@freemo
A few demographic factors that may affect this:
Urban areas have a higher concentration of more educated people
Urban areas have a higher concentration of non-white people
Education likely affects people’s trust in religious leaders (or even awareness of them). Exposure to other ethnicities and cultures likely drives compassion for them.
My point is simply that one shouldn’t interpret this as meaning that the blue sections are unfairly dominating the red sections. It may just as easily be interpreted as an uneducated and selfish group controlling the vast bulk of the territory.
@IAmErik I agree this shouldnt be used to suggest the blue sections are unfairly dominating the red… instead it simply means if you are almost anywhere in the USA, you are likely in a red area as very few places in america are blue…. In other words… there are no blue states on blue cities as the OP states.
@freemo The map might be more interesting if the color intensity would be according to the size of the population. Maybe the reds will be terribly washed out compared to the blues.
We have electorial colleges in the usa, so no it isnt one person one vote. We do this to ensure the interest of all groups and cultures must be considered and grouos that respresent minorities are less likely to be abused. Makes sense to me.
@freemo@thegonzoism@trinsec The electoral college only matters for one vote every four years. The popular vote matters the rest of the time, especially on local matters.
As well it shoukd be. The oresident resides over all regions and as such should be accepted by all cultures and regions. He should be discouraged from throwing minority cultures under a bus.
A congressman only has to represent his one district, he is local in nature, so he doesnt have to consider diverse cultures across different states and regions as he covers a small local area.
@freemo@thegonzoism@trinsec
(A) The electoral college seems to break in favor of the GOP, who minorities overwhelmingly vote against, so your theory there doesn't really match reality.
(B) Though a congressperson may only represent their district, they vote on legislation that affects the entire country, so that logic doesn't work. I don't want to elect someone who doesn't want to fund snowplows on northern highways just because he's from Florida.
We arent talki g racial minorities, we are talking american cultures. Southern culture, amish terretories, mennonite terretories, etc. Its not about race, wrong sort of minority in this context.
The logic works fine, there are senators that represent those other areas and their culture, so its fine. We also balance that out in a different way, by adding a fixed number of sentators as a base and then addind more due to population. This evens out the densities in a similar way.
The senators are elected with the exact same popular vote system as the house members. How is that different?
The senate doesn't "even out the densities". If anything, it makes the representation far more lopsided than it should be by, again, correlating arbitrary geographic boundaries with voting power.
In the house the number of seats per stste is based on population, bigger get more. The senate is fixed with each stste getting 2 and only 2. This ensures states that have low populations and are mostly red states in this case, get more representstion per person.
As ive stated, if balanced correctly (the numbers need twesking sometines) then yes. It prevents a tyranny of the minority as discussed. It ensures the various cultures we have who are small isolated groups (like the amish) dont get thrown under a bus for the whims of the majority
@freemo@thegonzoism@trinsec I gotta say, living in a country where we literally enslaved people, I'm much more concerned about the tyranny of the majority than the tyranny of the minority.
@freemo@thegonzoism@trinsec Well, I gotta say, if that's the goal, then weighting human beings' votes based on arbitrary, archaic geographic borders seems like an especially poor method of achieving it.
As America's population grows, new cities will bloom in currently-vacant states. Once there's a metropolis in every state, how well will this system prevent that "tyranny" you're concerned about?
@freemo@thegonzoism@trinsec We do in the house, which is actually somewhat representative, yes. But there's no tweaking in the senate. The boundaries of the states are fixed and there are two senators per state.
Which means that a person from Wyoming's vote is about 68x more powerful than a person from California in the Senate.
Yes but in the house the vote strongly favors california. It makes sense to me that the house shoukd be balanced for population and the senate flat. It ensures there must be both a majority acceptance, and a state-majority acceptance to pass new laws...
@freemo@thegonzoism@trinsec California has 30% more people than the second most populous state. For a vote to favor California is a sign that people are being properly represented. (And I don't like it any more than you; even living in the land of Florida Man, I think California is bonkers.)
