We need to stop pretending we live in a Democracy

[dsc]

The Senate is bad enough given the every state is equal non sense but today a bill supported by nearly 90 percent of people was defeated after getting 54 votes to 46 voted against. The following states have Senators both of whom voted for the amendment. CA, NY, PA, MI, VA, MD, WV, MN, WA, OR, HI, NJ, MA, VT, RI, IL, DE, CT, CO, NM, ME. The following states have Senators both of whom voted against the amendment. GA, AL, MS, SC, TX, OK, NE, KS, ND, ID, WY, AK, KY, TN, UT, AR,NV . The following states split their votes AZ, IA, MT, NH, NC, FL, OH, IN, MO, LA, WI, SD.

Using Congressional seats is a reasonable proxy for population since they are determined by population. The states that voted for have 219 congressional seats. The states that voted for have 112. The ones who split have 104. If you split the split votes evenly then you have 271 for vs 164. In other words 62% of the American people are represented by Senators who voted for this and 38% are represented by those who voted against and we lost. That is lots of things, Democracy it isn't. BTW the numbers here are actually not quite right since Reid only voted no to be able to bring it up again. So it should be 273 to 162, making it closer to 63% for and 37% against. Again, this is lots of things, Democracy, it ain't.

[dsc]

2. well yes there is that

but it is far past time for this body to go.

[MrSlayer]

3. "A republic" said Ben Franklin "if you can keep it."

We have failed to keep it. We allowed our government to be bought. And now we 're powerless. Yay!

[ReRe]

17. Wasn't it Ben who said...

..... "If you can't afford to pay cash for it, you don't need it." If we just lived by "Benisms", we'd be allot better off.

[defacto7]

19. ^^ this ^^

[ReRe]

22. Here's another one...

.... "If you can't say something good about somebody, don't say anything at all."

[defacto7]

29. Ben Franklin...

"Speak ill of no man, but speak all the good you know of everybody"

[ReRe]

31. Do you know of a book that lists...

... all of Ben's quotes?

[defacto7]

32. No I don't

I remember my Dad having one a long time ago. The only access I have is the net. An amazing person, genius, inventor, statesman, scientist and had a really crazy (wild) side as well. I've always been a fan of Ben. His Poor Richards Almanac would have a lot of his quips.

[HiPointDem]

37. start your homilies with the banksters and corporatists.

[ReRe]

40. Homilies and quips from Ben can't touch those psycho-reptiles...

... as they have no conscience.

[HiPointDem]

41. they're the biggest borrowers in the world

[awoke_in_2003]

30. Yep...

our government is a facade to make us believe we still live in a constitutional republic. Politicians only listen to the rich.

[Tx4obama]

4. An IMPORTANT note regarding Nevada...

Senator Reid was a 'yes' vote but due to senate procedural rule (since there weren't 60 yes votes) he had to change his vote to 'no' so that he can bring the bill back to the senate floor in the future.

I think it is unfair to lump him in with the republicans due to a goofy senate rule

[dsc]

5. that is why I have the endline of the post

bring us up to 63%.

[Tx4obama]

6. Sorry, I will admit that I only read the first paragraph. My bad :(

[cbrer]

7. Indeed

The slow sinking of our nation into a post Imperialist power is going to have many challenges. I have to wonder if our future masters will continue the ruse of heeding the Constitution, or just scrap it all together.

[Amonester]

21. they already scraped it all together

the only times they bring it up is when it's convenient for them to do the one-percenters' biding.

Re.: Selection 2000, Patriot Act(s), wiretappings, et al.

[KauaiK]

8. Is there a link to the NAMES of Senators who voted against the gun bill?

Sorry....just home from work trying to catch up.....

[dsc]

9. Here

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=113&session=1&vote=00097

[KauaiK]

12. Thanks DSC

Reid voted Nay??? Is that correct?

[dsc]

14. It was so he can bring it up later

only someone who votes no can bring up a motion to reconsider, he votes no on most votes we lose that way. Had we had the other 59 votes he would have voted yes.

