Delta1212

On the other hand, the way it seems right now is that the ten percent has structured the political and economic system so that they have access to all of those things and everyone else be damned.

It wouldn't, actually. If the benefit of the Electoral College is, in your view, that it bolsters the influence of people who live in less populous states, then it would still ultimately do that. The votes per electoral vote in those states would still be more favorable than in the more populous states, they would just break up along the lines people actually voted in that state instead of all going to the majority in that state. A vote in Wyoming would still count four times as much as a vote from New York the way it does now.

But what kind of part? I don't disagree that involved parties should weigh in on major decisions like that, but as you allude to, that seems like an interpersonal issue when the larger conversation is really about what should be legally mandated. Do you think you should have legally mandated authority to any degree over how that decision is made and, if so, to what degree, or do you think that should be a matter of trust in your partner rather than a matter of law?

In which case you would want what kind of control?

Should that make a difference, though?

I generally take "Native American" to mean at least "Native of North America" or possibly "Native of the Americas."

Since you asked, here is the same map by county: 2012: Land given proportions by population:

The thing to remember is that "large swathes" of the country are red only because no one is actively occupying a lot of that space and it gets colored in with whatever color the majority of the nearest people, or the people who own it, align with. Here is the electoral map for the 2012 election: And here is what it would look like if the land area was more evenly distributed among the population:

This used to be something I struggled with a little. Whether or not a woman has an abortion does have long term consequences for the man as well. At some point, however, I managed to really put myself in the opposite position, and imagine what it would be like if I was capable of getting pregnant. The physical, mental and social effects that it would have on me and on my body. The process of going through labor. Really got myself in the mindset of what it would mean, in as much detail as I could. And at that point, the idea that someone could force me to go through all of that when I didn't want to made me both slightly ill and claustrophobic. Physically. That's not something I can support as an option in good conscience, because as big of a deal as that decision is on my side of things as well, I still can't consider it to be comparable.

Both city and country are capable of scratching the itch if you desire to go someplace where everybody knows your name. But the city makes it much easier to find a place to go where nobody knows your name if that's what you're in the mood for.

I spend most of my time in the city for my job and I never don't feel safe there. Helped lots of people who needed it, been helped by people, seen lots of people providing help. The way people in the city interact really is differently from how they interact in the country or even the suburbs, but most of that is down to practical considerations, like not being able to smile and wave hello to every person you pass because there is literally no way it would be physically possible to do. But most of those differences are superficial and get taken for a lack of friendliness and cooperation that is entirely at odds with how most people actually interact with each other.

"It can't ever happen here." "It couldn't happen elsewhere at one point but then it did." Ever is a long time, and never tends to arrive a lot sooner than most people expect it to.

Yeah, I was thinking that, but based on the people that have actually been appointed so far, we're not in for a pleasant ride.

No, I don't think Trump is literally Hitler. Yes, it is absolutely possible for something like that to happen in this era, and while I don't think it is likely that Trump is that leader, the way things have gone down are absolutely an indication of how something like that could get started.

Depends on what the difference is. Many of them, I have no particular problem with what they are hoping for, I just either think the people they have elected aren't the ones who are going to make it happen or that the things they want simply won't work the way they think they will. That is fine. Many of them probably think the same of me. Others want things that, yes, I think are evil.

It is at the moment, though.

But it's an abstract tragedy which makes its consequences much easier to ignore and does not, therefore, count.

I'm not even sure it is correct to say that it is caused by the constancy of the speed of light. It is a consequence thereof in that it was discovered that the speed of light was constant and then the effect of time dilation was worked out as a necessary result of that. However, it may be equally valid to flip it around and say that the speed of light being the same for all observers is caused by time dilation between different frames. It's all interconnected rather than being a strict cause and effect relationship.

