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Yeah, so...
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 15 Nov 2024
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Don’t forget they were also terrified of democracy. The Senate is one of the most comically anti-democratic institutions ever concocted. Wyoming has as much power as California. I mean it beggars belief that anyone but a complete imbecile could agree to something like that.
It's not democratic from a person level, but it is more democratic from a state level. At the time they hadn't quite figured out if they wanted to be a country or a collection of states that sometimes work together.
Democracy is a system of government whose power is vested by the people (“demos”). Notice that the Senate does not legislate on behalf of people. Instead, it represents the interests of random land masses (clusters of zip codes). It is as stupid as it sounds and the exact opposite of democracy.
One of the main arguments by Senate proponents during the US founding was that democracy was unacceptable. “Government by the people for the people? What gives these people the right…” etcetera. If you want quotes I’ll dig them up, but that’s the vibe.
No. In fact, two democracies have never gone to war with each other. Why would they?
Ah, redistribution of wealth and moral progress, terrifying. In case it’s not obvious from these pathetic quotes, John Adams was a moron.
Guess I should have said, it's not democratic it's Republican. And the question being what should legislature represent. I'm curious how the EU works as a governing body, is there proportional representation? Or does each county get an equal vote. Sorry for my ignorance.
Also yeah John Adams is a bit of a baffoon there.
The EU uses the 'd'Hondt method' which is a mathematical formula for proportional representation systems.
This is the opposite of the US senate.
It’s important to note that there’s no distinction between a democracy and a republic: a republic just is a type of (representative) democracy.
The United States is a republic, true, but there are aspects of our government that are undemocratic and vulnerable to corruption. The Senate is one of these aspects. The Supreme Court is another, so is the electoral college, and the influence of money, and the enormous power of the chief executive.
The first two political parties were formed around that very debate.
Too bad Jefferson didn't rap.
Just had that fever.
The founding fathers were correct. A pure democracy is also known as mob rule. Anytime you can get 51% to agree with you, you can do whatever you like.
If 51% vote to take the homes of black people, that's decided and done.
Which is why modern democracies are all some form of representative democracy. Which in theory is supposed to act as a sort of check and balance on the system.
I'm not following your argument, though I am slightly drunk. The disproportionate representation that's the focus of the post means that less than 51% of the populace could wield the levers of power in the Senate. That's minority rule, which is even worse than mob rule.
I get that mob rule is bad, and that we need checks in place to curb the possibility of abuses of power, but I see that as necessitating laws for super majorities and ranked choice or other ways of ensuring less extreme representatives getting into power.