Senators in the Federal government are chosen by the State Legislatures and elected by the populace of the individual states for six year terms. Each senator has one vote per Senate ‘action’ which can be anything from whether or not to approve a pipe-line to giving themselves a raise in pay.
I’ll try to answer some more of your questions as I can.
Thanks for clearing that up Liz. The reason that line confuses me is because it talks about the State Legislature, not the Federal legislature. And when it talks about the most “numerous” branch, I guess that just means which ever branch–the House or the Senate–is most numerous.
I suppose that here “State” refers to the “nation-state” as opposed to any of the “united” States–thus referring to the federal “state”.
But another idea this leads me to wonder, then, is whether the founding fathers expected or predicted that each of the united states would have a legislature modeled after the federal one–in which case the most numerous branch would refer to whichever one–the House or the Senate of the particular state in question–had more members, and whatever the qualifications of the electors for that most numerous branch, those would be the qualifications for the electors at the federal level.
This would seem to imply that the founding fathers felt there was some importance in distinguishing between the qualifications of electors of the two branches–again, the House and the Senate–regardless of which State or whether at the state or federal level–the qualifications, that is, of whether an elector was so qualified to elect a member of the House or of the Senate–depending on which was more numerous… why? I guess because numbers are a good enough deciding factor as any other.
It would also imply that the qualifications of the electors was up to each state to decide.
Personally, I don’t mind, but it’s up to Ucci as he’s the mod.
Just so y’all know, I’m not going to be very active in this thread for the next couple of weeks, so I’ll respond to posts sparingly (Liz, this means I’m not done responding to you… more to come).
Joker, do you at least agree that there are varying shades of Dem–I mean–Oligarchy? Are some oligarchic structures at least better than others? Personally, I feel the American political structure is the best the world has ever come up with–even if it’s absolutely horrible–and I don’t just say that to earn browny point from my American friends here at ILP–but historically speaking, the founding of the United States was a landmark event that will be told in history books the world over for thousands of years to come.
So to paraphrase: each State has its own set of political parties that supposedly mirror the federal parties–so Arizona, for example, will have a State level Democratic party and a State level Republican party. Each party picks their own electors. On federal election day, the people vote for their preferred presidential candidate and along with that candidate comes an elector (electors? Are the electors divided up per district?). Whoever wins, it’s the elector who actually goes to Washington (or at least used to before we had instant telecommunication and the internet) and votes on the President, which could, in principle, turn out to be totally different from who that elector claimed or was expect to vote for.
This changes my understand somewhat. I assumed at first the people voted directly for the electors, but it seems each State party selects their electors and the people actually vote on the President–which isn’t a real vote as the winner of the federal election may still turn out to be that which only a minority of the popular vote chose. It’s weird how it’s setup this way: you vote for a presidential candidate on the ballot, but really you’re voting for an elector to go vote on that candidate on your behalf. It’s more like a request than a vote.
Oh, so there are just as many electors as members of Congress? So I must have been right above: one elector per district. But there’s one elector per Senator in addition, apparently. Is this correct? Where do they get selected from?
Well, Obama seems to know how many people are insured by Obamacare, he brags about it constantly. You were the one that brought it up in this thread, so apparently you find his numbers reliable. The people registering for Obamacare are registering on Government websites, and the entire point of the system, the only reason it can possibly function, is that it has the capability to fine people who don’t sign up. Since this fine was defended as being a tax in front of he suprme court, that makes is the IRS’s jurisdiction.
As far as non-Obamacare based insurance, I assume the State will just require the person to disclose it, or else be subject to the fine.
If it ends up being that the state can’t reliably tell who has insurance and who doesn’t, that will just be one more catastrophic problem with Obamacare.
All in all, I think democracy is an execrable form of government. Whether people want to accept it or not, there is always going to be a group of people, who are privileged over the rest - there will always be masters and slaves. Democracy is not separated from this; it’s mob rule - collective tyranny. And the thing about the masses is that they are foolish…do we, really, want a bunch of modish fools making decisions for us? Personally, I think some sort of strict aristocracy is the most conducive to a healthy and noble civilization. You have a select few, who are competent and wise enough to make the correct decisions - they are resolute and worthy of their positions. Of course, even aristocracy is not immune to corruption, but it’s a hell of a lot better than mob rule.
So we can go back to your ‘the fines don’t matter because the State has no way to enforce them anyway’ statement, cross that out, and have a greater understanding of why people are so against Obamacare, right?
