non-US folks add our human rights point to their crisis

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Amaltheia
Snowy Owl
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24 Nov 2016, 3:39 pm

tern wrote:
Then you never sign human rights petitions for minorities in other countries, such as against anti-gay laws in Uganda and Morocco? You think in the apartheid era the black South Africans were wrong to welcome solidarity and sanctions from abroad?

The state I live in isn't the biggest in Australia. It has about 7% of the country's population, which puts it in about the middle by size. In an straight out majority rules situation, we'd be swamped by the eastern states (Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria).

Yet, my state was the first state in the country to give women the vote and the first to allow them to stand for political office. We were also the first state to decriminalize homosexuality. Neither of these things would have been possible if the local votes had been overwhelmed by voters in the eastern states. So, sometimes these weird arrangements that enable areas without a huge number of people to have a say without being drowned out by more populous regions produce results you like, sometimes they don't.

So, no, I don't sign petitions directed at foreign governments because I don't see any reason why they would listen to me. I do participate in boycotts because it's something I can do directly and, in combination with a bunch of other people, I think is more likely to have an effect.

So, if you want to boycott the United States because you don't like the Electoral College, go for it. Personally, I think a system that gives less populous regions a say rather than just ignoring them in favor of New York and Los Angeles is not a bad thing.

But then, as I say, I come from a medium-sized state, and I like to think that I and my fellow citizens have some say (however small) in how national affairs are run.



tern
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24 Nov 2016, 4:59 pm

Amaltheia wrote:
my state was the first state in the country to give women the vote and the first to allow them to stand for political office. We were also the first state to decriminalize homosexuality. Neither of these things would have been possible if the local votes had been overwhelmed by voters in the eastern states.
The arrangement you are defending there is autonomous government for your own state. Which the US states have too. Not the same thing at all as warping the maths of the overall national government's election.

In Scotland right now we are leading on expanding the vote. In the last 2 years we have given the vote at 16, only in the elections that come under our autonomous government, while the British govt is still clinging to 18 for the elections under its control. This proves it good that we have an autonomous govt. It does not prove that elections of the British govt should be intentionally weighted for the winner of the Scottish vote at increased risk of returning a national winner who was not the popular vote winner.

Doing that for the big US states turns their influence into an unfair trampling foot that swamps out any influence for the small states. The electoral college was designed for the original states and since then the size disparity of states has greatly grown. California, New York State, and Texas now have disproportionately more swamping weight in the college than other states, exactly as you protested for their cities not to have.



Amaltheia
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26 Nov 2016, 4:46 pm

Image



tern
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26 Nov 2016, 5:53 pm

In that map the big bulging states contribute a divided vote, to both candidates the number of votes they got, each voter counting equally to each voter in the smaller states. With the college, those same big bulging states intrude a distorted vote, the state's entire voting power all going to one candidate, and bigger distortion from bigger states swamps the smaller states.



Amaltheia
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25 Dec 2016, 11:20 pm

A couple more election maps. This time based on counties, not states.

The Clinton Archipelago:
Image

And Trumpland:
Image

Both from Against Crony Capitalism.



tern
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26 Dec 2016, 5:06 am

Not scaled for population.
American rural conservatism is self perpetuating, as if you have more advanced views and you can escape to a town environment with more openings to do anything with them, you do.