What Democracy?: The case for abolishing the United States Senate

Except it's not, which is explicitly the reason for the Senate. It is there to slow things down - by design. Democracies have a pretty bad track record for turning into oligarchies.

Of late there has been much discussion about the reforming of the American governmental system because of it's "dysfunction." As a result there are a whole lot of Baby out with the bathwater approaches which are offered up as solutions. This article does the same and wishes away most of the problems that the idealization of the Senate is there to solve.

The article's main complaint seems to be that the "aristocracy" of the Senate maintains the power imbalance of the United States, which absolves the electorate of any responsibility. In fact the article never discusses anything beyond the fact that the system is corrupted and that it is racially skewed. Never as to why, or describing some underlying mechanism that is keeping it there.

In the end, unless you think voting is "rigged" or somehow a sham, the responsibility falls on the electorate to manage who sits in the seats of power. Widespread apathy and disengagement (for often practical and legitimate reasons) keeps the same people in power and ensures that the wrong decisions and power will continue to be consolidated into too few hands.

Good example here: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-november-11-2013/not-s...

Don't abolish the Senate, abolish the amendment that screwed it up.

specifically: Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon.

This is:

    A) About politics and politics alone.
    B) Not in any way a new phenomenon.