Instead... he uses the logic that if you can't pay your mortgage, that your neighbor should be forced to step in and help pay it for you. And they better not default on thier own in the meantime...

He also ignores those of us who told him not to buy the house, we have all the houses we need and can afford. But he did it anyway and then told us we are running up expenses.

There was a cartoon in a Chinese paper yesterday depicting the US as a beggar and I can't even get mad bc it is so true. Everyone forgets that the "losing side" in the last election was still close to half of the total votes counted. That is a pretty big minority. I feel like we just don't matter and nothing we do will stop this from happening. I coach a middle school LD debate team and we are talking about democracy right now and I told them that you don't have to poor or illegal to feel disenfranchised. A lot of middle class people are feeling that way right now.

So.. What I'm getting is that if you don't pay your mortgage just because, you're a deadbeat, but if you actually can't afford your mortgage, it is perfectly acceptable to buy a boat for the neighbor who introduced you to the shady mortgage broker in the first place.

Does that analogy make sense?

'I've shown myself willing to negotiate, but only after you give up all you demands and accede to all of mine'

Sheepmommy,

I'm trying to understand your perspective here, but I'm having some difficulty figuring out what it is you want. Could you please spell out in detail how you believe things should work.

It isn't that people "forget" that the losing side of the last presidential election received ~47% of the popular vote. It is that people remember that we have a winner takes all system of government.

This is how it has been since the government was formed (i.e., this is nothing new). The "losing side" doesn't get a proportional part of the presidency.

Everyone's vote counts, but when the votes are ultimately tallied there is only one winner.

Just because your preferred candidate lost doesn't make you "disenfranchised" in the sense that you lost your right to vote. You still got to vote, you simply didn't have enough people who agreed with you.

You still have the right to object to what the government does, but to imply that you lost your right to vote because the candidate you preferred lost the election is not accurate.

It isn't that people "forget" that the losing side of the last presidential election received ~47% of the popular vote. It is that people remember that we have a winner takes all system of government.

This is how it has been since the government was formed (i.e., this is nothing new). The "losing side" doesn't get a proportional part of the presidency.

Christ you are so stupid. You shouldnt be allowed to vote you are so stupid.

It used to be that one person are for president and the runner up got vice president.

It used to be that senators were appointed by state legislators and their job was to advocate for their state, not the citizenry.

Even today its not winner takes all, if it were there wouldnt be republican and democrat serving at the same time.

FUCK, why in gods name dont you know fucking more about the history of your own goddamn country!!!???

You still have the right to object to what the government does, but to imply that you lost your right to vote because the candidate you preferred lost the election is not accurate. -- Artemis at October 17, 2013 5:30 PM

You are totally ignoring the election of the 2010 and 2012 House results. In 2010 the House changed hand to a strictly Republican majority and that didn't change in 2012. Then add in that Romney lost because Republicans didn't show up. There were over 3M less votes for Obama from 2008.

So the president walks out and says I won't negotiate with "terrorists" or "with a gun pointed to my head".

The problem you are having is not realizing why the Constitution was written the way it was. The House was specifically given the power of the purse to have those closest to the average American citizen to have a say as to how the government spends money.

The Senate was supposed to represent the individual states. So the 27+ states that objected to Obamacare should have been able to tell their Senators "Vote for Obamacare and you will be replaced." The 17th fucked that up.

So now we have the Senate sucking on Obama instead of getting a call from the governor (state legislature) and following what the individual state wants.

So believing that the [un]Affordable Care Act is truly approved is believing that faeries will rescue you from drowning.

"Everyone's vote counts, but when the votes are ultimately tallied there is only one winner."

I'm guessing Artemis is oblivious to the function, of both the electoral college and congress.
Who needs em. Right??

Isab,

I am fully aware of how the electoral college works.

However, in what way does the existence of the electoral college disenfranchise (i.e. take away ones right to vote) in a way that differs between those who get the candidate they like and those who do not?

One could attempt to argue that the electoral college disenfranchises us all and they might have some points to make.

However your current argument suggests that you are oblivious to the distinction that Sheepmommy was talking about.

Her argument was that people "feel disenfranchised" when the candidate they like doesn't get elected.

Lujlp,

You are right that when the government was formed none of us actually voted for the president at all.

I jumped the gun by going back that far. However you are missing the actual point here by nitpicking an erroneous detail on my part.

Originally no one had a vote for president outside of special officials.

That was ultimately democratized to a popular vote which determined who ultimately were the electors in the electoral college who by convention are generally bound to vote in a winner take all fashion.

Forget about my comment regarding how things "originally worked" since that was erroneous and not important for my main point which you failed to address.

The main point is that the system we use today is not new.

The 12th amendment which replaced part of article 2 was ratified in 1804. Our county was founded in 1776... it is now 2013.

The system you are focusing on was in existence for 28 years, the system I am talking about has been in existence for 209 years.

You are welcome to harp over such a stupid point, but it doesn't affect my main contention that this is nothing new.

Your myopic focus upon the first 10% of our nations history as opposed to the latter 90% suggests you are trying to avoid the real issue under discussion here.

Jim P.,

I'm not ignoring anything. I am trying to understand where this feeling of disenfranchisement comes from when you actually get a vote.

At no point in our nations history has anyone gotten everything they wanted. That still exists today.

