Your staunch opposition of the repeal - full of logical fallacies, an absence of reason, and plenty of emotional elitism - has led me to the conclusion that you are happy with the current situation. Is that the case?
You may portray senators - prior to the 17th Amendment’s passage - as corrupt elitists, but you ignore or chose not to address the fact that since today’s senators are elected by the people that they are somehow less corrupt. Throughout 5,000 years of human history, politicians have proven themselves to be corrupt elitists. Instead of halting corruption, the 17th Amendment opened the door to far more corruption. Once the states no longer had representation and U.S. senators no longer had to answer to the states, the size of the federal government exploded and the budget grew exponentially.
Words like democracy sound wonderful and from a psychological aspect are quite effective (although misleading in this case), but we now have 100 years of history to examine. The 17th Amendment is not a suicide pact and should be re-examined to determine whether it is the best path forward for a more prosperous society.
Again, Max, it is not Billy & I who have been besieging this thread with personal attacks and the like over a disagreement. I’ve frankly been shocked by the behavior of pro-17th repealers, not only in this thread, but in others, who behave more like a mob out of “Les Miserables.” I don’t question the high-minded motives of those wanting a better government, it’s that the problem that those pushing for this fail to ponder what would actually result.
It’s like the academics. They have their theories that always work on paper, but when put into motion in reality, ends up something far different. I study the realities of what the state legislatures are, who populates them and controls them, the state of our political parties, the current culture and all those other ingredients that are left out by the repealers. The resulting mishmosh is a completely inedible substance.
Too many here are believing that repeal would immediately lead to some political nirvana, a modern day era of good feelings, some early 19th century vision. Again, unless you’re planning on changing the current culture, the folks who participate in elections, virtually the entire society and remove it to, say, exclusively enlightened and educated White male landowners, and absent a parasitic class of low and no information political participants, you’re not going to have the Senate of your fantasy.