Hacker News Reader

Comment by hedora | Hacker News Reader

A large majority of the US voted against the presidents that appointed the conservatives on this court, and this court has been systematically stripping citizens of the right to vote and have their votes counted.

Your argument is akin to a bully yelling “stop hurting yourself!” while they bang a kid’s head against the wall.

The draft opinion uses similar logic when it argues the decision doesn’t subjugate women. They are “not without representation”, after all.

Well great, by that logic, I guess the court is planning to go back to giving blacks 1/10th of a vote. “Not without representation”, after all.

View on HN

> A large majority of the US voted against the presidents that appointed the conservatives on this court.

No offense, but why do people still think this matters? The US is not a democracy, it’s a republic of democratic states and this is by design. If you want the country to be a democracy, destroy or amend the constitution and remake the country.

I don't understand your confusion. As you said, if people don't like something about the system, they can push for change. A first step in pushing for change is pointing out what sucks about the status quo, right? (If you're confused about why people might think the fact you quoted sucks, for one, it's easy to see it as an example of a tyranny by a minority that the constitution is intended to protect against.)

There is no confusion here. I just have a problem with the blanket assumption that the majority is always right and therefore the majority should impose its will. The majority might be right in some cases, and sometimes not in others. Frankly when the majority is not right…its generally VERY very wrong.

The system isn't static. There have been changes before so there is no reason it can't be changed again.

The House of Representatives has 435 people. The size used to change after each census but they stopped increasing it early in the 20th century. This makes the system less democratic than it originally was and favours less populated states. The electoral college is based on the number of representatives each state has do it is also less democratic than it used to be.

The problem is that laws are being forced on people against their wishes, and that the electoral college which made this possible is a rarity among large developed countries. There just isn't a need or excuse for it in a mature country. The fact that we're a representative democracy doesn't justify the existence of the electoral college.

The U.S. is indeed a democracy, but it is not a direct democracy. It shouldn't be used as an excuse to wheel in a bunch of tyranny.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com