Is this topic to get back at us for last week's?
Just kidding - kinda. You know I always think that I'm interested and somewhat up on politics until I talk to you Nick, where I discover I know nothing. I'm not quite sure where to begin this blog - you talked about a lot of stuff.
I suppose that yes, the Constitution does bear some scrutiny. Our discussion on gun control, and consequently the right to bear arms, is a perfect example. Does the original meaning of that amendment still stand? Or should we clarify it? Or do we just pass a bunch of laws?
I disagree with you however about the Senate. We have the House of Representatives if you want representation by population. You argue that Wyoming and North Dakota don't take into consideration or could block laws concerning the needs/interests of California. However, if California were to have representation by population, who's to say they wouldn't block laws concerning the needs/interests of Wyoming and North Dakota? That's why we have the two houses - to make sure there's fair representation both ways. I'm not confusing what you were saying am I?
As far as midnight add-ons, while I don't think it's fair, the senators and house members can vote no if they don't like what's been added on. On the other hand, sometimes you have to compromise to get what you want. I'm sure not all of these last minute tack-ons are part of nefarious plots, so I'd be dubious to restrict them if some good has come out of them.
On the point of electoral colleges - again, ambivalent. If we did away with them and only had popular vote, well Al Gore would have been elected in 2000. (But then would he have written and filmed An Inconvenient Truth ?) However have there been any good presidents elected by the electoral college and not the popular vote? I suppose I could look that up - here's a link in fact.
The ATHF bomb scare in Boston is ridiculous. Jen said she saw it in New York, and one could argue that they would have more reason to freak out than anyone. I mean seriously, is that the new thing to do? Pimp Your Bomb. Why have a normal bomb with ugly wires, when you can pimp it out with an glowing obscure cartoon character? Osama Bin Laden would come to the cave of an unsuspecting Al-Qaeda member - "Yo, this bomb is whack! We're gonna Pimp Your Bomb, son!". A team of specialists meets and discusses the ways to trick it out. Huge LCD TVs, phat sound system - the works. MTV is probably trying to buy the rights as we speak.
I think it would defeat the purpose. If I were a terrorist, and I wanted to actually do damage, the last thing I would want to do would be to draw attention to the bomb. I guess if you were only a half-hearted terrorist, you would do such a thing with the hopes that your plot would be foiled.
I actually hadn't heard about it until you brought it up, Nick. I don't recall seeing on nytimes.com, but sometimes I just skim through the headlines. It was a stupid ad campaign. I mean, if the Boston emergency services hadn't freaked out, would anyone who didn't already watch the show have gotten the point? But that wasn't the case, and now the show has gotten more press than they could hope for. Congratulations to those PR people.
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6 comments:
Get back at you? You don't like my topic?
I actually have a lot to say about your post, and it was a very good one, but I just don't have the time right now (I am at work) and might not until much later.
I do want to mention that I'm not advocating for any of these things I speak about; I'm trying to spark some discussion. I happen to be very interested in the Constitution but, personally, I would be against a new convention, at least at this point, because of our current political climate. Unfortunately, I think that the devil we know is better that the devil that might come out of a new convention. I am afraid we'd get something added to the constitution regarding marriage, religion, etc.
Another thing I'd love to discuss is presidential primaries. The way it is done now, Iowa and New Hampshire wield quite a bit of power, especially New Hampshire, which hosts the first presidential primary (Iowa is just a caucus). In some people's minds, this means NH basically has an extremely large hand in choosing who will get the nomination for president, even though NH is hardly representative of the rest of the country (it's 97% white, for just one example). Now other states are attempting to push their primaries up to take some of the power away from NH. What do you think should happen? There's good arguments for and against this; NH is not representative of the rest of the country; however, making the states all with a national primary would give states like CA and FL and NY etc. too much power to choose nominees- in effect, since these states are so large and expensive, the candidates would campaign mostly there, and only the big monied candidates would have a real chance. With the caucus in IA and the primary in NH, which are smaller states, a dark horse candidate, and one possibly without the money that another candidate would have, has a chance to get heard and possibly win in those states, which would conceivably propel them into Super Tuesday (the more "national" primary).