Honestly, the better answer, in my opinion, would be to break up both California and Texas into into about three states each. That would allow better representation of the people in their local areas, instead of being lumped in with 40 million others.
@freemo@thegonzoism@trinsec But the real better answer is to stop weighting votes by arbitrary geographic boundaries and just count one vote for one adult citizen. That's true freedom and democracy.
That is no more "true" democracy than any of the other many forms of voting that exist that arent that simplistic... nor does it address a tyranny of the majority as well, so no, id rather it not.
@freemo@thegonzoism@trinsec Right, because they have more people. If you're measuring a vote by both number of people and breaking it down by geographic regions, then a fair vote should logically "favor" the geographic region with the most voters. That's simple statistics, not a problem to be solved.
Yes its about balancing the two... States each have their own laws, their own governance and their own cultures (to an extent)...A state is more like a country in some ways.
Its a bit like saying the USA should be able to dictate what the middle east can do in the UN simply because we have more people... If a state wants to keep its population down, and its people are responsible enough to keep a low population which is healthier for the people and environment, they shouldnt be penalized for it... It makes a great deal of sense that each state gets its own vote that is only partly weighted by population, and partly flat.
@freemo@thegonzoism@trinsec I strongly disagree. Weighting votes by population density doesn't seem that far off from weighting votes by skin color. It gives unfair preference to certain people just because they were lucky enough to be born into a certain culture.
Having your vote be worth the same as your fellow countrymen's isn't a "punishment" just because you don't have enough like-minded people around to win.
There needs to be a way to protect states rights, to ensure larger states cant bullt smaller states into changing their laws... I am ok with any solution that does this, what we have is the best I know of so far.
They shouldnt, which is why within a state every person should have an equal vote for representation in that state. Therefore everyone has equal rights, and each state has fair representation as well without being overhelmed by the will of other states.
This is hardly a new concept, it is the way virtually every union of member states operates, with each state fairly electing its own governnance and then those respected governments each representing themselves in the greater union.
@freemo@thegonzoism@trinsec That's not how it works though. The state governments don't represent themselves to the feds. We elect federal representatives. And some of us have 68x more voting power than others of us in the name of "states rights". That seems like a pretty obvious sham to me that ensures tyranny of the minority.
No we dont.. the state picks the representatives, the members of the state pick who those people will be. This is clear because each state gets to pick the rules for how their own representitives are voted for, this isnt determined federally...
@freemo@thegonzoism@trinsec The number of reps is determined federally, and those numbers determine how well represented each voter is. The fact that there exists a 68x spread in representation tells me that the system is deeply broken.
Also, doesn't every state elect their representatives by popular vote within each district? (I believe the Constitution technically says it's up to the states, but don't all of them do it this way?)
"those people" is a reference to the represenatives they are voting for.
No not every state is a simple popular vote per person.. depends on what represenative we are talking about (house, senate, electorate, mayor, governor, etc) and what state.
For example in some states it is common that each representative is just voted on via popular vote directly... in other states, particularly with the electorate, there is an all-or-nothing vote at play where all electorates pledges to the same person will win if a majorty of those electorates win. We also have some states that use first-past-the-post voting and yet others that use ranked-choice voting... It very much is a per-state thing and it varies a great deal from state to state
@freemo@peterdrake@thegonzoism@trinsec All states use popular votes. Two use ranked-choice, two use majority vote, and the other 46 use plurality votes.
["those people" is a reference to the represenatives they are voting for.]
This is why I'm confused by your previous sentence:
[the state picks the representatives, the members of the state pick who those people will be]
So the state picks the elected representatives, the members of the state picks the elected representatives? Are these two was of saying the same thing, or are they meant to contrast in some way I don't understand? I'm literally having trouble parsing the sentence.
