side", etc. 





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Re: 2020 Vision
« Reply #700 on: April 29, 2019, 02:17:36 AM »
I’m told that there are good reasons why the US system needs some people’s votes to count more than others in presidential elections, and that it is a useful workaround.

But for sure, there must be a risk to such a workaround. A similar situation here in the UK (“United Kingdom”) might be about to break up the UK. The UK is comprised of 4 “states”: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. There are governments for each one of these, except England. England is only represented by the overall U.K. government that sits in London, and includes representatives from each of the individual “states” (we call them countries but they are more like your states I think, in fact). So this means that a Scottish person for instance has representation both in Scotland, and also the UK government. But if you are English, you only have representation in the overall UK government.

This causes constant friction, because England is by far the biggest one of the four countries. But we have less representation, just like your bigger states do. Political theorists have suggested that this is a substantial factor behind the Brexit vote: the economically catastrophic vote for the UK to leave the European Union. Brexit threatens to break up the United Kingdom entirely, since Scotland for instance voted strongly to remain in the EU, and now there is a movement for Scotland to leave the UK in order to remain in the EU. There is a similar issue with Northern Ireland, where many would rather join with Ireland and stay in the EU than remain part of the UK and leave the EU.

So, from our perspective right now, there are risks to having a “each vote counts differently ” and a “first past the post” system rather than eg. proportional representation. Just as there are risks to having a proportional representation system, and each vote counting equally. These problems will exacerbate when you have a country where there are large cultural and economic differences between different regions. And I suspect that is what has happened both in the UK and the US: rising inequality over the last few decades has led to big economic differences between states, leading to cultural differences that have created fracture lines which are manifesting themselves as populism and accelerating division and acrimony amongst different groups within the union.

The solution? Tackle rising inequality. How much longer can we carry on with the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer? Inevitably, there are going to be consequences. Moreover, as Elizabeth Warren has pointed out, although US household income is higher than it used to be, the increase in wages for a family has come mostly from the second paycheck earned by a working mother rather than real-terms increase in wages. So now you have two parents going to work rather than raising the kids (or one parent struggling alone). Which has consequences too.

According to Wikipedia:

“During the economic expansion between 2002 and 2007, the income of the top 1% grew 10 times faster than the income of the bottom 90%. In this period 66% of total income gains went to the 1%, who in 2007 had a larger share of total income than at any time since 1928. According to PolitiFact and others, the top 400 wealthiest Americans "have more wealth than half of all Americans combined."’

There are going to be consequences for that. Trump is it, IMO. So, removing Trump won’t remove the problem: he is the symptom not the cause. Which is why I’m sceptical that Biden is radical enough to give hope to those who have lost theirs; elect Biden and then next year it will be something even more extreme than Trump that pops up. IMO the answer is to lance the boil, and the boil is rising inequality. But will those who have benefitted from rising inequality be willing to give up some of their gains in order to maintain political stability? AI and robotics is just going to accelerate rising inequality even further.

RideTheGlide

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Re: 2020 Vision
« Reply #701 on: April 29, 2019, 04:23:56 AM »
I’m told that there are good reasons why the US system needs some people’s votes to count more than others in presidential elections, and that it is a useful workaround.

But for sure, there must be a risk to such a workaround. A similar situation here in the UK (“United Kingdom”) might be about to break up the UK. The UK is comprised of 4 “states”: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. There are governments for each one of these, except England. England is only represented by the overall U.K. government that sits in London, and includes representatives from each of the individual “states” (we call them countries but they are more like your states I think, in fact). So this means that a Scottish person for instance has representation both in Scotland, and also the UK government. But if you are English, you only have representation in the overall UK government.

This causes constant friction, because England is by far the biggest one of the four countries. But we have less representation, just like your bigger states do. Political theorists have suggested that this is a substantial factor behind the Brexit vote: the economically catastrophic vote for the UK to leave the European Union. Brexit threatens to break up the United Kingdom entirely, since Scotland for instance voted strongly to remain in the EU, and now there is a movement for Scotland to leave the UK in order to remain in the EU. There is a similar issue with Northern Ireland, where many would rather join with Ireland and stay in the EU than remain part of the UK and leave the EU.

So, from our perspective right now, there are risks to having a “each vote counts differently ” and a “first past the post” system rather than eg. proportional representation. Just as there are risks to having a proportional representation system, and each vote counting equally. These problems will exacerbate when you have a country where there are large cultural and economic differences between different regions. And I suspect that is what has happened both in the UK and the US: rising inequality over the last few decades has led to big economic differences between states, leading to cultural differences that have created fracture lines which are manifesting themselves as populism and accelerating division and acrimony amongst different groups within the union.