Is Section 5 still talking about State Legislatures, or did we leave that behind in Section 4? If we’re still talking about State Legislatures in Section 5, this seems like a bit of micromanagement, and thus against the spirit of the Constitution. What if one State Legislature wanted only one sixth of its members to agree that a “yea” or “nay” be entered into the journal to be sufficient for enforcing it? Or what about one quarter?
Okay, I think we can handle one more Section in this post–
Section 6:
I think this last part makes sense, don’t you think? Isn’t it just a way of enforcing the separate of the Legislative and Executive branches of government (or the Judicial)? I’m assuming a “civil officer” is one who works in either the Executive or the Judicial branch, or is assigned to government offices by the President. Is that correct?
I suppose it doesn’t really matter, though it might be wise to keep in mind, doing this was not supposed to be a primary job. Most of the original members had real jobs. This was a side thing that also didn’t make them a lot of money. Interestingly, the meet in December was because of the temperature. At that point in time they didn’t have air conditioning, but they did have heat sources… The moment air conditioning was in place it turned into more of a year round thing, and government got a lot slower and more useless.
The December meet probably also had to do with being a largely agrarian life for the populace, by then all the normal farm stuff would have been taken care of.
It is talking about the basic rules of Congress. One of the desired goals was to set down as little as possible into the constitution for these groups, so that the individual groups could decide for themselves what their individual rules should be.
Nope, no one can live at that speed, TWO in ONE!!!
So air conditioning is responsible for the corrupt state of government today.
But it seems like it’s doing the exact opposite. For example, the clause about adjourning for no more than 3 days. Why not 4? If it were trying to set down as little as possible into the Constitution, I would think it might say something like “…adjourn for more than an amount of time to be decided by the members of both Houses.” Unless you mean to say that I’m right about Section 5 returning to the Federal Legislature (Section 4 being all that was intended for State Legislatures) and so these rules are being laid down only for the Federal Legislature and the State Legislatures can make up their own rules as they see fit.
Well, that’s like magic, isn’t it?
Yeah, I wouldn’t think people would put up with it. Even if it happened, it would be extremely rare, and it doesn’t count in the cases of “Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace.” It also states that this immunity from arrest only holds while the respective Houses are in session, so simply refusing to go home wouldn’t work.
But, I thought it was noteworthy to point out in principle.
Which means that technically, membership in Congress is not a “government position”, correct?
Maybe they’ve learned their lesson.
On a more serious note, maybe it’s like taking a step down (which might be seen as unappealing). I’ll bet most Presidents saw their presidency as the fulfillment of their life’s ambition. Anything after that would seem uninspiring.
We are both making a joke of it, but shouldn’t it be so. Much of the problem really is, to many people spending too much time worrying about the doings of others.
Yes.
It’s a very small rule…
No, but people treat it like it is…
My prediction would be that the people willing to use such a line to get out of going to prison would be able to find better ways.
No, it is a government position, they just cannot occupy more than one at a time.
I would like to think so, but I would like to think that wisdom would be a requirement to be president, and Intelligence is learning from ones own stupidity, Wisdom is learning from other people’s stupidity. At the same time, I’m not stupid enough to believe that Wisdom is an actual requirement… Only Charisma… Which is what is required to get Democrats to vote for you. “Proper” ideology is what is required to get Republicans. (I’m reaching a frustration point with Republicans right now… Fucking idiots… At least the progressives have the excuse of being wrong about almost everything. As the cliche goes, there is the dangerous party and the stupid party and I’m a proud member of the stupid party.)
Reading ahead to Section 8, I think I know the answer to my last question above. For example, it lists as one of the functions of Congress “To provide and maintain a Navy” ← This, obviously, need not require any bills to be proposed or laws passed, but may be decided based on an “order, resolution, or vote”. But I think I’ll save Section 8 for next time.
I really like your views on politics, Uccisore, informed and sober.
If I may add something radical to this – the Constitution must be taken as an entity that sets out certain values, and with that, a certain structural process of being.
We can map the values of the original constitution (which had little to do with equal rights, as the legislative system was already based on money, and the equal rights were embedded in a world of completely unequal wealth distribution) to see what kind of society it “envisioned” - projected. And then we can begin to analyze whether a) this is desirable to people here (if that matters to anyone) and b) how the legislature as it stands today relates to that original valuing, and c) discuss the relation of a and b, to arrive perhaps at a directive to “reform the republic”.
Then we’ll all go home and never speak of it again.