I know lots of people, Democrats and Republicans who have complained about the Electoral College over the last eight years. I'm not sure why you think that no one cared until just now. I'm also not sure why you think it is only less self-serving had the President talked about it during the last eight years, since I haven't heard him say anything about it even now.

The House is gerrymandered in favor of the Republicans. You cannot, however, gerrymander the Electoral College. The way it is set up does slightly favor Republicans from a vote per Electoral College vote perspective because the Electoral College gives a small edge to less populous states and Republicans tend to get votes from more rural areas than the more urban Democratic base. But that's a feature that has been baked into the EC since the beginning, long before the Reoublican Party was even a thing. It's more pronounced at the moment because the difference in population density between urbanized and rural states has gotten more extreme which exacerbates the effect, and because the increasing polarization has run roughly along urban and rural lines. So one party happens to draw from the more electorally advantaged regions and the other from the less electoral advantaged regions. And in very close races, that gives one party a consistent leg up in terms of getting the necessary electoral votes. But that's not the same thing as gerrymandering because nobody is intentionally rigging the system that way in order to advance one party's agenda. It's just that an in-built bias towards rural concerns has been advantage for one party of late, which is potentially an issue but is its own issue and shouldn't be lumped into the same category as gerrymandering. It's important to remember that "This isn't a coincidence" is not synonymous with "This is a conspiracy."

It gets brought up all the time. It gets brought up most loudly when there is a mismatch between the popular vote and the electoral vote. It happens that the only two times this has happened in living memory, a Democrat won the popular vote and lost the election. As far as why it wasn't changed in the last 8 years (or whenever) the most straightforward answer is that it would take a Constitutional ammendment to change the Electoral College system, and that is exceedingly difficult to pull off even when you don't have a government that is barely capable of keeping the lights on in their own offices. Edit: I should also point out that while younger voters traditionally do not vote at high rates, low turnout is not the same as no turnout, and you have no idea whether the specific people at the protests voted or not. At a guess, I would say that most (not necessarily all, but most) people who care enough to "get off their butts" and go protest probably also managed to get themselves to the polls. You can't make assumptions about the behavior of individuals based on the average of groups them belong to, especially when discussing individuals in a self-selected unrepresentative sample of the larger population. In this case "Young people who are politically active" rather than just "Young people."

I'm not going to pitch a fit about the fact that he won, but my eyes can't roll back far enough to express my feelings about Paul Ryan talking about Trump's "mandate." If winning with fewer votes than your opponent is all that is required to have a mandate, the word has lost all meaning in a political context and now just means "win."

The phrase "more evolved" literally does not mean anything. Evolution does not have levels. Nothing is more evolved than anything else. Things are either alive or they are dead. There is no other ranking. As for the rest, [citation needed]

I, uh, thought it was pretty obvious what he was talking about?

The polling thing is a bit silly. Not only is there no evidence of it, I'm not even sure what the mechanism would be and the polling was pretty consistent across the board, it was just wrong. There's no realistic way that Russia maintained an on-going hack of every major pollster and news outlet over a period of six months constantly inserting manipulated data with no one catching on. There's no plausible mechanism for that to happen. However, voter suppression is another story. It's not intellectually honest to take a position of "both sides are claiming this therefore it's probably all bullshit" because it's very easy for someone do something wrong and then simply claim that the other side is doing it too even if they aren't in order to muddy the water. You have to go by the evidence. And the evidence points to both in-person voter fraud of the type supposedly meant to be prevented by voter ID and "poll watchers" is exceedingly rare to the point of irrelevance Meanwhile, there is ample historical and contemporary evidence through official channels that voter suppression and intimidation is an on-going concern in this country. I'm not claiming that it made "the difference" in this election and that the election was stolen because I simply have no direct evidence demonstrating that to be the case, and until I do, I think the default stance should be to accept the election as legitimate even though I am unhappy about the result. However, saying "he said, she said, the claims are a wash" is not a place to start when looking for the truth. Always, always look for the evidence, not just the complaints of people involved.