This setup is (in a way) a consequence of the Great Compromise, and would serve to reduce the electoral influence of more populous states even if elector votes were cast proportionally with respected the state's popular vote.
It's not accurate to say that people in the US vote for electors.
This tweet, while in bad taste IMO, was a threat to those who are planning to continue looting and burning buildings in Minneapolis.
I’m not sure if you’ve seen the videos, but there are full scale riots. Rioters completely looted a Target and burned it nearly to the ground.
Is “shooting” the answer to that? Probably not. And hopefully the National Guard is not going to do that.
But at the end of the day, this is the commander in chief making a public statement, and Twitter is editorializing it. Make of that what you will.
https://www.scotusblog.com/2020/05/argument-analysis-in-a-cl...
Our government repeats the motif of filtering down the raw passion and energy of the populace as a whole through a smaller, generally much less numerous group backed with the implicit assumption of good faith and sense.
The faithless elector was to the Founder's one of the last bulwarks against bestowing the highest office in the country to someone so repugnant, that an isolated bunch of people, accountable to no one but their own conscience, politely discussing the matter came to the conclusion it just couldn't work out. The idea that a President could get that far by mere populism and charlatanism may seem daft, but in that time, you didn't have background checks. You couldn't sniff out who someone really was, and if you knew the right people it was easy to get paraded in front of a populace that would eat up anything you fed them as long as there was enough spectacle to keep their attention. Odds are, it wouldn't be a problem. Everything would go just fine. However, the Founder's were well read on the ills of Greek and Roman poli, and the traps of demagoguery, and cults of personality. Their solution was the application of well-intentioned moral reasoning. We've all experienced the excitement of an idea that sounds great in a crowd, to later go home and say, "Now wait a minute." Same basic principle. In such an important decision, if it is really the right answer, no one will refuse,yet if it isn't, the stakes are high enough where the presence of that last chance is warranted.
The political party system completely undermined the entire intent behind the College, and many people never really try to transplant themselves out of the modern mindset, back to the time period to understand it. Nor do they realize just how important careful consideration of the person holding that post was. Think about it.
That President did not have the most capable Armed Forces in the world at his disposal. They did not have the capability to essentially make or unmake law via Administrative law and control of Alphabet soup of national regulatory agencies we have today. That President was not sitting atop the world's largest nuclear arsenal, or at the nexus of arguably one of the most well-funded intelligence and law enforcement apparatus in the world. In comparison to the Presidents of today, Abraham Lincoln was absolutely right. "No man can do any great harm in four years". Nowadays, given the level of interconnectivity between world governments, and the technological capabilities that are at our disposal, it stands to reason they might have balked at having a President in the first place. We don't know for certain. We can only guess.
I'm not certain anyone will find any of what I'm saying rhetorically convincing, but the main point I'm making is it is dangerous to dismiss the past without really understanding why what was done was done. The thinking behind the College was completely rational for the time, and arguably, even more rational and relevant today assuming your values and philosophies are more or less consistent with those of the Founders, who were so helpful as to write them down in generous volume that we may benefit from their endeavors today.
At least, I think so, and I've spent more time than I like to admit trying to understand the topic myself. Which is kind of silly, after all, to be ashamed of doing so, seeing as it is one of the single most important things to do for those who come after us.
To his wife,Joh Adams wrote:
>"The science of government it is my duty to study, more than all other sciences; the arts of legislation and administration and negotiation ought to take the place of, indeed exclude, in a manner, all other arts. I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Our sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain."
These Founders. These visionaries so loft in their ideals, dedicated their intellectual lives to the laying of a Foundational edifice that would stand the test of time. No Internet or easily accessible mobs of fairweather supporters did they have. No refuge in trivial pseudonymity were they blessed with. No instant feedback loops, or access to the happenings of the entire world at once to cherry pick what works and what doesn't. In spite of the vices and and repugnancies of the society of the time (which I will not whitewash or dismiss), these men demonstrated a commitment to the future few of their descendants, and increasingly few nowadays truly demonstrate. The preservation of personal liberty, and national unity unrivaled in degree or ferverence in administering. Abraham Lincoln himself likened it to the closest thing we should have to a National religion[2]. To cherish and preserve the liberties we enjoy do those who come after. Before you toss aside the fruits of the labor of people who in their time dedicated so much time to trying to think, reason, compromise, and do things well; it behooves you to at least understand their context, and to carry a paltry mockery of what they had to offer forward that you may learn and reap the fruits of a life we haven't had to spend as they did.
