Posted on 02/04/2007 11:29:41 AM PST by Bean Counter
As a columnist, I'm often asked by aspiring young wordsmiths if they should follow their dreams and become writers. Typically I will invoke the sage advice of Matt Foley, the motivational speaker played by Chris Farley on "Saturday Night Live" in 1992. I like to lean forward and tell the kids: "You're not! Gonna amount! To Jack Squat!"
Yes, mine is a hapless livelihood, using mere words to try to make the world a better place. Better to pursue law or medicine, I tell the students.
One of my fruitless crusades has been advocating the abolition of the Electoral College. Most folks have their minds made up on this system of electing a U.S. president, but my crusade persists, and I have to ask: Look back on the past six years. Now are you ready to abolish the Electoral College?
Fans of this cockamamie system don't like being asked these two easy questions:
When free people elect their leader, could there ever be anything wrong with the leading vote-getter winning? The answer, of course, is no.
Among free people, should one vote ever count more than another? The answer, again, is no. Americans decided long ago that skin color, gender, economic status and other personal traits must never matter in voting. We can deprive some people (felons) of their right to vote, but once a person is admitted to the polling place, the one-man, one-vote concept must reign supreme. Yet, as I have written before, in the 2000 presidential election Wyoming residents had one electoral vote per 164,592 residents while California had one electoral vote per 627,253 residents. That is blatantly un-American.
Electoral College defenders boast that the system helps discourage presidential candidates from campaigning only in heavily populated states. In reality, though, the Electoral College forces candidates to flock to "swing" states in pursuit of electoral votes. If your state is not a hotly contested battleground state -- large or small -- you're destined to be ignored by the candidates.
Consider the six-year box score
It could be said that because of the 2000 results of the Electoral College:
More than 3,000 members of the U.S. military have died fighting a war that has no military solution.
The Republican Party's proud and rigid fiscal spine has been extracted by a Republican president who presides over such runaway spending that a record surplus became a record deficit.
Americans' telephones have been tapped and our mail has been opened by our government without the warrants that our Constitution requires.
Americans have a president who has issued 750-plus "signing statements" (more than all other presidents combined), each statement essentially declaring that the president can ignore the attached legislation anytime he wants.
Finally, it could be said that the half-million-plus Americans who gave Al Gore the highest number of votes in the 2000 presidential election were wise in their choice, but alas, irrelevant.
Yes, friends, it's been a long six years, and I have to ask again: Now are you reading to abolish the Electoral College?
In about 45 states, there are bills pending that would allow states to circumvent the Electoral College. Through an interstate compact, states would agree to direct their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote, thus avoiding the need for a constitutional amendment to end the Electoral College. In our state, the bills are SB 5628 (Sen. Craig Pridemore, D-Vancouver, deserves praise as one of four sponsors) and HB 1750. If you believe an election should be won by the leading vote-getter, and if you believe every vote must count equally, then you should support these bills. Remember, no other meaningful national election in America is subject to reversal by the Electoral College, only our most critical one.
Of course, there's no way of knowing if Al Gore would've been any better than what the Electoral College forced upon us in 2000. He might have been worse. He could have become the worst president in U.S. history. We just don't know. But this much we do know about any such President Gore of 2000: He would've been duly elected.
That should be the great civic hope of every American. Sadly, though, until we crusaders raise the volume of our rage, well, Matt Foley was probably right.
We have seen this ongoing attempt to subvert the Consitution, without having to bother with that messy old Amendment thang, over and over again from the whole DU/CU/LU/NU Genre, People4Change, Daily KOS, MoveOn.org, Code Pinko, Cindy al Sheehani, the Socialists, the Communists, and every other far-left nutroots cause for at least since Reagan was elected.
And here we go again, dredging up the samo old nonsense all over again. I guess Tovarish Laird should at least get credit for finally outing himself for what he really is...
I do suspect that part of what spawned this is the fact that Molly Ivens has (finally!!) assumed Room Temperature, and Tovarish John, being a failed Sports Writer in the "Fort Worthless Jim" Texas Democrat style, and run out of Tejas to the Pacifist Northwest some four years ago, finally sees his chance to be heard since Molly can no longer suck all the Oxygen out of anything ever again...
