Quote from: WarthurWhy, exactly, should 100 people in the countryside be able to have a disproportionate say over 1000 people in the city?

Why indeed? The difference in the population of ridings in Alberta is as high as 40 per cent, with the low-population ridings all the rural part of the province and the high-population ridings all in the cities. I'd like to hear some justification for why rural citizens should have 1.4 times the political influence of urban citizens.

Please remember, this is balanced out in other ways, at least in the US system.

I'd have to go and check, but it has something to do with how the Electoral College works in relation to Congress, etc.

It's really a quite complex little balancing act, which is why I am always loathe to change it without a thorough overhaul of the entire system, which would require amendments to the Constitution, which, in turn would open up a Constitutional Amendment process, which, in turn would allow anyone to put anything up for amendment consideration...and nobody wants that right now.

Quote from: WarthurWhy, exactly, should 100 people in the countryside be able to have a disproportionate say over 1000 people in the city?

The short answer is because it seems to work better that way, so long as the imbalance is not too great.

Quote from: WarthurActually, the Scottish Parliament is a very recent innovation which is already causing headaches.

Why does it exist, then?

Quote from: WarthurNot at all. The federal government is the national government. The state governments are the state governments. Some powers are exercised by the states on their own behalf, some are exercised by the federal government on behalf of the entire nation. The distribution of these powers are controlled by the constitution. State borders matter when it comes to state powers, but mean nothing to the federal government; why should they matter when it comes to federal elections?

Because, state and local borders matter for local issues, which go up to the top level.  Remember, you are talking to someone who thinks that the direct popular election of Senators was a bad idea.  I like having two legislative bodies that represent two different slices of the country.

Quote from: HaffrungWhy indeed? The difference in the population of ridings in Alberta is as high as 40 per cent, with the low-population ridings all the rural part of the province and the high-population ridings all in the cities. I'd like to hear some justification for why rural citizens should have 1.4 times the political influence of urban citizens.

Why is direct democracy a bad idea?

Quote from: John MorrowWhy does it exist, then?

Because Labour wanted to win the Scottish vote, so they promised a referendum on devolution, which duly voted for a Scottish Parliament. It was fine up until about a year ago, when Labour lost control of the Scottish Parliament; now we're getting a taste of what having the Scottish Parliament and the national Parliament being controlled by different parties is like. (Clue: bad for the union.)

Quote from: WarthurBecause Labour wanted to win the Scottish vote, so they promised a referendum on devolution, which duly voted for a Scottish Parliament. It was fine up until about a year ago, when Labour lost control of the Scottish Parliament; now we're getting a taste of what having the Scottish Parliament and the national Parliament being controlled by different parties is like. (Clue: bad for the union.)

That's the funny thing about democracy.  It doesn't always go the way you want it to. And it's silly when people assume it will always go their way.

Quote from: John MorrowWhy is direct democracy a bad idea?

Direct democracy is not the same things as one person, one vote.

If it's okay to give some citizens greater voting power because they live in a rural community, then why not give some citizens greater influence at the polls because they are older, or because they earn more money? What's so special about living in the countryside that it warrants this unique distortion of democracy?

I'll tell you what it is; it's easier to bribe rural voters than urban voters. You can lock up a small, homogenous town with a new fire hall, a re-paved highway, or agricultural subsidies much easier than you can a diverse and densely populated city. And once you have those voters bought with pork, you turn around and give them disproportionally greater say in choosing the next government so they can return the favour and keep the pork coming.

I know in Canada (and I'm pretty sure it's the same in the U.S.) there is a significant disparity between the urban and the rural tax base. Urbanization continues apace, and rural communities continue to decline demographically and economically. Politicians have found it useful to take the money generated by cities, use it to bribe rural voters, and then ignore the changing demographs and continue to give the rural voters a political clout that their numbers no longer warrant - a clout that the rural voters often use to drive policies that are against the interests of the people who pay the bills; the urban voters.

It's funny that in all the calls for electoral reform in Canada, you don't hear much about the disproportionate clout that rural citizens wield over urban citizens. I think that's due to a fair number of urban voters who still have attachments to their rural homelands, and who feel a bit of guilt about abandoning the dying communities that their parents grew up in. Hopefullly, that sentiment will die out over time.

[cross-posted from Political Panel thread]

Quote from: WerekoalaI would assume that one of the two parties involved in a tapped call would have to be a known or suspected terrorist, by the usual means of determining that someone is a suspect. How that determination is usually made, I'm not sure, but there must be a procedure.

Yeah, ask Maher Arar about those procedures. Playing on the same soccer team as a guy who has links to radical groups in Syria will get you a one-way ticket to Damascus and months of beatings and torture. But hey, the guy's name is Maher Arara, he's swarthy and he has a beard. And he's a muslim. So it's best to err on the side of caution.

It's easy to handwave away the qualifications for 'suspected terrorist' when you don't meet the racial and religious profile. Easy to trust the government when you know you won't be mistakenly added to the list.