I'm sorry, but the flippant dismissive nature of your response just really doesn't do the import of the issue justice. I'm not trying to be condescending or patronizing (though that may end up being how it ends up coming off). I'm merely pointing out that it isn't some 18th century foppish hat to be cast aside. If you can't demonstrate an appreciation for why it was there, or show any indication you've put thought into whether or not it's mutation from it's original intent has actually been a net negative, it is difficult to take your assertion seriously. Then again, I can count on both hands the number of people I've met who will even entertain that level of debate or thought, and only one hand is necessary for the number who have straight up admitted they do it out of a personally perceived sense of duty.
In short, check your damn history and show your work if you expect to be taken seriously. I can't emphasize it enough. If everyone else's liberties aren't important enough to you to do so, I don't know what else would be.
[1]https://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/archive/doc?id=L178005... [2]http://abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/liberty.htm [2a]Also see the The Eloquent President, by Ronald C. White. Read it slowly. [3]Federalist Papers 68 [4]Anti-Federalist Papers 72
Just read them. It's man years of interlocution to make, far less to read and process, and far easier to get a hold of now.
These aren't easy or trite issues by far, and if nothing else, you have to work to build empathy and compassion to both sides to be able to have any realistic chance of being able to credibly take a stab at making decent policy.
I can forgive a man who decides against me on the grounds he actually did the footwork to understand, but his character lead him to a different conclusion. However I cannot abide by what seems to pass for sound policy nowadays.
This entire thing is happening because they refuse to simply arrest a man that has been caught on camera slowly murdering a man, simply because he is a cop.
Even if they arrested him and let him bond out (which is what would happen to any non-police individual in this scenario) there would have been zero destruction. Zero.
The US is a federated country. The governors of the states have the ability to call in the National Guard to protect their state if they can not use Local/State law enforcement.
If and ONLY if that doesn't work can the State Legislature/Gov formally ask the President for help by calling on the Insurrection Act.
It's actually one of the core tenets of federalism.
Not to Americans nor on American soil he doesn't. Because of the 4th amendment and the Posse Commitus act.
> the National Guard is not going to do that.
Who is controlled by the Minnesota governor. Trump has no legal authority to threaten protestors with the Minnesota national guard.
Net neutrality is important, because the digital infrastructure of the Internet is the "streets" of the digital world. Freedom of speech needs to be protected there, but when you're signing up for a free-of-charge social network that survives on advertising, you are literally soapboxing in a Walmart -- and it can't possibly be the civic duty of this metaphorical corporation to allow you to stay in there and disturb their business, rather than redirect you out into the street, or into your own place of business.
The funny thing is...I remember back when we held the US President to a higher standard than say, the worst soldier in the National Guard. Just because he is making a public statement does not remove the ability of the platform to fact check or accompany it with the idea that it's wrong. News broadcasters can freely air Trump speeches and pair them with fact checks. If trump would like to not be editorialized, he should post this statement on the White Houses's site. The fact of the matter is that he uses twitter for the audience, the claps, the viral followers. Twitter is not a public place, he is using their service for their service and to reach their users. They have every right to make statements on this and enforce their rules.
The danger in the idea of "just find another X" is that, if you are willing to believe that the action in question justifies an open platform's prerogative to censor, then it follows that every alternative platform do the same. This creates black holes, if you will, that are incredibly easy for dissenters to fall down.
I'm not saying that I support Trump's message. But, as a society, we have to be nuanced about this and figure out what constitutes a right to use on massive platforms like Twitter. Twitter isn't just some dinky website. If you are worried about Russians/Chinese/Republicans swaying elections on social media, then you'd better be worried about how Twitter itself picks and chooses what you see.
After all, exactly how many levels down will we go?
Twitter: You can pay your own hosting fees.
Namecheap: Your users can find you at your IP address.
AWS: You can run your own server hardware.
Intel: You can build your own CPU.
Electric Co.: You can generate your own electricity.
VISA: You can take payments in cash.
Hospital: You can use your own butterfly strips and an ibuprofen.
United States: You can find your own country.
Thank you for taking the time to illustrate many points. I appreciate the informationa and further explanation.
Violence conducted via the military or police, according to regulation, is lawful.
But violence conducted by citizens, or by members of the government or military that is not according to law/regulation, is not lawful.
I'm not saying Twitter's drawing the line exactly right, but it's somewhere in the right vicinity.
Actually no, he doesn't have the capability to threaten institutionalised violence against US CITIZENS which might have or maybe want commit a crime which is not capital and don't even lead to to much jail time.
If he would have the right to do so he would be an authoritarian leader and the US no longer a democracy.
