So I was hip deep in reading that voting thread when it got snipped and something that came up for me was this article which I was reading right before it:
How Republicans Can Get Things Done: What the GOP can learn from Democrats about how to govern.
The author (Reihan Salam) is known as a conservative commentator. I know nothing of how far he leans and I would have picked a better title just given the current partisan climate but I think the substance of the article has some merit as far as what he "sees" in the two political parties.
I thought this might be a good example of something to discuss around politics that proves to the powers that be we can have civil discourse.
It just really made me think about how I see the parties and what I "expect" of them and why, etc. YMMV
love it. It is an interesting article though. Good read.
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Civil discourse in politics is a rarity. As already evidenced here.
Well I certainly feel like the lack of civility in political discourse is higher than it used to be even if its just due to the ease by which one could share their displeasure. That is happens on a forum full of people who are highly engaged in what is ultimately a social hobby with large amounts of systems related thinking colors me as completely
I liked the article because it helped me to remember that there are reasons for the spectrum of political thought and there are values and characteristics of worth or note in considering how and why the other positions on their spectrum function as they do.
I for one am critical of most political camps, for a myriad of reasons and feel alienated in the political discourse due to its tendency towards hyper reactionary reactions and a lack of elastic thinking in building solutions that might flex with the issues as they are and how they might change.
Anyway I read an article by a Republican saying that the Democrats have values and approaches that are helpful to consider. That seemed like a shining moment outside of the general "bright line" screaming matches or gloating from either side (Not that those do not exist but the noise gets so loud this time of year) so I thought I would share.
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The beauty of the way Democrats approach politics is that their willingness to accept half a loaf means that they can keep making incremental gains even when they appear to be “losing.” Lane Kenworthy, a sociologist at the University of California–San Diego and the author of Social Democratic America, puts it beautifully: “Small steps and the occasional big leap, coupled with limited backsliding, will have the cumulative effect of significantly increasing the breadth and generosity of government social programs.” That is, conservatives can try to nibble at the edges of new social programs, but they'll rarely succeed in rolling them back completely.
Phooey, I've always been told that the slippery slope is just a fallacy. Mostly by people pushing for incremental changes.
In any case, here's my problem with the current US government: neither party is really interested in individual liberty. Both are invested in amassing power for their side. Republicans mostly suck on social issues. Democrats mostly suck on fiscal issues. Politician has become a career and like with any career the politicians are now evaluated on metrics that politicians should not be measured on. Seeing how many laws you can pass while in office should not be a goal, but it has become the one politicians are generally evaluated on.
The beauty of the way Democrats approach politics is that their willingness to accept half a loaf means that they can keep making incremental gains even when they appear to be “losing.” Lane Kenworthy, a sociologist at the University of California–San Diego and the author of Social Democratic America, puts it beautifully: “Small steps and the occasional big leap, coupled with limited backsliding, will have the cumulative effect of significantly increasing the breadth and generosity of government social programs.” That is, conservatives can try to nibble at the edges of new social programs, but they'll rarely succeed in rolling them back completely.Phooey, I've always been told that the slippery slope is just a fallacy. Mostly by people pushing for incremental changes.
That's because the slippery slope is a fallacy. If you think incremental change is a bad thing, it's a bad thing in and of itself, not because of what it might lead to in your imagination.
Phooey, I've always been told that the slippery slope is just a fallacy. Mostly by people pushing for incremental changes.
I think from what I have seen the slippery slope thing is a "thing" in some cases and not in others. Some slopes may slip a little but when everyone describes it as "plummeting off a cliff into unadulterated chaos" then incremental change is seen as somehow a horrid thing to do.
I think that is mostly what the author is trying to articulate. To me it makes sense that some changes will beget changes and for those who don't like change in a direction that is not theirs, it is a hard pill to swallow but the rampant use of hyperbole in what strikes me as an age of important nuances seems...counterproductive.
In any case, here's my problem with the current US government: neither party is really interested in individual liberty. Both are invested in amassing power for their side. Republicans mostly suck on social issues. Democrats mostly suck on fiscal issues. Politician has become a career and like with any career the politicians are now evaluated on metrics that politicians should not be measured on. Seeing how many laws you can pass while in office should not be a goal, but it has become the one politicians are generally evaluated on.