Imagine if playing on the same baseball team as a guy who was once in the Ohio militia was enough to get you rounded up, thrown in a prison cell without counsel, and tortured. Imagine if guys named Kevin and Jim were being put on CIA suspect lists and having their phone conversations taped. I think you'd see a little more outcry about abuse of government authority.

Quote from: Haffrung[cross-posted from Political Panel thread]
Yeah, ask Maher Arar about those procedures. Playing on the same soccer team as a guy who has links to radical groups in Syria will get you a one-way ticket to Damascus and months of beatings and torture. But hey, the guy's name is Maher Arara, he's swarthy and he has a beard. And he's a muslim. So it's best to err on the side of caution.

Yeah - damn Canadians! Make sure you got the right guy before you detain him and hand him over to the US.

Pish - some people. :rolleyes:

Quote from: HaffrungDirect democracy is not the same things as one person, one vote.

Correct.  But they share some of the same liabilities with respect to the balance of power.

Quote from: HaffrungIf it's okay to give some citizens greater voting power because they live in a rural community, then why not give some citizens greater influence at the polls because they are older, or because they earn more money?  What's so special about living in the countryside that it warrants this unique distortion of democracy?

The disparate influence on the basis of age and money already happens in the United States because a higher percentage of older people vote and wealthier people donate money to politicians.

As for what's special about living in the countryside, it has to do with the fact that government policies affect the use of the land upon which they live.  People who live in rural areas occupy more land than those who live in cities.

To illustrate the issue, some Western regions of the United States are sparsely populated.  Large cities have a garbage disposal problem.  With a strong central government, no recognition of state boundaries, and representation based solely on population, it becomes easy for New York City to "volunteer" rural Pennsylvania to become a garbage dump.  Or Maine to host nuclear power plants.  Or to force Florida to accept off-shore drilling just a few miles off its coast.

Giving rural voters a stronger voice basically gives the land a vote.

Quote from: HaffrungI'll tell you what it is; it's easier to bribe rural voters than urban voters. You can lock up a small, homogenous town with a new fire hall, a re-paved highway, or agricultural subsidies much easier than you can a diverse and densely populated city. And once you have those voters bought with pork, you turn around and give them disproportionally greater say in choosing the next government so they can return the favour and keep the pork coming.

Are you kidding?  Have you ever seen urban machine politics in action?  Have you looked at the voting patterns in your supposedly "diverse" cities?  You are talking to someone who lives in the most densely populated state in the United States.  

Yes, rural voters get bribed by pork but so do Urban voters.  Yes, rural voters get a disproportionate share of money but the reasons for that are complicated and range from the fact that rural infrastructure is more expensive to build and maintain to the fact that people in rural areas tend to be poorer than those in urban areas and thus qualify for benefits directed to the poor.  Military bases are located in rural areas because they want them and urban areas don't (San Francisco didn't even want a decommissioned battleship).  Are there problems with the system?  Sure.  But they also have to do with committees, seniority, and insufficient churn of senators which, again, is partially a result of changing the way senators were elected early in the 20th Century.

Quote from: HaffrungI know in Canada (and I'm pretty sure it's the same in the U.S.) there is a significant disparity between the urban and the rural tax base. Urbanization continues apace, and rural communities continue to decline demographically and economically. Politicians have found it useful to take the money generated by cities, use it to bribe rural voters, and then ignore the changing demographs and continue to give the rural voters a political clout that their numbers no longer warrant - a clout that the rural voters often use to drive policies that are against the interests of the people who pay the bills; the urban voters.

Then why do the urban voters (in the United States, anyway) keep voting for politicians who want to raise taxes, increase Federal spending, and have the government pay for more?  Why are the urban voters voting against their own best interests instead of solving their problems locally with state and local taxes?  Isn't this an argument for solving problems locally and not using the central government to redistribute wealth?  

Quote from: HaffrungIt's funny that in all the calls for electoral reform in Canada, you don't hear much about the disproportionate clout that rural citizens wield over urban citizens. I think that's due to a fair number of urban voters who still have attachments to their rural homelands, and who feel a bit of guilt about abandoning the dying communities that their parents grew up in. Hopefullly, that sentiment will die out over time.

And then what?  What happens to the rural areas and what happens to the urban areas?

Quote from: HaffrungImagine if playing on the same baseball team as a guy who was once in the Ohio militia was enough to get you rounded up, thrown in a prison cell without counsel, and tortured. Imagine if guys named Kevin and Jim were being put on CIA suspect lists and having their phone conversations taped. I think you'd see a little more outcry about abuse of government authority.

I think that most Americans wouldn't have a problem with phone tapping guys named Kevin and Jim if they hung out with guys in a militia and the goal was to stop another Oklahoma City bomb from going off.  In fact, the government has done a lot of investigation and even harassment of people with names like Kevin and Jim in various militia and fringe religious groups.  And while Ruby Ridge is a rallying cry for many militia groups and people on the far-right, it's not a source of major outrage for most Americans.

And other people with names like Kevin and Jim do get swept up in bombing investigations.  Look up the name "Richard Jewell", for example.