Even if the national guard is dispatched they can just arrest people, not shoot them down (except if that people try to shoot down the national guard, which they don't).
Because I read what you said. You are saying it’s okay for the president to say that looters should be shot, it’s just “in bad taste”.
So... don't go looting? It's supposed to be a deterrent. Maybe you'll think twice about burning down your local target and autozone if there is a risk of being blinded. You'll be perfectly fine as long as you don't reach for your molotov cocktail and baseball bat to go join in the "fun".
If they loot shot then, that's what he is saying.
It would be fine if it's: if they loot arrest them and if they treat to prevent this by using weapons like guns then you can shoot them if there is no other way.
Advocating violence (or whatever you want to call it) on Twitter directly affects their bottom line, and enjoyment of the site for other users.
More simply: A toxic environment repels advertisers, users and investors.
Using Namepcheap/AWS/Intel/Whatever for the same purpose does not affect those companies bottom line, or otherwise affect the user experience for other customers.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/where-does-phrase-...
One, the electoral college itself is tied to the political power of many low population states, so any serious adjustment to this process is a pretty dangerous subject for some states, making any country wide changes very hard to start.
Two, the shift to direct election of the president (minus the electoral college) was not a planned change. If one day in the 19th century everyone decided to change, then scrapping the EC would've made sense. Instead it has been a slow process happening over at least a century to arrive at our modern system, hence the presence of vestigial artifacts like the electors themselves.
Three, the process of how electors are selected is delegated to the states, which is part of why it took so long. So for example Pennsylvania and Maryland went to a system by which one party won the entire state at once in 1789, while it took South Carolina until 1860 to abandon per district results. Maine never adopted the winner takes all approach, and assigns two votes by district and two by the popular vote tally.
I think Trump's saying that if things get out of control, law enforcement will start shooting. If I understand your post correctly, this would be lawful...
You cite Federalist 68, but forget that less than a year later Hamilton was gaming the electoral college.
The founders were humans. They had flaws and disagreements. Many parts of the Constitution are borne more out of political expediency than grand ideals, and the operation of the Electoral College is not exempt from these caveats.
>So... don't go looting? [...] You'll be perfectly fine as long as you don't reach for your molotov cocktail and baseball bat to go join in the "fun"
...neither of which is an outcome in this situation, and looting is not a credible treat to people's lives.
With that logic, how exactly is the president(or anyone in authority whether it be a governor, police chief, etc.) supposed to threaten use of force on any communication platform? It seems like mass communication is needed, which inevitably involves advertisers and investors, thus an exception should be made for situations like this where the president's message goes against the interest of Twitter.
What you are saying about Twitter could be applied to TV networks, radio stations, and just about any other medium or platform that people use. They are all funded by advertisers, investors, etc. Should we really be entrusting billionaires in determining which messages from the government we should and shouldn't be hearing?
> Using Namepcheap/AWS/Intel/Whatever for the same purpose
My analogies might not be totally applicable(though all analogies fall apart to some extent), but that doesn't necessarily mean that they aren't applicable at all. A web host like AWS, for instance, could conceivably receive enough flack from investors and segments of the public for hosting undesirable content, in which case it might be their interest to let go a customer publishing that content using their services. Of course, that is far less likely than with something like Twitter.
More accurately, the alternatives would be something like CNN or iHeartRadio, or possible alternatives to Twitter.
No it isn't. Legs are hard to hit compared to center-mass, and the only reason you should be shooting at somebody is if you need to because they are an imminent threat; therefore you should be aiming for a part of the body that you have a higher probability of hitting and that, having been hit, has a higher probability of effectively stopping the threat.
There are sort of alternatives to Twitter, though you have to admit that Twitter's approach and audience size is quite different from, say, someone's forum using vBulletin. Nevertheless, there are mainstream alternatives such as YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and perhaps TV and radio, but that's not to say that they aren't likely to make a similar choice to Twitter, if it is generally agreed upon that Trump's message is bad and either shouldn't be seen or shouldn't be engaged with. Since they have similar financial incentives, it's not totally unreasonable to think that these mainstream platforms would follow suit if Trump decided to abandon Twitter and start posting solely on one of these alternatives. Whether or not you agree with Alex Jones, he was banned from all these platforms in coordination. It's absolutely possible that the dominoes would fall, and non-mainstream alternatives like Minds or Gab or Mastodon aren't necessarily viable alternatives if their audience is incredibly small.
>What you are saying about Twitter could be applied to TV networks, radio stations, and just about any other medium or platform that people use.