Are people evaluated on how many laws they pass? In many corners it seems more about how many they stop. Quotas in either direction seem silly, I agree. Quantity in governing seems a poor substitute to quality.
On the point of individual liberty I think the biggest issue I see is the fundamental disagreement on what IS liberty and what CREATES that liberty. I think the conflict about money, guns, religion, and so on painted against a country this big and the sense of what is best for a "common good" when so many of us live in states that may well be foreign countries to each other makes for some really hard conversations.
I think both parties have a hard time not falling into some really strange yoga like manipulations of themselves to touch the actions of their agendas to their ideals.
I think from what I have seen the slippery slope thing is a "thing" in some cases and not in others. Some slopes may slip a little but when everyone describes it as "plummeting off a cliff into unadulterated chaos" then incremental change is seen as somehow a horrid thing to do.
I think that is mostly what the author is trying to articulate. To me it makes sense that some changes will beget changes and for those who don't like change in a direction that is not theirs, it is a hard pill to swallow but the rampant use of hyperbole in what strikes me as an age of important nuances seems...counterproductive.
What I usually see happening is someone, and the side they're on doesn't matter, brings up an incremental change in whatever direction. Someone from the other side then rebuts with "well if that happens, then this will happen, then this will happen...". Those rebuttals are then met with cries of slippery slope fallacy. It's not a fallacy to see the direction a group is trying to push things and what the end point of that is. Though both sides are prone to obviously stupid hyperbole, seeing two or three steps ahead isn't always a fallacy.
Are people evaluated on how many laws they pass? In many corners it seems more about how many they stop. Quotas in either direction seem silly, I agree. Quantity in governing seems a poor substitute to quality.
On the point of individual liberty I think the biggest issue I see is the fundamental disagreement on what IS liberty and what CREATES that liberty. I think the conflict about money, guns, religion, and so on painted against a country this big and the sense of what is best for a "common good" when so many of us live in states that may well be foreign countries to each other makes for some really hard conversations.
I think both parties have a hard time not falling into some really strange yoga like manipulations of themselves to touch the actions of their agendas to their ideals.
I bounce between checking news on Foxnews.com and CNN.com. I check out the news items and then focus on the comments on them. More people I've seen complain about how the government isn't getting enough done and blaming the other side for being obstuctionist or trying to force through stupid legislation. The only place that I see people complaining about too much legislation is Reason.com. And I agree with you, governing is not supposed to be about quantity.
I also believe that the country has grown beyond the limits of the federal government built into the Constitution. The numbers built in worked just fine for a country of 3 million people, not so much for a country of 330 million. One rep per 7,000 people is not a horrible ratio, people are more likely to be accurately represented. One rep per 750,000, not so much. It also doesn't help that the federal government has taken more power than it's supposed to have. The feds shouldn't be withholding things from the states, it should be the other way around. States do still have power, just not as much as they should anymore.
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I'm not sure I'd agree, but I generally care nothing for cries of states' rights, as it's almost always done in an attempt to do infringe on the rights of some group of people. So it's possible my i'm just not seeing the loss of power you're talking about.
I'm not sure I'd agree, but I generally care nothing for cries of states' rights, as it's almost always done in an attempt to do infringe on the rights of some group of people. So it's possible my i'm just not seeing the loss of power you're talking about.
The idea is that state governments are better able to respond to the will of the people in that state because it's a smaller constituency and therefore more accurate representation. Look at states legalizing pot in spite of the federal government. Plus, it's much easier to move from one state to another that is more suited to your beliefs than it is to leave the country.
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Unfortunately (or not) we as a country decide federal poilicy, and it trumps state laws in some cases. This prevents states from, oh, say, having slavery, if they want it and the rest of the country doesn't.
Yeah there are pro and cons to state's rights and its hard especially in a country that has such uneven distribution, tons of district contortion to skew representatives (both parties gerrymander but the republicans have been particularly effective in recent years in no small part due to the number of states they control which is the level those districts are drawn) and other factors. My own state is "Blue" for the most part save for the X number of millions of people in the other half of it that don't have the numbers to skew the calculus to their needs and interests.
