this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2024
597 points (97.5% liked)
Political Memes
5233 readers
1897 users here now
Welcome to politcal memes!
These are our rules:
Be civil
Jokes are okay, but don’t intentionally harass or disturb any member of our community. Sexism, racism and bigotry are not allowed. Good faith argumentation only. No posts discouraging people to vote or shaming people for voting.
No misinformation
Don’t post any intentional misinformation. When asked by mods, provide sources for any claims you make.
Posts should be memes
Random pictures do not qualify as memes. Relevance to politics is required.
No bots, spam or self-promotion
Follow instance rules, ask for your bot to be allowed on this community.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Land doesn't have rights. It's just gerrymandering by another name. The problem works both ways. The rural fuckheads in California are also unrepresented. Harris County (where Houston is located) is larger than Rhode Island. Where is their representation? Why do the Dakotas (4 senators for virtually no population) get more political power than California or Texas? Houston, Dallas, Austin, and San Antonio get no representation despite a huge amount of population. Rural Californians get no representation despite outnumbering the Dakotas and Wyoming.
I agree, but the point is to have a section of the government where the 50 disparate governments that make up our union have equal say. This tends to get simplified to "land gets 2 votes" because the other part of Congress is population based
In the house, as I said already. Also, their 2 senators are part of their representation, they're still part of the state
Because the house has a limit on members. The senate is literally equal by design
Your issue seems to be a lack of understanding of how our legislative branch works because your complaints are all root issues of the House of Representatives and not the senate
I agree with your House argument, but I strongly believe that the design of the Senate was a major fuck-up. Senators are far more powerful than representatives, and I get none. A single house member cannot torpedo legislation the way a Senator can. North Dakota (population 780k) gets two. The 4.7M people in Harris County get none. That is a poor design.
Only if you're not an American or live in DC
Again the people in Harris county get 2 senators as their state senators represent them. And, again, senators do not represent based on population as that is the job of the house
Entirely irrelevant as they represent different things. Your representatives represent a portion of your population while your senators represent your state as a whole. The entire point of separating the state and population representation is to allow more perspectives when legislating: the house gives a perspective from closer to the people, the senate from a broader view
Again, it seems you fundamentally don't understand the split between house and Senate, why it exists and what it does to our governing system
It’s obvious why the Senate exists historically, and it’s also obvious that it’s inherently undemocratic.
I mean historically it existed mostly because states had much more autonomy and power, much like a city state or country. Until at least Lincoln that part of the system had a good logic to it. If they only went off of proportional representation they could basically ignore small states needs. In order to get states to agree to join the union, they had to build a country that would give all states a serious seat at the table.
The main reason people on the left hate it so much now is that it currently hurts us, but it's very much an equity vs equality argument. The system was set up to be equitable even if it isn't equal. Something the left typically supports and this meme touches on. I think the higher priority fix is the house, as it no longer even does what it was designed to do.
It's exhausting trying to discuss shit online with people with such a terrible understanding of the topic at hand
Senators are voted for and represent their entire state. They're the representatives of the state's general populace in a representative democracy
One human = one vote
Anything else is undemocratic and I think it’s morally reprehensible to support a system that values any one person above another for any reason.