Back to content, let's focus on federal congressional representatives. Does any state do anything other than "all voters within the representative's district get equal votes in choosing their representative"? (I see runoffs for majority, ranked choice, approval voting, etc. as variations within this.)
They are saying largely the same things.. first the members of the state pick the state representatives, then those representatives go on to represent the state.
@freemo@thegonzoism@trinsec Also, it is not the "way virtually every union of member states operates". It is, in fact, the way very few of them operate.
A union is a very specific thing... having lots of cultures and geography is not a union.. a union is a collection of nation-states.. I listed the three examples of unions that are most noted, there arent oo many others (the UK can be considered one but it is so irregular many of its members are barely treated like members, like canada, so its just not a good example).
@freemo@thegonzoism@trinsec Then the US doesn't qualify as a union. Our states are not "nation-states". They are not sovereign, they do not have their own militaries, they do not engage in their own diplomacy.
There are also tons of countries that font follow your criteria (for example countries with no military, and which dont engage in their own diplomacy). None of that is required to be considered a state.
Texas cant declare war or send soldiers, but they could ally with russia in the sense of choosing to send weapons or aide to russia.. at least I think so, I'm not complete sure on this point.
Regardless sovreignty is not defined by your ability to form allys anyway.
Nope state soverignty is explicitly recognized by the supreme court of the united states. It is said to be garunteed by the 10th amendment.
One such quote:
"But the Court found that “there are attributes of sovereignty attaching to every state government which may not be impaired by Congress, not because Congress may lack an affirmative grant of legislative authority to reach the matter, but because the Constitution prohibits it from exercising the authority in that manner.”
@freemo@thegonzoism@trinsec That term, "state sovereignty", describes what sovereignty is left to the states after the rest has been taken by the feds, as defined in our constitution. It describes the limits of their sovereignty. It is not a declaration of their sovereignty, which would require them to be wholly independent, by definition.
No you are thinking of a specific type of sovereignty called "Westphalian sovereignty".. not all sovereignty means that there is no other authority or no complex hierarchy... that is the colloqual use of the term, but int he case of unions it is more nuanced.
Thats what happens when you look up non-technical definitions and ignore the nuance of types ofg legal sovreignty...
I have shared with you legal links that explicitly state that states int ehUSA are conisdered legally to be sovreign... I have also given you examples of this manifesting re: cannabis laws.
Yes it described the limits on their sovreignty... it explicitly stated they were sovreign and the nature of that sovreignty, namely, where and how it applies.
Its not complicated... if you break federal law but do so within the confines of a state then the federal governemtn cant legally act.. you must be tried by the state, and if hte state laws make what you did legal, then your found innocent regardless of federal law.
We see this constantly with all sorts of laws, namely cannabis. Federally illegal but you can literally safely sell it in the open without the federal government doing anything about it... why.. state sovreignty.
The reason most federal laws are enforcable is because they are recognized by the state, so the state will enforce them. In the case of cannabis laws the states refuse to nenforce the federal laws and thus most growers and sellers are untouchable.
By the way this is exactly why most cannabis sellers in legalized states cant use credit cards.. Credit cards cause commerse to go across state lines since the credit card companies operate internationally.. so simply taking credit cards is usually enough for the feds to be able to swoop in... But again as long as they are careful to not operate in any way across state lines they are safe due to the sovereignty of the state.
That would make no sense since you can use your debit card to make purchases so long as your bank is a local state bank (I do it all the time)...
But your right, banks that operate across states would get in trouble, which is exactly what I just said... but the banks that dont operate across states are free to do so. Which is why i cant use my visa when i buy it but i can use my local debit card just fine.
@freemo@thegonzoism I'm calling bullshit on that. Most debit cards are run by the same companies as the credit cards. My local bank debit cards are Visas. That sounds like they're just trying to avoid credit card fees rather than the law.
