• @gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    320 hours ago

    and I get none

    Only if you’re not an American or live in DC

    (population 780k) gets two. The 4.7M people in Harris County get none. That is a poor design

    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

    Senators are far more powerful than representatives

    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

    • No he gets it, clearly, you are the one who (equally clearly) does not.

      The Senate is a broken system. The system you keepdescribing is a good system in theory, but it’s not that way in reality. It’s literally like a gerrymander.wiz program for a computer - designed to make gerrymandering simple.

      He even said he recognized your point about uncapping the house, but still went on to say the Senate, too, is broken - and for some reason you’re not understanding that.

    • Pennomi
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      519 hours ago

      It’s obvious why the Senate exists historically, and it’s also obvious that it’s inherently undemocratic.

      • @MonkRome@lemmy.world
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        618 hours ago

        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.

      • @gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        118 hours ago

        it’s inherently undemocratic

        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

        • @Serinus@lemmy.world
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          12 hours ago

          No shit it’s exhausting. I agree with you, but you keep calling anyone who disagrees with you dumb.

          They clearly understand and disagree. The part where you said land votes is an oversimplification was the last good comment in your chain.

        • Pennomi
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          118 hours ago

          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.

          • @Serinus@lemmy.world
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            12 hours ago

            Representative democracy is better. My reps should have more time to research every topic than I do. Their job is to be more informed.

            My job is to spot check on the stuff I understand.

            Their votes should be worth more than mine. And we should have a system where sometimes representatives vote against their constituents wishes because the rep has more information available to them, or is just more educated than their constituents on the topic.

            • Pennomi
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              11 hour ago

              Representative democracy can still exist with 1 person = 1 vote. You could do a proportional election and weight the delegates’ votes by the number of voters they represent.

          • We’re never gone get 1h1v, not exactly, but this dude is literally sitting here defending a system in which a vast portion of voters - not just.voters but people in general - are unrepresented.

    • @collapse_already@lemmy.ml
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      012 hours ago

      Their two senators don’t represent them at all though. That’s the rub. They’re punished because they live in a colossal state with a bunch of dumb fucks. If you get 260k votes in North Dakota, you are a Senator in a landslide. You get 260k votes in Texas and congrats you managed to lose to Henry the Porpoise who was a write-in candidate.

      North Dakotans have disproportionate political power because the system is inherently biased against large states. The result is tyranny of the minority.

      If we can’t have some equity in the rules, then we should consolidate the Dakotas, Wyoming,Montana, and Alaska down to one state. The lower 48 of that group especially largely have similar political views. They shouldn’t get 5 times the political power of California or Texas when together they don’t even have half the population.