[JayhawkSD]

10. Popular support

What is your basis for saying that 90% of the people support the bill?
Not arguing that you're wrong, just asking for a citation.

[dsc]

11. there have been dozens of polls with backround checks

within the MOE of 90 percent support.

[Llewlladdwr]

15. Yet only 4% percent of Americans consider guns/gun control to be the #1 issue facing the nation.

Gun control ranks 8th on the list of people's concerns, well after the economy and job creation. A lack of new gun legislation isn't even going to register on most folks radar.

This is not the burning issue DU thinks it is.

[davidn3600]

34. One pollster showed though that more than half don't trust the government with it

I think it was gallup but maybe it was Pew or Quinnipiac... but one of the big pollsters did some more research in those numbers and found some interesting things.

90% favor more background checks. But something like 50% didnt trust the government enough to do it. They believed that the government's ultimate goal would be creating a database and eventually confiscation.

There is a trust problem here.

[Pointy_n_sharp]

36. It's an issue that is always in the background of gun control...

Lack of trust...

[JayhawkSD]

46. Sorry,

"dozens of polls" is a good bit less than convincing. Need names of polls, who conducted them, dates, areas covered...

[TalkingDog]

13. It has never been a Democracy. Majority rules in a Democracy for good or ill.

We live in a Democratic Republic.

But I take your point.

[tblue]

18. But it's not Majority Rule.

It's Minority Rule.

[Amonester]

25. No, it's Ritchie-Rich Rule.

But I agree that 1% is a quite a small minority.

[TalkingDog]

45. Legally and philosophically we are a Democratic Republic. In praxis, not

If you need everything both spelled out and validated for you perhaps you might want to move on to harassing another member of DU about it. Not my thing.

[Kablooie]

20. We've always been a republic, not a democracy.

But of course that's a lie too.
We are an oligarchy and probably have been for most of our history.
Today's NRA win demonstrates this clearly.
The "republic" meme is just to keep people pacified.

[KingFlorez]

23. There is no need for a Senate, anyway

Most civilized countries get by with a unicameral legislature, with fair constituencies drawn by independent panels. We need a unicameral Congress where politicians don't draw the lines and is not elected at large, where smaller states get equal representation with larger ones.

[hepkat]

24. It's a republic

We need to stop believing we live in a republic.

We need to come to terms that we live in an oligarchy.

USA USA USA USA

[bhikkhu]

27. Not everybody gets their way right away

...that's the way it works, that's the way it was designed. I don't suppose it matters what someone pretends it is.

On the positive side, generally, to the organized goes the spoils. Persistence and organization will pay off in the end, if people care enough.

[Rowdyboy]

28. The Koch brothers and their ilk own state legislatures, own the US house and have a good grip on the

throat of the senate. Its been decades since I studied political theory but I think its merely "corporate fascism", much like what was practiced during the early years of Benito Mussolini and Adolph Hitler-not outright fascism, but corporate control of government.

[marions ghost]

49. corporate fascism

that is what it is

[davidn3600]

33. We were never meant to be a democracy

This is a republic. The Constitution formed a republic.

As James Madison wrote... the people sometimes do not know what is in their best interest and are many times too easily swayed.

This was a big concern among the founding fathers. They believed that ultimately the people are not wise enough and not well enough informed on the issues to make critical decisions for themselves. They believed that people would be too easily swayed by emotions or crafty politicians that have a gift of public speaking. In their view, the mob can easily trample the rights of the people just as easily as a King.

Were they wrong? Well...here is a good way to find out. Go outside on a busy street. Stop random Americans and ask them a few basic questions about our government, it's laws and policies. Ask to name a Supreme Court justice or even ask who their senators are. Who won the Civil War? Most Americans are tuned out of the political process. The answers you get to these kind of questions will scare you.

Most people are not well versed in history and don't follow politics like people in this message board do. 46% of the country didnt even both to vote at all in the last election.