I agree with Simon that I think the sampling is a huge issue. You could literally have millions of people of a certain political ideology with no say in federal discourse simply because they happen to be in a place where there are millions more of another political train of thought. That somehow doesn't strike me of the type of representation that was envisioned by our republic modeled system.
I do see the State Rights banner leveled at questionable times (*sometimes other times for legitimate reasons) but Federal policy can make such little sense in certain circumstances, I am less convinced as I get older that it is the be all and end all in a country this massive.
Somehow the mix needs to be stabilized but in my mind a key factor in that would be chipping away at the two party system (which to the best of my knowledge was never strictly intended) and taking certain actions like district drawing and similar actions out of the hands of whoever is in power "at the moment" and putting them in the hands of institutions built with an intention of impartiality. Term limits on everybody from reps to judges might also be a good idea to a certain extent, but I'm less certain on that one....
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I think both parties have a hard time not falling into some really strange yoga like manipulations of themselves to touch the actions of their agendas to their ideals.
Its not that hard for democrats.
Democrats are a coalition of different causes that don't synch up all that badly together. If someone has a mindset that a whale is a thinking being deserving of rights and needs government protection then they're rarely inimical to the idea that minorities are people and might need a hand.
Republicans are a tossed salad of a few different interests: Big money, evangelical conservative religious groups, big money, big money gun manufacturers. They should go together about as well as oil and water but republicans have done an amazing job of sidestepping rational consideration and re framing every issue as black and white moral issue. They've made up the war on Christmas, the fight to take away peoples guns, the obamamonster, the pelosi monster, and the evil incompetent federal government that can't do anything right. Despite everything wrong with it, they've actually managed to create a narative of gun toting capitalist Jesus coming to save the world from communism and evolution. In its own twisted way you have to admire that kind of talent.
They've had to do this because their actual policy of redistributing wealth UP the ladder would never fly on its own. (Democrats wind up following a similar policy in practice but try to do so to a lesser extent) Giving money to billion dollar companies would never fly, but if you give them a "tax break" hey! thats fine.
The problem should be obvious: You can't be in the federal government effectively if you think everything it does is evil. The same narrative you use to get you into office makes it a lot harder to actually do anything when they're there. The democrats can treat the government like the lumbering, clumsy giant that it is. The republicans have to steer it while smacking it on the head and saying "bad monster".
Somehow the mix needs to be stabilized but in my mind a key factor in that would be chipping away at the two party system (which to the best of my knowledge was never strictly intended)
It wasn't intended, but it is the necessary result of a winner take all system. If you unite the gun and money lobbies but the whale and old people lobbies run individually then the whale and oil people candidates will NEVER win on their own. Changing the two party system would require constitutional amendments that have NO chance of passing in the foreseeable future in a society where we can't even pass a reasonable law.
Somehow the mix needs to be stabilized but in my mind a key factor in that would be chipping away at the two party system (which to the best of my knowledge was never strictly intended)
It was never strictly intended, but it's also a mathematical consequence of the first-past-the-post election system. (This particular theorem wasn't available in the 1700s; hence the founding fathers didn't consider it.) "Chipping away" at the two-party system is thus much harder than many people realize, and would probably require a wholesale rewriting of the US political structure, possibly scrapping the entire constitution in favor of version 2.0.
Dunno if this is from an approved source, but...
Link of Top Hitters 1989-2014 for contributions
So as I was watching the local news before work this morning, they did a brief segment about local campaign spending. I live in MA, one of the questions was to repeal a law that would allow casinos in the state. The movement was so popular last year that the legislature passed the law allowing casinos without having the people vote on it. Eventually a group got enough signatures to get the repeal question on the ballot. The repeal failed by and the law will stay. Now as far as spending goes, the side saying no repeal raised and spent three times as much money as the side for repeal. Did the winning side raise more money because more people wanted it, or did more people want it because they spent more money?