The solution? Tackle rising inequality. How much longer can we carry on with the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer? Inevitably, there are going to be consequences. Moreover, as Elizabeth Warren has pointed out, although US household income is higher than it used to be, the increase in wages for a family has come mostly from the second paycheck earned by a working mother rather than real-terms increase in wages. So now you have two parents going to work rather than raising the kids (or one parent struggling alone). Which has consequences too.

According to Wikipedia:

“During the economic expansion between 2002 and 2007, the income of the top 1% grew 10 times faster than the income of the bottom 90%. In this period 66% of total income gains went to the 1%, who in 2007 had a larger share of total income than at any time since 1928. According to PolitiFact and others, the top 400 wealthiest Americans "have more wealth than half of all Americans combined."’

There are going to be consequences for that. Trump is it, IMO. So, removing Trump won’t remove the problem: he is the symptom not the cause. Which is why I’m sceptical that Biden is radical enough to give hope to those who have lost theirs; elect Biden and then next year it will be something even more extreme than Trump that pops up. IMO the answer is to lance the boil, and the boil is rising inequality. But will those who have benefitted from rising inequality be willing to give up some of their gains in order to maintain political stability? AI and robotics is just going to accelerate rising inequality even further.
I agree with much of what you say, though IMO there were better reasons why the US system needs some people’s votes to count more than others in presidential elections in the past than there are today. Useful workaround? The bloodiest war in US history probably never would have happened without such a strong sentiment for states rights.

These days our democratic republic is largely a facade for a corrupt oligarchy.

I like Warren; she has a lot of concrete policy proposals. It's unfortunate that substance doesn't win elections in the US. She has too much attack surface, doesn't scrap well and speaks over the heads of too many people. She would likely lose. Biden's biggest positive is that he can win. I don't think enough people are convinced that economic inequality is a huge problem for a politician to win with that as the centerpiece. It's like climate change; even though the theory about where it is headed has been a near certainty for some time, the conclusion that it is correct has only been a majority opinion in the US for a short while. It didn't happen until we started seeing real catastrophic effects.

IMO, one of our biggest problems is our two party system. There are a lot of single issue voters out there who turn a blind eye to the moral bankruptcy of candidates or to policy positions they don't agree with if the party or candidate is aligned on their important issue.

It's a problem that a vote for president in Wyoming carries three times the weight of a vote in California. That should be addressed, but I do think we have more pressing problems.
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eastbound

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Re: 2020 Vision
« Reply #702 on: April 29, 2019, 05:01:14 AM »
"Notice that here, in the enlightened Standupzone,  TRUMP is at 46 percent after being in office for 2 years."

But notice that the Trump voters wont engage any reasonable dialogue here--it's telling that they wont say why they voted for Trump, with a willingness to dialogue about their reasoning.

Trump voters are not interested in being challenged by the facts. And they dont want to have to acknowledge and say they are aok with the innumerable disgraceful things Trump has said and done.

His ramble ons in green bay and at the nra convention were total embarrassments full of the usual lying insult and divisiveness.

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Re: 2020 Vision
« Reply #703 on: April 29, 2019, 05:30:53 AM »
"Notice that here, in the enlightened Standupzone,  TRUMP is at 46 percent after being in office for 2 years."

But notice that the Trump voters wont engage any reasonable dialogue here--it's telling that they wont say why they voted for Trump, with a willingness to dialogue about their reasoning.

Trump voters are not interested in being challenged by the facts. And they dont want to have to acknowledge and say they are aok with the innumerable disgraceful things Trump has said and done.

His ramble ons in green bay and at the nra convention were total embarrassments full of the usual lying insult and divisiveness.

I notice this even more in "water cooler" conversations. Lots of closet bigotry where I am, or at least closeted in most public situations.  Lots of fear of liberal ideas because of the way they are portrayed by conservative media. A few people do seem to buy into the economic fairy tale of favoring corporate and interests of the ultra rich in hopes that they will get less greedy and share some wealth; hasn't happened in the ~40 years it's been tried and won't happen now. Anyway, he won this state and might again yet it's hard to get anyone to engage in a meaningful conversation about why anyone should vote for him.
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jpeter

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Re: 2020 Vision
« Reply #704 on: April 29, 2019, 05:51:46 AM »
If there were no electoral college, your state wouldn't have made a decision that creates a situation where even if every voter in your state voted for one candidate, every one of your electoral votes could go to his or her opponent.  Instead of that fiasco, I'd rather have no electoral college, with my vote counting the same as everyone else's.


Not sure why you're talking about Trump, "your side", etc.

The "fiasco" in my state is exactly that,  no electoral college.  I would rather that my vote count toward my states share in the presidential decision.

As fas as Trump, your side, etc ..   All the discussion that I hear about electoral college being outdated or a bad thing seems to be coming from those who feel that Hillary Clintons popular vote win should have had her as president.
JP

 


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