To a degree. But those businesses don't have positive social interaction as their core value proposition (reason to exist). People don't go to CNN.com for the purpose of being social. Thus anti-social behaviour on CNN doesn't affect their core value proposition in the same way.
>A web host like AWS, for instance, could conceivably receive enough flack
True, but groups organizing to lobby for a political/social purpose is a bit of a different beast altogether than one users actions directly affecting other users. In other words, there's no way (absent a bug/failure/poor design) that one users' usage of AWS should directly affect my usage of AWS.
All I'm saying is that social networks are very different from the other examples because they are, well, social.
It is NOT legal for the Minnesota police to shoot a citizen that they believe is committing a crime unless their life or another person's life is under direct threat.
This is also the same guy who promised to pay the legal fees of anyone who attacked protesters at his rally, and suggested that we should shoot migrants crossing the border. It strains credulity to believe that this time Trump was just asking people to not loot.
"Looting is a consequence" is a poor excuse, looting/arson is not the correct way to express anger, you harm people who have nothing do with the problem or solution. Stop excusing their behavior.
We absolutely need to reform the police, but I really can't understand people who think we should abolish them. What is your plan to handle these situations?
I disagree, and point to a distinction that I learned from an essay of Christopher Hitchens. He described this as (paraphrasing) the distinction from the worldview of Hobbes versus the worldview of Locke.
Hobbes was of course the author of Leviathan, which viewed strong government as the barrier between an ordered society and a brutal state of nature ("the war of all against all"). Entrust a monarch with very strong authority, because the alternative is civil war at all levels of society.
Locke, writing somewhat later, advocated for separation of powers and constraints on the power of the state in general. In particular, the need for the entire state, including a possible monarch, to follow the law.
So, I would argue that the function of the police is to enforce laws, which are arrived at by a social negotiation, and that equating police with violence is mistaken. The threat of police violence is not what holds people in check. Rather, people are held in check by their recognition of the value of the system of justice and laws.
This viewpoint can explain why people have such a strong reaction to police who break that social contract.
“Stand your ground” isn’t about defending property with lethal force. Stand your ground is about whether or not you have a duty to attempt to flee (if possible) before applying lethal force. Castle doctrine is a similar rule, but more narrowly scoped to your own home. Without stand-your-ground, you have to demonstrate that you tried to, or were incapable of retreating before applying lethal force.
That being said, there are very few states of the union where applying lethal force to protect property is legal. Texas is the only one I know of. In Texas you could shoot someone to protect property even if you feel that your life and limb are not at risk, but that’s not the norm in other states.
All states allow some level of force to stop a fleeing felon, the well named “Fleeing Felon” rule, but Tennessee vs. Garner limited this to non-lethal force. So you could tackle a fleeing robber legally, but shooting one would be illegal outside of Texas.
Now Minnesota only has castle doctrine and stand your ground from your own vehicle. If one reasonably feels that life and limb are at risk in Minnesota you can apply lethal force, but if you’re outside of your home and car you have a duty to attempt to retreat first. In my opinion this makes shooting at looters to protect your business a dicey proposition legally, as arguably you should have just fled.
As always, I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
the Constitution specifies that States (not The People or citizens or voters) shall choose their electors.
As you said, allocation of electors by states has been played with in different ways based on different election/ voting methods, but there's actually no constitutional requirement for States to hold a general election at all.
It's entirely up to the state legislatures, who have all since delagated the responsibility to a statewide vote.
From Article II:
"Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors..."
That's it- the rest covers how many electors each state gets.
It's questionable as to what theoretical limits the modern SCOTUS might place on this power to delegate, but they've already said that voting must adhere to "one person, one vote" principles, and have hinted that the states can't delegate the power externally (from the state). But they've never explicitly "locked-in" the requirement that any state hold a general election at all.
The point is if you’re going to censor the president (or anyone, IMO) you should give them the full benefit of the doubt first.
I think this is a bit like saying that the UK has no constitution because it’s not written down. It’s technically true, but it comes nowhere close to the actual lived experience of the people in that jurisdiction, who absolutely believe they live in a constitutional society.
First, are there circumstances in which a citizen could apply lethal force to protect life and limb? Obviously yes; shooting someone trying to light your house on fire is certainly something that is both plausible and plausibly legal.
Second, is it appropriate for the political leader of a nation to imply that people committing a crime will be shot for it on the street? Not "we will deploy the national guard to provide safety and security to the citizens" but "looters will be shot". I think the answer here is obviously no, that is not appropriate.
There'd be little point in provocateurs burning commercial zones if there weren't peaceful protestors there.