[EM] You Can't Have it Both Ways

[Raph Frank]

On Sat, Oct 18, 2008 at 6:07 PM, Greg Nisbet <gregory.nisbet at gmail.com> wrote:
> Yep

You support world democracy?

Ok, I disagree.  There is more than one 'demos' in the world.

> Being a federation is fine. It simply means that power is constitutionally
> dervied from the constituent entities of the nation rather than from the
> national/federal government. The mere fact that federations often have equal
> representation for their entities in some chamber of their legislative
> assembly does not mean that all federations do/have to/should.

True, the main point is the division of power.  In a federation,
States have some power which the federal government cannot take away
from them.

You could have the federation exercise its own power by majority of
the federation, while still having States have authority within their
own borders for State power.

> It distorts the will of the people for the purpose of protecting them from
> themselves. That is the kind of thing I am skeptical of.

No, it protects one group of people (citizens of a State) from another
group of people (citizens of the federation).

>> It is reasonably legitimate, as long as the majority can change the
>> voting method via constitutional amendment.
>
>
> That is exactly my point! People will definitely be voting, directly or
> indirectly, for or against the constitutional amendment. If the government
> was allowed to tailor it to their liking in the first place then
> a distortion-free way to determine if people really want the constitution
> changed does not exist.

I guess it depends.  Most systems would allow a majority of the people
to obtain a majority in the legislature and then call the referendum,
if they cared enough.

In fact, a majority of the US population, if they set their mind to it
could change the US constitution.  They would have to be very unlucky
to be distributed so that they don't have a majority in at least 75%
of the States.  That gets them 75% of the Senate and a majority of the
House.

Congress tends to fold when the States start calling for a convention
and with most of the Senate and a majority of the House, they should
be be able to get the 2/3 of both Houses.

If they fail, they can pass the legislation to convene a
constitutional convention so that a majority can send an amendment to
the States.

Also, if they really wanted the amendment, they could move.

>> However, 'Americans' don't exist except as citizens of a federation.
>> Perhaps, this is not as significant for non-founder states,
>> California, for example, only existed as part of the US.
>
>
> Alright, that's ok. I'll define Americans: the people living in the United
> States of America. They do exist as a unit. It really doesn't matter if the
> government doesn't say that group's collective opinion is unimportant, they
> represent a defined group of people living beneath a common government and
> their opinion exists. Anyway, I think its clear that the opinion of the
> majority would in certain cases be overturned. When they do this

However, the States didn't agree to give all their sovereignty to the
federal government.  What gives the people in California the right to
tell people outside their borders what to do.

Ofc, I amn't a US citizen, so my opinion should be taken as discussing
the theory of federations :).

> Who they are is of utmost importance. I am saying that encouraging
> "favorable" but not necessarily democratic outcomes is to be mistrusted.
> Anyone controlling the voting system possesses formidable powers.

Ok, and also, gerrymandering powers are similar.

> sure. It doesn't really where matter so long as individual freedoms are
> protected in a way that cannot be randomly reneged. I meant a constitution
> in the sense of a collection of laws that no further laws can controvert. I
> wasn't referring to any nation's constitution or type of constitution in
> particular.

I am not a big believer in unchangeable constitutions.  The key point
about a constitution should be that it indicates the limits that the
people have delegated their power to their government.  It should
still be changeable by the people.  However, reasonable protections
against rash changes are acceptable.  It should not be allowed to
block the sustained will of the people.

However, the extent of who counts as 'the people' is a separate issue.
 In some cases the boundaries are clear, but in lots of cases it isn't
so clear.

> That is the idea. The government really shouldn't be allowed to mess with
> the voting system. There are dire consequences to that.

Right, my point was that voting systems and other procedures in
constitutions are harder to corrupt (though not impossible) by
reinterpreting them than bills of rights.

> I am saying that
> anyone who wants to design the voting system such that specific protections
> for the people are in place, they are nuts to do so. Such belongs in a
> constitution, not the voting method.

Well, so choosing a voting system with the goal of 'protecting
minorities' is acceptable ?

For example, I think approval voting would be helpful in a society
that is divided.  The person who gets elected President would have to
appeal to both groups.

In fact, it would probably be better than condorcet in this case.
Though, assuming that there are lots of members of both groups who
want to compromise, then a compromise winner would still be possible.