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Colbert turns his funny gun on Snowden in RSA keynote

(news.cnet.com)
69 points tim333 | 1 comments | 02 Mar 14 11:56 UTC | HN request time: 0.209s | source
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mratzloff ◴[02 Mar 14 15:53 UTC] No.7329498[source]▶
Stating that "the American People" voted for the Patriot Act repeatedly is ignoring the massive disenfranchisement of Democratic voters in states with Republican-controlled legislatures, and the gerrymandering that leads to a lock on US House seats[1]. The goal of the Republican Party is to win government by hook or by crook, and lately it's been the latter.

Without this gerrymandering, it's debatable how things might have gone otherwise. Colbert might not have so much faith in the system if he played the Redistricting Game [2].

[1] http://election.princeton.edu/2012/12/30/gerrymanders-part-1...

[2] http://www.redistrictinggame.org

replies(1): >>7329658 #
WiseWeasel ◴[02 Mar 14 16:38 UTC] No.7329658[source]▶
Gerrymandering works both ways; you can't bring up the disenfranchised Democratic voters in Republican districts without recognizing the disenfranchised Republican voters in Democratic districts, or third party voters in every district. You could have simply stated that the goal of established political parties is to win government by hook or by crook, with preference to the latter since it requires less effort.
replies(2): >>7329828 #>>7335751 #
1. pilom ◴[02 Mar 14 17:18 UTC] No.7329828[source]▶
I think the argument mrartzloff is trying to make hinges on the fact that the House of Representatives is controlled by Republicans even though republicans lost the popular vote nation wide. i.e. 1.4 million more people voted for a Democratic representative than a Republican one and yet, Republicans had 33 more seats than Democrats.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Represen...

There are at least 2 possible reasons for this. One which is argued above is that it is because of gerrymandering districts. The second is that in Democratic districts votes were more lopsided where in districts where Republicans won, they won by smaller margins. In either case, more than 50% of Americans voted for a Democrat to be their representative in the house of representatives and yet Democrats do not hold the majority of seats.