@freemo@thegonzoism Also... I don't think a vendor can limit which banks work for debit cards on merchant accounts. So, they'd have no way to limit it to "local state banks", and they'd have to be very careful to keep updated on which "local state banks" are actually local and which are owned elsewhere.
That whole claim just doesn't pass the smell test...
Not sure how they limit it, but they make it very clear with a list of banks they accept.. its like 20 banks or so they have on a piece of paper you see at checkout. They look at your debit card before swiping it, I suspect to check the bank, but I dunno.
@freemo@thegonzoism That sounds like they've established a pre-existing agreement with the banks on the list... Maybe most big banks will flag transactions with weed shops, causing the vendor's merchant account to get locked out, but maybe they've made a deal with these banks to not flag their transactions?
I've got a few connections with people who run grow houses and dispensaries.... its pretty common to avoid inter-state transactions for the reasons I've mentioned.
@freemo@thegonzoism Well, yeah, because that makes you more likely to be targeted by the feds, for any type of crime. But I'm still pretty sure it's not a prerequisite to being targeted.
Oh I am sure there are sources out there... I just dont have any and im not a lawyer so i wouldnt know where to look... My understanding comes from hours of lecturing by actual lawyers with my involvement int he cannabis industry.
@freemo@thegonzoism "large operations for drugs gives probable cause that at least some of those drugs make it into other states" is one hell of a stretch. I'm still calling bullshit that it's a prerequisite.
Prioritizing factor? Sure.
Legal prerequisite for enforcement? Bullshit.
@freemo@thegonzoism Right, and any criminal prosecution of a violation of federal law would qualify for the first point, whether or not it involved interstate commerce.
So here is one law source that mentions it breifly:
Federal laws generally focus on movement across state borders, such as drug trafficking.
For example, if you cross state lines with a large quantity of a controlled substance, you may be charged with the federal offense of drug trafficking. You may also be charged with a federal drug offense if you are caught selling drugs on government property.
Or, you may face federal drug selling charges if you sell and transport drugs using the United States Post Office or a private mail carrier.
@freemo@thegonzoism The controlled substances act, which the DEA enforces, outlaws "manufacture, importation, possession, use, and distribution".
It's not a difference in the laws. It's a difference in what's significant enough to get the attention of the feds and their resources.
Small-time stuff is handled by locals and big-time stuff is handled by the feds.
Just because the feds choose not to enforce smaller busts doesn't mean they don't have the jurisdiction to do so.
And it definitely doesn't mean that states are sovereign.
If you want to argue with lawyers i dunno what to tell you... the feds cant enter a state and act as their police force for matters that are not federal jurisdiction. Not unless the state allows it.
There are a few explicit exceptions (like bankrupcy cases) where federal courts have exclusive jurisdiction, but as many legal pages state this is limited to situations where the senate has made excplicit exceptions. The page explains sone of this.
@freemo@thegonzoism I'm not arguing with a lawyer, I'm arguing with your misinterpretation of a lawyer. I posted two links earlier from legal teams that supported my point. Why does your one link invalidate both of them?
The page was pretty clear about the feds only being involved when it crosses state lines.
Even your own links line up with the fact that it must effect other states to be a problem... hell even the DOJ memo itself says it only cares about large operations where the drugs are expected to cross state lines, that was their own wording.
Your stuck in confirmation bias at this point. I just wish i coukd find a source talking about it directly.
It doesnt. Your link states cases of federal jurisdiction where the crimes have effects outside of the state, as we covered. The dojs memo even states this when talking about large drug operations refering to their potential to bleed into other states.
Well we got a bit off track.. lets back up a second since yo uwont accept this particular example... We are talking about state sovreignty... well I linked a paper before and you should read it (re linked below)... it answers your question in detail, why are the states considered sovreign.
At the end it goes into some detail as to what properties give it sovreignty and what the properties are of soverignty more generally (at least according to some political scholars):
Those properties are:
the rule of preservation - In other words the federal government can not dissolve a state or split it, only a state can do this on its own.