To complain that one feels disenfranchised because they are on the losing side of a political battle is just silly.

"Then add in that Romney lost because Republicans didn't show up."

I don't even know what this is supposed to mean.

Are you arguing that Romney lost because not enough Republicans actually voted for him as a reason to support his failed candidacy?

Of course he lost because not enough people voted for him... that is a great way to lose an election.

If those people showed up maybe the results would have been different. The only votes that count are the ones that are cast.

lujlp brings up a point about the vice presidency I have wanted to enlarge on. The original intent was the losing party's candidate got VP and president of the Senate to keep watch on the winner in the White House. This was a balance that was done away with under the current system. The Imperial Presidency has been the result.

Fred,

It is more nuanced than that even, which is incidentally why I wasn't really interested in getting into the specific details of the way things worked under article 2 from 1788-1804.

When you say this:

"The original intent was the losing party's candidate got VP and president of the Senate to keep watch on the winner in the White House."

This isn't strictly true either.

There was never an original intent for there to be a two party system. Hence there wasn't supposed to be a "winning party" and a "losing party".

There wasn't even a prohibition of the president and vice president coming from different political parties.

There were only 3 different presidents even elected during the short time period that the original article 2 was in place.

Those were George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson.

I'd like to specifically point to Thomas Jefferson as an example here because both of his vice presidents were in the same political party as he was.

So we've been having presidents and vice presidents share the same political party since as far back as 1801 (and before this the political parties weren't exactly well defined anyway... George Washington for example remained an independent so as not to indoctrinate the nation with a preferential party position)

Since that time presidents and vice presidents have almost without exception been from the same political party (Abraham Lincoln is an interesting exception here).

That being said, if the "original intent" was for the "losing party" to watch over the winner, why were Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr both from the same political party?

Did Thomas Jefferson and his contemporaries in congress misunderstand the original intent of the framers of the constitution (even when they actually were the framers of the constitution)? That seems highly unlikely to me.

In any case, I'm more interested in understanding this whole disenfranchised thing that relates to 2013 than discussing the infancy of the nation.

I'll also point out though that even talking about it as 28 years isn't strictly accurate since the constitution wasn't ratified until 1788. Hence the original article 2 was only really in effect for ~15 years.

Can we now please discuss the current issues instead of becoming bogged down by the details of early American political history?

To answer your question Artemis, the feeling of disenfranchisement comes, when your party wins an election, like the Republicans did in 2010, and 2012 for the house, and it doesn't matter a damn bit, because any parts of laws you pass, or don't pass, that the President doesn't like, are immediately nullified by a unilateral executive order.

Or is it Orion, that I am actually addressing? The reason I ask is because the technical correctness, without any speck or actual understanding of how the real world works, looks extremely familiar.

Sorry! I was away from my computer after I posted this. Artemis, I have two degrees in government, so I don't need your little primer on how government works. Isab gets the point. We have president and bureaucracy that have gotten completely out of control. Some of this is a function of the size of government and some of it is bc there has been a decision made by this administration to bypass the system of checks and balances that the founders put in place. Between the TSA frisking Grandma, the DEA stealing property from law abiding citizens in the course of prosecuting a war on drugs, and Obamacare which is stealing the wealth of future generations, yeah I feel disenfranchised.

Artemis, you aren't that smart. Take some time and read the Federalist Papers and tell us again how the government was designed to screw the guys who lose. Luj is right, you are an idiot.

I'm not ignoring anything. I am trying to understand where this feeling of disenfranchisement comes from when you actually get a vote. -- Artemis at October 17, 2013 11:26 PM

The problem that you refuse to acknowledge is that the people's representatives have, repeatedly, said they don't like or want Obamacare. (I'm not even get into the restriction on the size of the House.)

So the House creates a financial bill that represents the United State citizen's desires. They send it to the Senate.

The Senate was set up so that it was supposed to represent the various state's interest in federal government. There were twenty-seven states that sued over Obamacare. That means that at least 54 senators should have opposed it as well. The 17th amendment fucked that up because the senators are no longer beholden to their state.

The senators ignore their state's desire and also the desire of the voters. So we get into the shutdown.

Meanwhile the major media outlets are all saying that Ted Cruz and the rest of the constitutionalists are wrong. Even McCain (R) is blaming Cruz for the issue.

And that is just the budget issue. Meanwhile we have the immigration, NSA and other stuff still on the back burner.

Is that simple enough for you to understand?

Here's a link to the Wall Street Journal today, long but worth it. And gets to what Jim P is saying.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303680404579143462696720716.html?mod=trending_now_3

Oh, and before you go read the Federalist papers Artemis/Orion, which is an excellent suggestion, I want to point out that your understanding of how the electoral college works is also incorrect.

You posted this:
"That was ultimately democratized to a popular vote which determined who ultimately were the electors in the electoral college who by convention are generally bound to vote in a winner take all fashion."

This is untrue. Electors are not necessarily, winner take all. A couple of states divide their electors based on a percentage of the popular vote, or by the popular vote in each house district. Some states bind their electors to vote for the winner of the popular vote, others do not. In short, how states govern their elections, to a large extent is a matter of state law and not Federal law.
When you understand that the US is a republic, and not a democracy, you will have a better grasp of why those of us who understand how the government is supposed to work, think it has gone off the rails.