From: bu008@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Brandon D. Ray)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.usa.constitution
Subject: Re: EC Protects Minority Rights
Date: 21 Nov 1992 13:25:44 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (USA)
Reply-To: bu008@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Brandon D. Ray)
NNTP-Posting-Host: hela.ins.cwru.edu


In a previous article, best@anasazi.com (Mike Best) says:

>In article <1eabqnINN42h@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu> bu008@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Brandon D. Ray) writes:
>>
>>In a previous article, best@anasazi.com (Mike Best) says:
>>
>>>I would like to address the general argument made by many here that the
>>>Electoral College (EC) is not "fair".  The EC is in actuality inherently
>>>fair because it encourages the creation of concurrent majorities which 
>>>form from minority factions.  This results in a two party system where 
>>>we have majority rule with _consent_ of the minority.
>>>
>>Quite the contrary.  In a two party system you have majority rule with 
>>*disenfranchisement* of the minority.  In a multi-party system, with
>>proportional representation, you see minority viewpoints represented in the
>>legislatures, instead of suppressed by two quasi-governmental bodies.
>
>Direct election does not protect us from the formation of a majority
>faction.  This is the hole in your argument.  Certainly the EC does
>prevent this from occurring and I think that this is a good thing because
>pure democracy ultimately turns into the bad rule of the many (yes, I'm
>pessimistic about the nature of man).
>
Well, the EC has *not* prevented this from occurring.  A quick survey of past
presidential and congressional elections reveals that every president has been
a white Christian, and that every Congress has been controlled by white
Christians.  Next straw man, please.
>
>It is not necessarily true that a majority faction will form BUT given
>that the potential exists for (whites, christians) to do so under your
>proposal is a risk YOU are willing to take and yet you have no safe-guards
>built in.
>
It has as many safeguards as the electoral college does.
>
>>>The founders recognized that a system wherein a majority faction controlled
>>>the political system, and never allowing the minority to have a hand in
>>>governing, would ultimately fail.  The system they designed included the
>>>EC for this very important reason - to encourage minority factions to 
>>>coalesce into a majority and to take power through legitimate elections.
>>>
>>More correctly, the electoral college existed to allow the ruling elite to
>>overrule the judgment of the majority.  This may have been necessary and even
>>good in the 18th century.  It is neither now.
>
>Ugh, this is drool.
>
Read the Federalist Papers.  I take your response to mean that you have no
good counterargument, else you would have posted it.
>
>>>Nothing would please, for example, white separatists more than for the
>>>electoral system to divide the non-whites into monolithic areas.  For sake
>>>of argument let's presume that it is possible to put all minorities into
>>>a few states and whites into all the rest.  The result is that the minorities
>>>may have 50 or so Congressmen but they are still an ineffective minority and
>>>they will always be.
>>>
>>As opposed to now?
>
>The minority factions are often the swing votes so they are important 
>when forming a majority from concurrent minority factions.  Furthermore, 
>it is not true that majorities formed from concurrent minority factions
>need to remain eternally unchanged.  It is true that the landscape of
>the parties does change over time and because of this fact the minority
>has a chance to be part of the majority sometimes.
>
>Majority rule with consent of the minority has been successful for the
>last 200 plus years.  Until I hear more reasoned arguments that deal
>with the side effects of eliminating the EC I would have to disagree
>with any proposal.
>
You have already heard them; you simply refused to listen.  The minority does
*not* give consent in a two party, winner-take-all system...unless you count
it as "giving consent" that the minority does not take to the streets in
armed rebellion.  By that standard, the people of the Soviet Union "gave
consent" to the dictatorship of the former USSR.

Try it again:  If you vote for a losing candidate in our system, you have *no*
representation.  Zero, nit, nil.  I have said this about three times now,
and you have not answered it.  If my Congresscritter gets only 55% of the
vote, does that mean he votes the way the losing candidate would have voted
45% of the time?  No...he votes with the slim majority who elected him
100% of the time.  Why are you so afraid of allowing tha 45% to have a say
in governing the country?
>
>>>This hypothetical example contrasts with the current system in that the
>>>minority populations in states can often be the swing votes that decide
>>>elections.  They have real influence and can, at times, become part of
>>>a majority coalition that assumes control of the government.  
>>>
>>And how would this become impossible under a more open system?  You seem
>>to be saying that there are some ideas which you disagree with, and that
>>sense the people you do agree with hold the upper hand in the current system,
>>you don't want to change anything.
>
>Because Whites/Christians might form into one faction and never release
>control of the presidency (under direct election).  The virtue of the EC
>is not that it supplants the will of the people with their own will but
>rather that it creates an environment which produces the most stable
>government and most moderate candidate and it legitimizes close elections
>by magnifying the result in the victors favor.
>
Once again:  Whites/Christians have *already* formed into one faction and
they do refuse to release control.  This has happened under the EC.  It
continues to this day....through 1996, we will have been governed for 208
years by exclusively white, Christian presidents, and white, Christian
Congresses.

It produces not a stable gov't, but a monolithic one, incapable of change even
in the most pressing emergency...like the current fiscal crisis.  In what
way is it beneficial to "legitimize" an election such as the one just past,
where the "winning" candidate received only 43% of the vote.  The majority of
the people voted against this man, yet he is supposed to behave as if he had
a sweeping mandate?
>
>>>Without this system the minorities could simply be ignored and their 
>>>issues left untouched.  The EC protects their rights ultimately.
>>>
>>See above.
>
>Me too.
>
>>>Majority rule with consent of the minority is a subtle but powerful concept.
>>>
>>Yes it is.  It is not provided by the electoral college, however.
>
>I am either not a good communicator or you are not a good reader.
>
There is a third possibility:  That your position is fundamentally flawed.
I tend to suspect that this is the case.
>
>Mike Best
>

-- 
******************************************************************************
The opinions expressed by the author are insightful, intelligent and very
carefully thought out.  It is therefore unlikely that they are shared by the
University of Iowa or Case Western Reserve University.
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