Replies

Ping! The thread has been posted.

Earlier threads:

Good mornin’, Pub’! A BTT for the morning crowd.

I don’t see any reason to repeat the conversation about increasing the number of representatives, since we seem to be a very small minority in that regard. I don’t know if there is anything in English common law that addresses the issue of holding elections at places where it is impossible for citizens to go to vote. I suspect that there is. The Bible addresses the issue of government making a pest of itself to the detriment of the people. Joseph and Mary were put out to the point of bearing Jesus in a stable because of the Roman census. So the issue of government arrogance in forcing people to travel is an old one, and familiar to the founders of The United States of America.

Brutus missed the opportunity to give a name to gerrymandering, as you pointed out. This mechanism of legislative self-perpetuation is just as insidious as moving the location of the election, yet it is much less understood. I don’t know the history of this either, and it’s worth an investigation to understand why they didn’t just move the elections when they wanted to exclude undesirable voters.

But, he really messed up when he stated, “The object of every free government is the public good, and all lesser interests yield to it.”

No, it isn’t. The object of a free government is to do what the constitution authorizes it to do. The public good has been a subject of contentious debate since Plato, and very rarely is there a truly “right” answer. That flawed premise, that some kind of romantic and profound uber-mensch can be found to be the next philosopher-king, inevitably leads to death and destruction.