Yes John, "hapless livlihood" is a good phrase to describe what you do for a living...
Stout Hearts!!
Why would they ask YOU? You never did.
"You're not! Gonna amount! To Jack Squat!"
I know Jack Squat. You're not half the writer he is.
Yes, mine is a hapless livelihood, using mere words to try to make the world a better place. Better to pursue law or medicine, I tell the students.
Are you kidding? Better to pursue used cars sales than the feckless path this clown has chosen!
There are many colleges not worth saving. The Columbia School of Journalism is on the S_it Parade.
Apparently, though, the enemy believes it does have a military solution.
"The Columbia School of Journalism is on the S_it Parade."
Agreed! And they are generally regarded as one of the "better" schools IIRC.
The electoral college is a pressure release valve. The only reason liberals hate it is because they see it as a barrier to seizing power and holding it forever.
As usual they don't bother to think past their immediate wants. A few years of strict control from the cities would cause a great deal of anger in flyover country where the food is.
That sums up why you never see unbiased "news" reported, lies, doctored pics, false statements are what we get instead. Journalists are taught in journalism 101 by the leftist moonbat (I have a PHD so I know all)"professor" that it's their job to use the media as a tool to change the world into the Marxist utopia they think it should be.
Still whining about the 2000 election!
The reason is the dems are so arrogant and elitist .. they believe they are "born to rule". Therefore, when anyone gets in their way then it has to be rigged .. the "little people" couldn't possibly reject them .. it has to be some sort of mistake.
The Electoral College makes a good excuse for the dems loss. Even when Bush got re-elected with over FOUR MILLION more votes .. the dems still whined about voter problems in Ohio.
Frankly .. I don't give a rip what they think!
For instance, Wyoming--the state sneeringly referenced by the author--would never, ever see a presidential candidate within its borders. The Electoral College makes each state a potential key to victory, regardless of its population. I doubt that the smaller states would have ratified the Constitution in the first place had the case been otherwise.
If, all other things being equal, Dubya had won the popular vote in 2000 and Al Gore had won the electoral vote, does anybody seriously think the left and the press (to the extent they're separate institutions) would be making the argument that the Electoral College sucks and needs to be ended?
Sorry, rhetorical question.
Those two sentences are all you need to know about this assclown's "understanding" of the carefully debated and deliberately considered founding documents of the United States of America. See you on another thread!
What kind of solution does it have then? Should Iraq just be allowed to become a freeforall killing zone? Turn it into a tourist attraction for the tourist who is seeking the ultimate adrenalin rush- to walk into Baghdad and kill or be killed before they get to the exit on the other side of the city?
Iraq MUST be resolved by military action. It has been the LACK of it that has caused it to become what it is today. We have proved beyond all doubt that politics and polliticians, political correctness do not belong on the battlefield. (Nor does media)
It must also not fall under Irans control, or else democrats will be responsible for millions more deaths.
What's unconscionable is the Supreme Court telling the states they must have equal representation in both houses of their state legislatures, rather than the geographically based districts that once existed in the "upper house" in many states.
Oh, I get it. You didn't really want a dialogue, you wanted to dictate (to impose, pronounce, or specify authoritatively).
Visions of potentate?
The "New CCCP" would be the "Columbian's Collection of Communist Pundits"...
Stout Hearts....
Someone who knows his subject, would know that the manner of election of Presidents and the terms that they serve has drawn more proposed amendments in Congress, by far, than any other subject. Roughly 1,000 of 10,000 proposed amendments have been on the Presidency. There is general agreement that the E.C. OUGHT to be changed. But there is no agreement on what that change would be.
So, this moron suggests we subvert the entire Constitution by violating the amendment clause. Way to go, Einstein.
Congressman Billybob
Latest article: "Announcement: I'm Not Running for President"
The basic benefit of the Electoral College is to prevent the democrats from using their normal fraudulent voting techniques in major urban areas from simply upping the count to control the entire national election - they cannot do that now easily with the electoral college.
As to Al Gore being the legitimate victor in 2000, I'll believe that when they check the citizenship of every single person who voted in 2000. I'll bet we would easily find 500,000 illegal aliena, convicted felons, and comatose nursing home residents.
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