I'm not trying to get back at anyone; this is just the shit that I'm interested in and that I occupy my time with. Though some of the topics lately have thrown me off! Next topic won't be about politics, I promise.
It seems to me that law and law-making is a conservative practice in the true (ie, non-political) sense. The reliance upon precdent is designed to prevent quick changes of interpretation of the law. To a non-American like myself, the US model of government seems designed to maintain the status quo, as well.
From a purely democratic viewpoint, the system isn't fair. But then, the country name IS the United States of America. Isn't there a philosophical statement there? Changing the Senate apportionment would make it a union among unequals. Are the House and Senate supposed to compliment each other that way? Open questions for Americans. The current system gives weight to both the artificial divisions along state lines, and the more natural, raw numbers of congressional districts.
In a practical sense the House gives a voice to urban populations and the Senate to rural ones. Was this the case in the late 1700s? It seems like the urbanized populations would've been small enough for the system to be not so polarizing. Which leads into changing the Constitution. I think part of what gives the Constitution weight is its inertia. How seriously can one take the philosophical manifesto of one's society if it changes every couple of decades? There obviously needs to be a mechanism to do it, but should that be scheduled, or done simply out of need? I'm going to go with the latter. It avoids flavour of the bi-decade issues.
I think the electoral college is just weird. Considering America loves to declare itself as the greatest democracy of anything EVAR, I don't understand why there isn't a straight up vote for President.
But far be it from me to pass judgement on someone else's democratic deficit. In Canada, the general rule of thumb is that somewhere between 35-38% will get you a majority in the House and there's still an appointed Senate and Supreme Court. For the record, though, it works. I think it works pretty well. And for the record, Canada's tweaked its Constitution twice in 140 years. I think that's reasonable.
I do like the topic - the bomb part was especially inspiring - I just don't think that I can argue my points very well. I can tell stories, but that's not the same thing.
Don't pick different topics because of some comment I made. If we all picked the same stuff this blog would suck. It takes me longer to formulate what I'm going to write in response to the topics you've chosen, but I enjoy the challenge.
As far as the primaries, I feel the same way -that they shoulld be in the most populated states first. Do they choose the others though because they are more polarized as far as party affiliation?
I disagree, Stephanie: you articulate your points extremely well. I know what you mean about taking a while; I agonize over what I'm going to write in response to topics. But it's fun. But I do realize that I always post about politics- that's just what I'm most interested in. I read so much of this stuff, and it's fun to bring some of the topics I'm reading about to the group and get some maybe non-political junkie responses.
I wasn't actually going to add the "bomb part" of my topic; I had assumed that everyone would have known about it. I was pretty surprised that so many of you hadn't heard about it. But I am a news junkie. And I read several different newspapers a day, one of them being the Boston Globe, which obviously had extensive coverage. But I'm glad you tackled both of my "topics."
The primaries are set up the way they are out of tradition, as far as I know. Now, especially with the "blogosphere" and 24-hour news channels, the 21st Century and all, people have been questioning having NH and IA as the first states- not always, but usually who wins those early votes has momentum into Super Tuesday. Which is why, if you watch political news, it's such big news in political circles when candidates or possible candidates go to IA and NH to visit- that's usually a sign they are running.
I personally don't think that IA and NH particularly are representative of the rest of the country. But I don't think that we should have a huge national primary, because then the candidates will only campaign in CA, NY, maybe FL, maybe IL, etc. and the smaller states would not get addressed and the dark horse anti-establishment candidates would not have a chance (UNLESS we had some serious campaign finance reform- that would possibly nullify a lot of this controversy; I'd LOVE to see some serious campaign finance reform). So it's interesting, and there's pros and cons either way. I am still planning on moving to New England, so it would be fun to live close enough to NH to get to go see all of the candidates (and EVERY SINGLE candidate, regardless of perceived stature, goes to NH, usually multiple times, and often to little mom and pop places, cafes, etc.).
Whoops, I got started again. I will think of a non-politics topic next time. I should've saved that picture to use as a Jen-esque topic.
Hilarious!
-Melissa
I think they put it best on the Onion on one of their "What do you think?" segments: "Boston reacted correctly–authorities there are obviously aware of the new terrorist trend of bringing as much attention as possible to hidden explosive devices."
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