"There are particular moments in public affairs when the people, stimulated by some irregular passion, or some illicit advantage, or misled by the artful misrepresentations of interested men, may call for measures which they themselves will afterwards be most ready to lament and condemn. In these critical moments, how salutary will be the interference of some temperate and respectable body of citizens, in order to check the misguided career and to suspend the blow meditated by the people against themselves, until reason, justice and truth can regain their authority over the public mind"
-James Madison
Federalist Papers #63

[Recursion]

35. This again. "Republic" and "Democracy" are not contradictory. We are both.

A state is a Republic if its chief of state is also its head of government and is not a monarch. Check.

A state is a Democracy if the authority of its government is derived from the consent of the governed. Check.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

38. No, you need to stop pretending that you don't.

No, it's not perfect.

Yes, it's still very clearly a democracy.

[DeSwiss]

39. Never was....

- K&R

[aaaaaa5a]

42. Its actually even worse than that.

Congressional districts are not only gerrymandered to favor the GOP. The districts are also weighted towards more rural geographic regions. If the congressional districts were all weighted based on equal population you are probably looking at 75% to 25% or worse because even in the house, smaller states are way overrepresented.


Wyoming 500,000 people................. 2 senate votes

California 38,000,000 million people................ 2 senate votes


Wyoming 500,000 people............. 1 house member (1 per 500,000)

California 38,000,000 people.......... 53 house members ( 1 per 716,000)


If people in California were equal to people in Wyoming, California would have 76 house members.


The writers of the constitution never intended for it to be that unbalanced and that undemocratic.

[dsc]

43. I didn't use the actual districts

I used the idea of them as stand ins. My numbers will be a little off since there is the cutoff issue but they should be close. In reality, the real districts probably are closer to half and half than what I have due to the gerrymandering.

[aaaaaa5a]

44. Agreed.

People forget that even something that is a 90-10 issue is largely unimportant. It comes down to what people in each of the 50 states think, regardless of population. In addition it really comes down to what people who are most likely to vote in a rural State's GOP primary think. What the masses want isn't really relevant. That is the take home point progressives need to understand.

90-10 issues are meaningless, if 38 million people in California want one thing. But just 500,000 people in Wyoming (or any small state) want something else.

[JayhawkSD]

47. The Senate perserves state influence

America is still the United States. It is a federation of states, none of which has agreed to become irrelevant in the governance of the whole. Without the Senate, that would be the case, because Wyoming's 1 member would have no voice and the people of Wyoming would have no influence in national governance. In such a case you might as well erase the state lines, erase "United States of" from the name of our nation and simply call this nation "America."

It is not "unbalanced and undemocratic," to have states equally represented in the Senate. On the contrary, governance without both the Senate's equal representation and the proportionate representation in the House would be "unbalanced and undemocratic,"

That the majority rules in a democracy does not mean that the majority simply eradicates the minority and becomes the whole. The minority still has a role to play, and a valuable one since it serves as a check on the excesses of the majority. The writers of the constitution knew exactly what they were doing.

[Slit Skirt]

48. we need to stop thinking there is a right-left paradigm

we are in a fascist state...corporate rule. All that other stuff is to make you believe otherwise. When we recognize that and then unite as citizens instead of republicans/democrats, then we can actually make a difference.

[JayhawkSD]

50. Here's your poll, 86%

This one, http://www.pollingreport.com/guns.htm|, shows 86% support for background checks, but only 38% say that "The President and Congress should continue to work on gun legislation."

Another one, http://www.humanevents.com/2013/04/17/poll-americans-dont-think-gun-control-is-important/|, says that only 4% of the public considers gun control to be a priority.

We don't seem to be able to focus on more than one thing at a time, and we keep coming up with distractions that allow us to not do anything about creating jobs.

[dawg]

51. We should be complaining about Mr. Reid and our hapless Dems.

Why complain about the unequal representation inherent to the Senate? We won the damn vote. The only reason it didn't pass it that our spineless, accommodating Democrats, once again failed to pass filibuster reform.