@BigNorseWolf - The one thing about the overlapping interests of Democrats as far as my "yoga pose" comment is that, for instance, the Financial Services industry has been a big donor to both parties but more to the Dems. That doesn't jive with many issues and there are other examples. Democrats are just more civil about their infighting perhaps? But I think you are right about some of the narrative pieces created by the Republicans, I have long been frustrated by a group of people that smash the gears of the machine and say "See?!? It doesn't work!"
@Krysbyn/thejeff - I agree with thejeff that the money list is hard because of the true level of obfuscation and, as the intro to the list concedes, there are individuals like Adelson and Blooberg who would be high up on that list after only a couple of years. That said I think everyone should really look at those lists just to see, if anything, how much money gets thrown around in general. This is just to get people to voite, imagine if we had all that money to actually govern with.
@thejeff - I have never been a fan of the 4 senators from the Dakotas having the same say as the senators of California and Texas two of the larges AND most populous states. The system poorly reflects the constituent needs on that level and the house is ABSOLUTELY unwieldly.
One proposal I had head that I liked was mapping larger more uniform districts and then assigning winners based on total amassed votes. For instance, instead of 3 districts that would end up with 3 Democrats (New York was the example I heard about) you would have one large district with the top three being the reps. In that scenario you might well end up with 2 dems and a repub in the same population base or even a Dem, a repub and an Independent or third party candidate. Less districts, better sampling, same # of reps.
I agree with Simon that I think the sampling is a huge issue. You could literally have millions of people of a certain political ideology with no say in federal discourse simply because they happen to be in a place where there are millions more of another political train of thought. That somehow doesn't strike me of the type of representation that was envisioned by our republic modeled system.True, to an extent, but Congress is already unwieldy at ~500 members. Going to something like 50,000, since Simon suggested 1 rep/~7000 people, would be nightmarish.
BTW, for a number of reasons that sampling bias generally favors conservatives. Particularly in the Senate where less populous, rural, tending to be conservative states get the same representation as larger, more urban, generally more liberal states. There are exceptions - Texas is big and conservative, Vermont is small and liberal, but the general trend is that Republican Senators represent less people than Democratic ones do.
Just to be clear, sending more reps to government to better represent the greater population is not at all what I would suggest. My solution is to either give more power back to the states or to split the US up into four or five smaller countries.
@BigNorseWolf - The one thing about the overlapping interests of Democrats as far as my "yoga pose" comment is that, for instance, the Financial Services industry has been a big donor to both parties but more to the Dems.
Given the amount of dark money floating around I don't know if we can know if this is true.
That doesn't jive with many issues and there are other examples.
Such as?
One proposal I had head that I liked was mapping larger more uniform districts and then assigning winners based on total amassed votes.
Very difficult to do. One of the things republican and democratic legislatures can both agree on is job security.
@BigNorseWolf - The one thing about the overlapping interests of Democrats as far as my "yoga pose" comment is that, for instance, the Financial Services industry has been a big donor to both parties but more to the Dems.Given the amount of dark money floating around I don't know if we can know if this is true.I don't have a source offhand, but I remember that in 2008 a lot of Wall Street money went to Obama (and other Democrats), but that it dropped off drastically after that.
Actually, using Kryzbyn's link from above and only counting names I recognized as Financial industry out of the top 50, Republicans got more.
Total: $231,117,818
Dems: 45% ($103,894,827.87)
Reps: 53% ($121,363,105.14)That's from:
- Goldman Sachs
- American Bankers Assn
- JPMorgan Chase & Co
- Bank of America
- Morgan Stanley
- Credit Union National Assn
- Citigroup Inc
Goldman Sachs was the only one to give more to Democrats. They were admittedly the biggest donor.
*All my caveats from before apply. Dark money not included and 25 years of data may not represent what's going on today.
No data to back it up, but I have heard that this election the financial industry has been putting money into a lot of Dems because they oppose the tea party, so Dems came ahead in this election but it wasn't the norm. It sounds plausible.
So out of curiosity, is the point trying to be made that money just outright buys wins? If that's the case, why bother with elections at all? Why not just give the W to the candidate that ends up with the most cash by X date?
I'm not so sure that I buy the idea that most money automatically wins. Now I didn't check the link, but looking at the numbers thejeff mentioned how does that break down into wins and losses? Is that distinction made? Is there any case where the candidate with less took the election?
RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16
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@thejeff - I have never been a fan of the 4 senators from the Dakotas having the same say as the senators of California and Texas two of the larges AND most populous states. The system poorly reflects the constituent needs on that level and the house is ABSOLUTELY unwieldly.
Working as intended. That's the very reason we have a bicameral legislature. The House represents individuals, the Senate represents States.
@thejeff - I have never been a fan of the 4 senators from the Dakotas having the same say as the senators of California and Texas two of the larges AND most populous states. The system poorly reflects the constituent needs on that level and the house is ABSOLUTELY unwieldly.Working as intended. That's the very reason we have a bicameral legislature. The House represents individuals, the Senate represents States.
The system had many intentions I don't know that you can claim it is working as "intended" given the difference in reality then from now. The house made a lot more sense then and the senate did too. The founding fathers surely weren't thinking about states equal in size to half the states in the union when they conjured up their formula I think?
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The system had many intentions I don't know that you can claim it is working as "intended" given the difference in reality then from now. The house made a lot more sense then and the senate did too. The founding fathers surely weren't thinking about states equal in size to half the states in the union when they conjured up their formula I think?
Yeah, actually, they were. The fear of the smaller colonies (like Delaware, which specifically threatened independence over this issue) is that their concerns would be swallowed up in a population-based unicameral legislature. So the Senate was specifically set up to balance the population of the larger states against the smaller states individually. The term historians use for this is the Great Compromise, and the situation is functioning exactly as intended....
Well, someone went and said it. That didnt take long.
*tries to hide the pitchforks and torches*
Yes, that list isn't concrete, but when the term "big money" gets thrown around, then you look at where all of those unions are on the list above Koch industries...
Yeah, actually, they were. The fear of the smaller colonies (like Delaware, which specifically threatened independence over this issue) is that their concerns would be swallowed up in a population-based unicameral legislature. So the Senate was specifically set up to balance the population of the larger states against the smaller states individually. The term historians use for this is the Great Compromise, and the situation is functioning exactly as intended....
The system had many intentions I don't know that you can claim it is working as "intended" given the difference in reality then from now. The house made a lot more sense then and the senate did too. The founding fathers surely weren't thinking about states equal in size to half the states in the union when they conjured up their formula I think?
Sorry, let me be...more precise.
I understand the Great Compromise and the theoretical underpinnings of that. But even the scale and scope of states then far exceeds a reality where something like the number of people in all of the states in that time would fit in NYC 3 maybe four times over now? The entirety of the population of South Dakota gets more say in the business of the country then 1/8th of the population of that same city?!
The conceptual frameworks make sense but not the way in which they were employed much later down the line. Based on a ratio of landmass to population we should have less states I would think. This is what I mean by say I question how much of it was "intended" to be this way.
Our forefathers were pretty sharp but not gods. Human beings are exceptionally bad at conceptualizing things that are large and/or risky. I just think that as we exist now might be outside of the scope of their concerns at the time they drafted some of these concepts.
@BNW-
Other examples where Democrat ideas don't jive super great are blue collar union goals and the industries they are part of w/ environmentalism, certain strains of militaristic and intelligence philosophies as they relate to status, stature and international capability and responsibility to the world (War is bad but if we are going to do it we should do things like bomb the hell out of places from afar...this is more a modern facet of the Democratic identity but they share complicity in many of our issues on this topic, additionally the cutting of Intelligence Services at certain times thus diminishing the ability to react to certain threats, or so it has been debated.) Trade policies and issues of open vs secret negotiations around such areas that are counter to their constituents concerns around consumer safety, copyright and intellectual property protections and/or enforcements (that topic alone is a pretzel twist for everyone on every side), etc.
All I am saying is that the Democrats have to contort to get their agendas served, I'm not putting a value or judgement on that per se. To me it more exposes that the two parties are too big to fit the people they contain but maybe its the only way to make it work at this point.
...the concept of transparency... ;)
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I'm not sure I'd agree, but I generally care nothing for cries of states' rights, as it's almost always done in an attempt to do infringe on the rights of some group of people.
Yeah, I think states' rights will continue to be poisoned by its (not entirely discontinued) role as a code word for segregation for a very long time.
