Posted on 09/23/2005 10:22:35 AM PDT by kiriath_jearim
Jeff opposes "Constitution Worship", even though the Constitution has served us well for over 200 years with minor adjustments. I wonder if he feels the same about "Earth Worship", where every year we have schools and governments around the country celebrating "earth day" and worshipping the sanctity of the planet - they have a religious beleif that the Earth should exist in the condition that it would if we weren't here; isn't that even more a religion than believing in the constitution???
Then, of course, you disapprove of the US Senate also, since California and Rhode Island have the same number of Senators - two. Shouldn't California have many more Senators just to be 'fair'? The Electoral College is not 'undemocratic' as you stated, every State in the Union gets representation equal to the number of its Represenatives and Senators in Congress, the people of each of the States have an equal chance to vote for a particular Slate of Electors of their State - what could be more fair than this?
If you are objecting to the fact that 48 of the 50 States in the Union use a 'winner-take-all' solution to the allocation of their allotted Electors - that is a matter for each State Legislature to decide. There is nothing in the Federal Constitution which prevents States from allocating Electors based on a proportional plan, a district plan, 'winner-take-all' or even be selected directly by the State Legislature.
Your beef is with the State Legislatures, not the Electoral College. However, direct nationwide popular elections, heavens no. The Consititution was configured to have the qualified population vote directly for their Representative in the House and is the only Federal vote which was originally mandated by the Constitution. The Seventeenth amendment forced on the nation by the Populists now has the voters choose the Senators also in direct popular elections - a big mistake. Since the United States is a Federal Republic of 50 sovereign States, there should be no Federal national election for the office of President and Vice-President, the States are the ones to choose the holders of those Offices.
Can you think of one Federal Office which is selected by a direct nation-wide Federal office? There are none since we are a nation with dual sovereigns - State and Federal.
dvwjr
The Constitution is only as good as the people we elect to uphold and the judges they appoint to interpret it.
That's not very good these days.
Ha ha, great imitationm of a stupid left-winger. You just forgot the /sarcasm tag.
Great imitation of a guy who can't spell, you might want to remember yours too.
I may be wrong, but it looks like you're saying what the North did was unfair to the South, but I just may be misreading it.
Jeff Mankoff - jeffrey.mankoff@yale.edu
Future plans: Mr. Mankoff hopes to work as a national security analyst, either for the US government or for a policy institute.
No, I am pointing out that the much belittled "three-fifths" of a person mentioned in the Federal Constitution is usually ascribed to the 'evil' slave-holding South - which would have been happy to see slaves counted as a whole person, just as were women and childern. The provision should be tied to the Northern States.
You see, while slaves, women and childern all were counted in the census taken every ten years to allocated Congressional representation, only the white property-holding males were at first entitled to the Federal vote. The Northern States had wanted slaves counted as were Indians for the purposes of the census - not at all. So when the racial tub-thumpers get up on their historical hight horse, they should at least give credit to the Northern States for that phrase being in the US Constitution...
dvwjr
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