The rule of separateness - In other words the federal government can not dictate to the states how they form their own internal governance
The rule of participation - The federal government can not exclude a state or restrict it from participation in the federal governement. Though it can decide who will become a state, once a state is a state those powers can be revoked.
The rule of interpretive independence - Thsi sets forth the jurisdiction issues we already discussed but you refused to accept.. but generally that the state has jurisdiction to interpret the laws within its own state and its court has jurisdiction over this.
Going back to the point of sovereignty as its original definition as you shared "absolute control and autonomy"... well in the USA sovereignty is split. The federal government doesnt have it because they can not do certain things, and thus dont have absolute power (points 1 - 4 are powers the federal government doesnt have over states and states are sovereign in those regards).
That is why when we talk about sovereignty without any adjectives before it we say that sovereignty int he USA is shared between the federal and state governments, each taking a piece of the pie and only collectively can their powers be seen as sovereign as a whole.
I wish I remembered the case... there was one case in california where the feds came in and shutdown a grow operation but they were not found to violate any inter-state commerce, and thus state sovreignty was violated.... The state of california managed to sue the federal government over it. I wish I could remember the case....
Just think about murder if you need another example.. if you commit murder you are usually tried in a state court and go to a state prison, despite it being federally illegal. Only time youll be tried in a federal court and go to federal prison is if the murder is somehow involved across state borders. like if you bury the body in another state.
I know its not the vbest argument, and I wish I had a source to cite... But I have worked closely with a lot ofpeople int he industry (including weed maps for example)... most of my knowledge on this comes from directly talking to them and/or their lawyers.
No they only take debit card purchasaes from in-state banks.. bank of america for example they wont take even as a debit card.. so it doesnt line up with your assumptions.
@feld@thegonzoism@freemo Ah, that makes much more sense. So it would never show up as a vendor transaction at all; it would just show as a cash withdrawal.
@feld I assume it's the exact same as the "Would you like cash back" prompt at gas stations when using debit cards... just operated by a clerk to do the right amount.
@freemo@thegonzoism@trinsec All sovereign countries engage in their own diplomacy, and the only ones without their own military are protectorates of states that do have a military.
Generally Canada is not considered a union in the same sense. They are part of the commonwealth of england but have effectively complete independence... But that aside no canada is just a bunch of prooviences.
The difference is in the very thing your arguing, the fact that states are self governing and can decide their own rules as to how they vote and participate int he union. The very existance of the mechnisms we are discussing, along with states having their own soverignty is what defines the difference. In short our states have much more indendence and self determination than a province does.
@freemo@thegonzoism@trinsec I disagree. Can you give me some examples of forms of independence you think US states have that Canadian provinces do not?
I posted one earlier, They have complete sovreignty to do anything they want so long as it doesnt violate the rights of the federal government. They have legal sovreign status unlike provinces.
@freemo Unrelated: Shouldn't I stop getting notifications if a convo is muted? I still get pestered even though this whole conversation's been muted. Or how does this shit work?
@freemo So far it only pesters me when you respond, maye because I follow you but that seems broken to me.
Probably easiest that you leave my name out of the mentions from there on.
Another quote fromt he legal link I gave earlier that might be more clear:
Under Garcia, states retain their sovereign authority “only to the extent that the Constitution has not divested them of their original powers and transferred those powers to the Federal Government.” 15
@freemo@thegonzoism@trinsec Wait, do we need to address the definition of "sovereignty"? Because "do anything that doesn't violate the laws of a higher body" is not sovereignty, by definition.
Yes it very much is a type of soverignty.. there are many forms and it isnt as simple as "not accountable to anyone).
We actually can see the sovreignty of states in how the cannabis laws go down.. The federal government has made it illegal, yet states have denied the federal government and choose to make it legal... While technically the federal government should have the legal superiority since their agends cant act within the state (they cant actually send military in to arrest people because the state is sovreign) they get away with it anyway.
