The Revolution Against the Revolution: Looking Back on Shays’ Rebellion

No, because that doesn't make any sense. Nobody always thinks long term. That's one of many reasons why we have a Republic, not a Democracy.

Geographic minorities in the US get extra political power because they require increased infrastructure spending relative to their population, they have a history of rebellion in systems with a centralized government and so that lower population states are more likely to not only accept the decisions of government but actively take part.

I mean, maybe. What year are we talking about here?

Perhaps in 2018 that wouldn't be a good idea, but even if you were to go back to so far as the 50s, I think that you would find a lot of blacks saying "yes. I very much WOULD like to have a seperate government ruling me in America, because this other group doesn't care about my rights".

There are lots of times when the majority is wrong, and decentralizing power is one method of insulating people from the effects of it.

Jealousy is not a particularly sound or convincing ideological justification.

> And actually, yes, most of this anger is linked to a feeling that people in rural areas have too little representation compared to major population centers, where most people live.

It's worth pointing out that MA is a bit of a special case nationally. In most of the Midwest, for example, the resentment (and power/money) flows the other way.

That's true.

The same is true for discrimination based on other mutable or immutable characteristics, though. It's all well and good to ingore minority issues, until you get a lot of other angry people with no political outlet. (Because presumably, one person, one equal vote is not good enough for them.)

The point is that the same underlying principle applies in both cases. If you're going to extend extra voting power for minorities for geography, why not for {set of other personal attributes}?

In practice, most people defending this setup -- it often comes up in discussions around the electoral college -- seem to support it simply because it happens to align with their own political objectives. It gives their state extra votes, so awesome! Understandable, but hardly principled.

> And actually, yes, most of this anger is linked to a feeling that people in rural areas have too little representation compared to major population centers,

Well yeah, they have less representation because we're in a democracy and there are fewer people there. I'm not terribly sympathetic to "I deserve extra voting power because of my lifestyle choice".

> So this illustrates what happens when you've got proportional representation but a completely unbalanced population distribution

What does "balanced" even mean in this context? Most people lived in rural areas when farming was most people's job, and now that we live in the information age, most people live in cities. Are both of those imbalanced? Because to me, it just sounds like in both cases, people simply adapted the needs of the time.

Simply pointing out that most people live in urban areas to prove "imbalance" is like pointing out that we have far more believers than non-believers around, therefore the religious belief distribution is "imbalanced". Who exactly is deciding what "balance" looks like for things like this?

> It's fine when everything is going well, but when the mills close down and the farms go out of business, you get a lot of angry people who feel they have no political outlet.

There are certainly some people who feel that way, but unemployment is low, and moving to where the jobs are (in the cities) remains an option.

I don't have a ton of sympathy here, given that the very same areas we're talking about usually practically worship the free market and like talking up how "self-reliant" they are (while simultaneously being heavily reliant on government subsidies from urban areas and demanding that the government protect their way of life). It would be nice to at least see a little more ideological consistency, a little less hypocrisy.

Because while they were aware of that, there was more at play than racism and slavery, as Virginia voting against its interests suggests.

Slightly pedantic, I could be wrong, but no serious attempts were ever made to conquer south; less than the attempts to conquer Canada, anyway. History is complex!

So for the Senate to have that power, they needed to have equal representation from each state otherwise populous states would have too much influence on the internal government of other states.

That's part of it, anyway. It's more complicated and I'd recommend you read Madison's notes on the Constitutional Convention if you're really curious.

From President Truman's Commission on Civil Rights, about two of the "less brutal" lynchings in 1946:

"On July 20, 1946, a white farmer, Loy Harrison, posted bond for the release of Roger Malcolm from the jail at Monroe, Georgia. Malcolm, a young Negro, had been involved in a fight with his white employer during the course of which the latter had been stabbed. It is reported that there was talk of lynching Malcolm at the time of the incident and while he was in jail. Upon Malcolm's release, Harrison started to drive Malcolm, Malcolm's wife, and a Negro overseas veteran, George Dorsey, and his wife, out of Monroe. At a bridge along the way a large group of unmasked white men, armed with. pistols and shotguns, was waiting. They stopped Harrison's car and removed Malcolm and Dorsey. As they were leading the two men away, Harrison later stated, one of the women called out the name of a member of the mob. Thereupon the lynchers returned and removed the two women from the car. Three volleys of shots were fired as if by a squad of professional executioners. The coroner's report said that at least 66 bullets were found in the scarcely recognizable bodies. Harrison consistently denied that he could identify any of the unmasked murderers. State and federal grand juries reviewed the evidence in the case, but no person has yet been indicted for the crime.

Later that summer, in Minden, Louisiana, a young Negro named John Jones was arrested on suspicion of housebreaking. Another Negro youth, Albert Harris, was arrested at about the same time, and beaten in an effort to implicate Jones. He was then released, only to be rearrested after a few days. On August 6th, early in the evening, and before there had been any trial of the charges against them, Jones and Harris were released by a deputy sheriff. Waiting in the jail yard was a group of white men. There was evidence that, with the aid of the deputy sheriff, the young men were put into a car. They were then driven into the country. Jones was beaten to death. Harris, left for dead, revived and escaped. Five persons, including two deputy sheriffs, were indicted and brought to trial in a federal court for this crime. All were acquitted.

These are two of the less brutal lynchings of the past years. The victims in these cases were not mutilated or burned."