Yes, I know the idea that all white Americans are racists who only care about what happens to other white people and have no broader sense of justice or fairness fits a certain left-wing narrative of how the world works but there is plenty of evidence to the contrary.  The reason why people of Middle Eastern descent or who are overtly Muslim are being harassed is because people of Middle Eastern descent or who are Muslim were the perpetrators of 9/11 and plenty of other terrorists attacks (including a soldier attacking other soldiers during the preparation for the invasion of Iraq).  If people named Kevin and Jim were flying passenger planes into office towers and fragging their fellow soldiers to hurt America, I have little doubt that they'd be getting more scrutiny and doubt the American public would disapprove.

Quote from: John MorrowI think that most Americans wouldn't have a problem with phone tapping guys named Kevin and Jim if they hung out with guys in a militia and the goal was to stop another Oklahoma City bomb from going off.  In fact, the government has done a lot of investigation and even harassment of people with names like Kevin and Jim in various militia and fringe religious groups.  And while Ruby Ridge is a rallying cry for many militia groups and people on the far-right, it's not a source of major outrage for most Americans.

And other people with names like Kevin and Jim do get swept up in bombing investigations.  Look up the name "Richard Jewell", for example.

Yes, I know the idea that all white Americans are racists who only care about what happens to other white people and have no broader sense of justice or fairness fits a certain left-wing narrative of how the world works but there is plenty of evidence to the contrary.  The reason why people of Middle Eastern descent or who are overtly Muslim are being harassed is because people of Middle Eastern descent or who are Muslim were the perpetrators of 9/11 and plenty of other terrorists attacks (including a soldier attacking other soldiers during the preparation for the invasion of Iraq).  If people named Kevin and Jim were flying passenger planes into office towers and fragging their fellow soldiers to hurt America, I have little doubt that they'd be getting more scrutiny and doubt the American public would disapprove.

I have to agree with John on this one. The problem isn't with racism; Americans are just generally ok with people losing civil liberties if it means their own personal security is supposedly improved.  I don't think people would be more upset if it was guys named Jim and Bob; the only things that could get them more upset is that it becomes clearer and clearer that people IN GENERAL who have nothing to do with terrorism are being targetted, and that specifically people involved in anti-war movements or other movements that are opposed to the current government are targetted.

Likewise, I don't think that racial profiling is a bad thing as such. Obviously, the young male muslim guy is MORE likely to be a terrorist by virtue of pure statistics than the 70 year old white grandmother or the 5 year old chinese boy, and should expect to be subject to more scrutiny than the latter two in high-security areas. To suggest that instead out of some misplaced sense of fairness we need to treat all three equally is just stupid.
The key is we should also protect the rights of the young male muslim guy in general and make sure that if he's NOT a terrorist, he (or the white male anti-war protester, or anyone else) isn't mistreated by the government under the cover of "the war on terror".

RPGPundit

But this is small potatoes compared to the UK, where you literally have police cameras on virtually every street. Is this really something we want in society? Do the Europeans have any right to look down on the "Loss of liberties" in the US when they engage in this kind of blatant violations of privacy? Is this sort of shit really necessary to create a peaceful society? Does it really help in any meaningful way to prevent either crime or terrorism?

Just a quick reply from an English gent on this. No, we do not 'literally have police cameras on virtually every street'. However, in the UK, you are aledgedly nearer to a CCTV camera than anywhere else in the world (although, i appear to be at least 15 minutes from the closest one). We are the most monitered country on the planet (i believe). The real sad thing about this is that it's got fuck all to do with terrorism and everything to do with alcohol fueled crime. We've had a problem for a while now and it's gotten very bad within the last 5 years or so. Go into town for a drink and you're entering another world these days. I live in a small market town (maybe 30,000 inhabitants spread over a good few square miles), and even here, unless you're in company, don't walk about after pub closing time. We had a murder here last week and the number of violent crimes is unrecognisable from even 10 years ago. We have a big problem with drinking in this country and the multitude of close circuit tv cameras are largely due to the huge increase in crime due to alcohol consumption. Couple that with the inevitable reductions on police spending and the officers to cope with the increase in this crime and the cameras are the result. Sad, but true.

Identity cards are another kettle of fish, however. But considering that the home office has just 'lost' the details of 25 million peoples' child benifit details, including adresses, bank account details etc, hopefully, that'll die a death pretty quickly as people lose faith in this sort of 'big brother' monitoring ...

Chicago has been on a tear, lately. My understanding is that they are building quite the battery of camera - particularly on the mass transit lines.

And seen, this very evening on the way to pick up the car from the shop, a village information sign that bragged "Red Light Camera's Coming Soon!"

Quote from: James J SkachChicago has been on a tear, lately. My understanding is that they are building quite the battery of camera - particularly on the mass transit lines.

And seen, this very evening on the way to pick up the car from the shop, a village information sign that bragged "Red Light Camera's Coming Soon!"

Chicago has got batshit insane in all kinds of areas.  Look at the fois gras issue.  Or the opposition to "big box" stores.  Etc.