Other examples where Democrat ideas don't jive super great are blue collar union goals and the industries they are part of w/ environmentalism
They work better than you might think IF the environmentalist is following something other than NIMBY* and the worker doesn't buy into the idea that the only reason that jobs are being shipped overseas or mechanized is to save the cuddly spotted slug or something.
Having things manufactured in the united states under regulations is better for the environment than having them manufacured in china. It does however cut into profit margins. So the workers are caught in the middle: either they unite with their bosses and push for laxer regulations to try to keep the profits up and the plants from closing or they fight against the corporate profit at any cost machine we have.
The occupy movement has had a fair amount of blue collar union support.
*Not in my back yard
certain strains of militaristic and intelligence philosophies as they relate to status
... Ok, i'm going to need the crayon version of that one.
Trade policies and issues of open vs secret negotiations around such areas that are counter to their constituents concerns around consumer safety, copyright and intellectual property protections and/or enforcements (that topic alone is a pretzel twist for everyone on every side),
Since blue collar workers are also USING that stuff there's a fair bit of overlap here.
Where i DO see yoga poses seems to be in what democrats have to do to get elected. It seems like you can't go after wallstreet without a slick advertising campaign cropping up for your opponent in the main race or even in the primary.
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I don't really have much to say, but, god, I wish the unions would stop giving my hard-earned dollars to the Democrats.
Labor: Stop being chumps!
I'm not sure I'd agree, but I generally care nothing for cries of states' rights, as it's almost always done in an attempt to do infringe on the rights of some group of people.Yeah, I think states' rights will continue to be poisoned by its (not entirely discontinued) role as a code word for segregation for a very long time.
Its not a matter of poison. Its the oddity of a government having rights rather than that governments people.
The beauty of the way Democrats approach politics is that their willingness to accept half a loaf means that they can keep making incremental gains even when they appear to be “losing.” Lane Kenworthy, a sociologist at the University of California–San Diego and the author of Social Democratic America, puts it beautifully: “Small steps and the occasional big leap, coupled with limited backsliding, will have the cumulative effect of significantly increasing the breadth and generosity of government social programs.” That is, conservatives can try to nibble at the edges of new social programs, but they'll rarely succeed in rolling them back completely.Phooey, I've always been told that the slippery slope is just a fallacy. Mostly by people pushing for incremental changes.
In any case, here's my problem with the current US government: neither party is really interested in individual liberty. Both are invested in amassing power for their side. Republicans mostly suck on social issues. Democrats mostly suck on fiscal issues. Politician has become a career and like with any career the politicians are now evaluated on metrics that politicians should not be measured on. Seeing how many laws you can pass while in office should not be a goal, but it has become the one politicians are generally evaluated on.
Unless you think the country is perfect as is, then you need to pass legislation. Remember legislation is needed to repeal laws you don't like as well as implement new laws. That's why people complain about a "do-nothing" congress.
Sorry, let me be...more precise.
I understand the Great Compromise and the theoretical underpinnings of that. But even the scale and scope of states then far exceeds a reality where something like the number of people in all of the states in that time would fit in NYC 3 maybe four times over now? The entirety of the population of South Dakota gets more say in the business of the country then 1/8th of the population of that same city?!
Yes, that's basically exactly the concern of the Founding Fathers at the time. In fact, they were considering a far worse disparity of power between and among the states at the time, because there was, at that time, no idea that there would ever be more than 13 states, and those states together laid claim to the entire North American continent.
About six of the states -- I'd have to check the exact number -- had no western border. Present-day LA, for example, lies within the boundaries of colonial Georgia, since it extended along two lines of latitude all the way to the Pacific Ocean. Virginia controlled everything west of the present PA/OH border, including all of present-day Michigan and up in to Canada. The idea of creating and adding new states had not been discussed and would not be discussed for another roughly forty years. So the founding fathers were envisioning a situation where Georgia and Virginia would control literally a half million square miles with a comsensurately large population, and where Delaware and Maryland continued at their present sizes.
The decision was therefore taken that, by design, Maryland and Virginia would always have equal representation in the Senate no matter how large Virginia's population was.
