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Comment by jdavis703 | Hacker News Reader

Weighting "resources" is not a good thing. In the past it's been used to justify some of the most horrific policies in the U.S.

The U.S. constitution counted slaves at 60% of a person. Some of the arguments for the three fifths compromise were that slaveholders didn't want people who weren't "knowledgable" about slaveholding to be meddling in slaveholder's business. This is essentially one of the causes that sparked the Civil War.

I don't understand why Americans are so against becoming a full democracy. It's not like the current system benefits anyone. Congress, presidents and our courts are dysfunctional. The government is becoming the laughingstock of the world. At least in a democracy there's more chances of unified rule instead of 6 years of gridlock followed by 2-years of whiplash changes.

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All wars throughout all of history have been about resources. In the end, resources are all that matter. The civil war was about resources as well. It was the slaves that helped extract those resources from the land. It wasn't about slavery, it was about what they used the slaves to get.

This is really a red state vs blue state debate, but even on a county by county level, the majority of the counties of California, Oregon and Washington state are red. Those states' votes are determined by a handful of counties around a few urban centers. The rest of the counties' interests are more closely aligned with the red states.

And thus, the electoral college gives those red counties a voice that's ignored in their own states.

> And thus, the electoral college gives those red counties a voice that's ignored in their own states.

And in many cases gives them more of a voice.

There's an irony that the EC more accurately represents votes per acre/square mile than per constituent, and (one of) the reasons for the move to the US was to get away from tyrannical land/owners.

Again, the 3/5 compromise was forced on the slave states to reduce their power in federal decision making ( the House specifically). It had nothing to do with what you claim.

> Again, the 3/5 compromise was forced on the slave states to reduce their power in federal decision making

To claim it reduced their power is false. It was less than they preferred, and more than the free states preferred

The argument for any consideration of slaves in apportionment included the arguments GP puts forward.

No, it is not false.

The standard would have been that the slaves would have counted for representation purposes, which would have given the slave states the power to ensure slavery continued. The compromise reduced their power drastically and paved the way for slavery to eventually end.

> The standard would have been that the slaves would have counted for representation purposes

No, there is no basis for even asserting that there was a standard, much less that the standard was that property, whether slaves, cattle, or horseshoes, would count for representation purposes.

Ok, since you don't like my phrasing, the argument from the slave states was that slaves should count, which would have given them greater representation.

My statements stand.

> My statements stand.

No, they don't, because they assume the slave state argument wasn't just their argument but a privileged default position, such that giving them something that was a compromise between what they wanted and what the free states wanted was a harm to them from the privileged default and not an inducement to keep them in.

That's what we call word salad.

To be clear, there was no "privileged default", the "default" was that everyone counted. The 3/5 compromise was forced on the slave states to reduce their power from the default. It was not an "inducement", they were forced into it.

If you think the government is becoming the "laughingstock of the world" then:

a) read more widely, there's a lot of governments out there that are more worthy of the moniker (and even more that are horrifying)

b) read more widely, the newspapers you're reading aren't being honest (otherwise you'd know about (a))

“Better than the world’s worst” is not such a high bar to set.

Gridlock is good. The last thing I want is control by one party.

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