Nope, while the DEA can make laws they cant enforce them due to state sovreignty... for example they cant send federal agents into a state to arrest someone if their actions legally were wholly contained within the state (they can only act in inter-state matters).
@freemo@thegonzoism@trinsec Literally all of that is wrong. The DEA can't make laws; they write regulations. And they can absolutely send agents in to prosecute federal crimes that don't involve interstate commerce. They have a well-documented history of taking down grow-houses in states where they're legal.
You can only take down a grow house if you can show some interstate commerce.. for example if you have a bank that exists out of state, or you ordered supplies from out of state... these are loopholes and yes often they are used to get someone on federal charges.. but most of the time if the organization is careful to operate entierly within the state then they are protected.
@freemo@LouisIngenthron@trinsec It clearly is one person, one vote. Your map shows a sea of red which due to gerrymandering is misleading. The other map shows voting by person which shows the country is more purple. It is a better representation of the vote.
@thegonzoism@freemo@trinsec Fwiw, Freemo's map isn't misleading because of gerrymandering. It's misleading because it obscures population density and incorrectly implies a correlation between votes and land mass.
Its not misleading at all, its intent as ststed clearly is to show votes by land mass. Nothibg misleading about that, no one is claiming this is showing votes by population density, its showing votes by region only.
Thry do it all the time... yes the map can and will be abused. But thats not what is being done here.
It makes one simple fact clear, if you drive to almost any random place in america, you are almost always surrounded by red voters. Only time your not is if its a city.
There are a great many reasons why it exists.. but the tryanny of the majority explanation is one that has been vocalized by even our founding fathers. So it very much is one among many reasons the EE exists... the other is the difficulty in voting en mass, and another is as a check and balance against a corrupt voting system etc.
@trinsec Sure this one does that, sorta. Its not a specific year but rather shows the average way a coubty votes. Purple is 50/50 the brighter the red the larger its vote on average towards republican (more people voting consistently)
Yea sorta... when people are huddled on top of eachother and packed densly they tend to go blue. Those same people allowed to be spread out in nature tend to vote red.
One could argue cities are less healthy to live in due to the tight space, overcrowding, violence, etc. This leads to people demanding more controls (a classically blue outlook). We know from rat models overcrowding leads to oretty unhealthy rats.
@freemo I will correct you there - when people live near other people, they tend to be compassionate. It’s not red/blue issue, it’s an issue of sociopathy caused by isolation vs sanity.
@freemo@casastorta Uh, no, the suburbs tend to go blue because of their proximity to the cities, except in very deep red states. Only very tiny portions of this country are truly urban. Like 90%+ of the blue land mass in this country is not urban or super dense.
@casastorta@freemo I disagree. It may depend on the city, but I'm a lower-middle-class suburb dweller that doesn't mind the city at all. Downtown Orlando is beautiful and clean and nice. And I'm only 15-20 minutes away from downtown. I'm more afraid of Disney, honestly. My biggest gripe with downtown is that I suck at parallel parking.
When talki g about effects on the masses your individual expiernce isnt important... we know from countless psychological studies that people behave worse in high population crowded areas. Even mouse experiments show unhealthy behavior rising when there is overcrowding.
@freemo@LouisIngenthron But cities are typically not overcrowded. Very few cities in the world are New Delhi. Specially American cities are, due to uniquely American ideas of urbanism, wastelands when it comes to density, as we saw during pandemic.
Daily commuters for work do not affect density for living conditions terms because people don’t live on top of the highways.
@casastorta@freemo Compared to more urban cities, sure, no doubt. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. Society needs people of both types and families need room to grow.
@mapto No thats unrelated but it is a very real problem. You arent seeing congressional districts here so the effect described in that link is unrelated.
@freemo do I understand correctly that your map is an aggregate of gerrymandered congressional districts (and the winner-takes-it-all aggregate of many red districts is red itself)?
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