. Based on a ratio of landmass to population we should have less states I would think.
That's probably true -- the FF didn't envision fifty states. But they certainly envisioned a greater disparity in population between colonial Virginia and colonial Connecticut than we now have between South Dakota and New York -- and opted for the Great Compromise.
That's probably true -- the FF didn't envision fifty states. But they certainly envisioned a greater disparity in population between colonial Virginia and colonial Connecticut than we now have between South Dakota and New York -- and opted for the Great Compromise.
I don't think they really did any such thing. I think you give them credit for far too much forethought and design.
They cobbled together a compromise that could get enough votes to pass then and left it to future generations to solve their own problems.
I stand by my statement. Given that the map was available for anyone to look at, I don't think it's difficult to grant the FF extreme amounts of credit for noticing that, in 1789, the state of Virginia was larger than all of New England put together. Literally. That's not "forethought," that's cartography.
Similarly, it didn't take a lot of forethought to notice that people had been pouring into the Kentucky district of Virginia, to the point where there were now something like nine separate counties west of the Alleghenies that were only going to get bigger. This fact was certainly obvious to the delegates of both Delaware and Maryland, since they spoke at length about it -- and in fact, Delaware threatened not to join the US unless the this specific issue was dealt with.
The FF were expecting and planning for growth on a continental scale even at the time of the Constitutional Convention and were trying to come up with a compromise that would balance the concerns of the smaller and less populated states against the states that were expecting -- and participating in -- simply ludicrous levels of population growth.
Georgia no border until the Pacific? What about the Louisiana Purchase and so on? They didn't have rights that extended that far...am I missing something there?
I guess what I am saying is, sure, they looked at a map and said "this will work" but did they REALLY have a way to wrap their heads around the scale of what that did to a population our size two hundred years later? I'm not saying it wasn't a good set of ideas or even appropriate for its time. I just question if it is working super great now.
Adding to that, at the time there was a relationship between size and population density (see the example of Kentucky) but now we have a different situation. Small states with way more people and large states with far less. I'm not disputing the forefathers ability to read a map. I'm questioning if they thought it would make sense to give a set of states that were ten times the size and one tenth the population the same weight.
Maybe it ultimately doesn't matter. A state is state no matter its dimensions or density and THAT is the point, and I get that. I ultimately should be just as irritated at Delaware getting to skew things with their 2 senate votes and I am making the mistake of thinking that, since they are small, that somehow is better or more okay than my Dakota irritations.
Ah well.
Georgia no border until the Pacific? What about the Louisiana Purchase and so on? They didn't have rights that extended that far...am I missing something there?
What about it? The Colonial charter granted Georgia a border all the way to the Pacific Ocean. Native Americans didn't have recognized title, and neither did the Spaniards (under English law).
I don't have the Georgia text to hand, but here's Wikipedia's take on the Carolina colony:
The 1663 charter granted the Lords Proprietor title to all of the land from the southern border of the Colony of Virginia at 36 degrees north to 31 degrees north (along the coast of present-day Georgia). In 1665, the charter was revised slightly, with the northerly boundary extended to 36 degrees 30 minutes north to include the lands of the Albemarle Settlements along the Albemarle Sound who had left the Colony of Virginia. Likewise, the southern boundary was moved south to 29 degrees north, just south of present-day Daytona Beach, Florida, which had the effect of including the existing Spanish settlement at St. Augustine. The charter also granted all the land, between these northerly and southerly bounds, from the Atlantic Ocean, westward to the shores of the Pacific Ocean.
I guess what I am saying is, sure, they looked at a map and said "this will work" but did they REALLY have a way to wrap their heads around the scale of what that did to a population our size two hundred years later?
Yes. As a matter of fact, they were concerned that the effects would be substantially more unbalanced than they are now. which is why the Great Compromise was effected in the first place.
They're simply concerned about something different than you are. You're concerned about an alliance of the small states being able to overrule a single more populous state. They were concerned about a single large state being able to overrule any or all of the small states. The effect is a compromise. New York, California, and Texas control the House of Representatives, but have little sway over the Senate, so both groups are empowered and incentivized to seek compromise.