Kavanaugh and Perjury

[_EAllusion]

It's not that I wouldn't "touch it" but that I didn't think you were adequately addressing the problem a chilling effect on reporting crimes based on your incorrect understanding of how witness testimony works. I think people who can be proven to have intentionally made false allegations of crime should be subject to criminal penalties and have civil exposure for defamation.

Glad you think that, because giving false testimony is actually a crime.

Intentionally false, yeah. This has been repeatedly pointed out to Ajax by posters with names like, "EAllusion" and "Res Ipsa."

[_EAllusion]

I know we tend to think of false reporting in terms of rape, but it's broader than that. SWATting is a vicious style of false police report that I think should be prosecuted vigorously, as the harm is not to reputation, but puts folks in danger of their lives.

I think of the daily stories of white people calling the police on black people who have the temerity to be in their neighborhood. Frequently, the people making the calls seem to believe the target's behavior is "suspicious" even though there is nothing objectively suspicious about them. It's not uncommon for the reports to include false claims that crimes might be underway or, in the worst cases, that weapons are being brandished.

On the one hand, yeah, it would be socially beneficial if we could get people to stop doing that. Outside what should be a basic sense of fairness, it has created multiple cases where innocent blacks have had dangerous encounters with the police that didn't have to happen. But I wouldn't want to make those mistaken reports illegal and subject to criminal penalty because there would be a far greater harm if we scared people away from reporting what they think is dangerous behavior to the police. We just have to promote a healthier culture that is less discriminatory and not as easy to scare over innocuous behavior. We do this through softer tools like persuasion. The people who should be criminally punished are those who knowingly report false tips to the police to bring potentially dangerous police attention to someone, like what occurs with SWATing.

[_Water Dog]

I think overall the GOP leadership would prefer to avoid the optics of going after Ford, and others, no matter how guilty they are and belong in a prison cell. But, if Democrats insist on investigations, well, investigations may very well be exactly what they get. Careful what you wish for. Time will tell, I continue to have faith that there is no limit to how badly democrats can screw things up for themselves.

[_Chap]

North Dakota population: 755,393 (2017)
New York population: 8,622,698 (2017)

Explain to me again why, if you were designing a democracy from scratch, you would think it was a good idea that those two groups should have precisely equal representation in a crucial national legislative body that (as in the present case) decides who gets to make legal decisions that affect more than ten times New Yorkers than North Dakotans.

There may be historical reasons why that decision was made when the Constitution was written in the 18th century, but why is it a good idea that this should remain the case under present circumstances?

[_EAllusion]

North Dakota population: 755,393 (2017)
New York population: 8,622,698 (2017)

Explain to me again why, if you were designing a democracy from scratch, you would think it was a good idea that those two groups should have precisely equal representation in a crucial national legislative body that (as in the present case) decides who gets to make legal decisions that affect more than ten times New Yorkers than North Dakotans.

There may be historical reasons why that decision was made when the Constitution was written in the 18th century, but why is it a good idea that this should remain the case under present circumstances?

New York's population is around 20 million, is it not? I wonder if Virginia would've agreed to Connecticut compromise if it's population was as large as California's and Delaware's was as small as Wyoming's.

[_MeDotOrg]

North Dakota population: 755,393 (2017)
New York population: 8,622,698 (2017)

Explain to me again why, if you were designing a democracy from scratch, you would think it was a good idea that those two groups should have precisely equal representation in a crucial national legislative body that (as in the present case) decides who gets to make legal decisions that affect more than ten times New Yorkers than North Dakotans.

There may be historical reasons why that decision was made when the Constitution was written in the 18th century, but why is it a good idea that this should remain the case under present circumstances?

New York's population is around 20 million, is it not? I wonder if Virginia would've agreed to Connecticut compromise if it's population was as large as California's and Delaware's was as small as Wyoming's.

New York City is 8 million, the state is 20 million. One I can't get over: More people live in San Francisco (49 square miles) than Alaska (663,000 square miles).

[_Water Dog]

North Dakota population: 755,393 (2017)
New York population: 8,622,698 (2017)

Explain to me again why, if you were designing a democracy from scratch, you would think it was a good idea that those two groups should have precisely equal representation in a crucial national legislative body that (as in the present case) decides who gets to make legal decisions that affect more than ten times New Yorkers than North Dakotans.

There may be historical reasons why that decision was made when the Constitution was written in the 18th century, but why is it a good idea that this should remain the case under present circumstances?

Actually, New York, the state, has a population of ~20 million. I'm not sure how you'd like me to respond. I suggest you start by punching "connecticut compromise" into google. This bug you describe is precisely the feature it was designed to be. We are witnessing the constitution working as it was designed to work.

Tell me, what is the fear liberals have in this case? They are afraid Roe will be overturned? Ok. Let's say that happens. The authority over whether abortion is legal is then returned to the states. How do you think the ~20 million people in New York will vote? There is zero risk of abortion becoming illegal in New York. Zero. So what are people in NY crying about? Their argument, the argument you and the other libs make, is that the people of New York should have some kind of "right" to force their will on people in North Dakota? Quite an astounding argument from the supposed champions of diversity.

Context is important. All of these matters need to be brought back down to earth. Liberals in these massive population centers, CA, NY, etc., are not fighting to protect "their rights." They are fighting to force their way onto others.

[_Res Ipsa]

North Dakota population: 755,393 (2017)
New York population: 8,622,698 (2017)

Explain to me again why, if you were designing a democracy from scratch, you would think it was a good idea that those two groups should have precisely equal representation in a crucial national legislative body that (as in the present case) decides who gets to make legal decisions that affect more than ten times New Yorkers than North Dakotans.

There may be historical reasons why that decision was made when the Constitution was written in the 18th century, but why is it a good idea that this should remain the case under present circumstances?

Actually, New York, the state, has a population of ~20 million. I'm not sure how you'd like me to respond. I suggest you start by punching "connecticut compromise" into google. This bug you describe is precisely the feature it was designed to be. We are witnessing the constitution working as it was designed to work.

Tell me, what is the fear liberals have in this case? They are afraid Roe will be overturned? Ok. Let's say that happens. The authority over whether abortion is legal is then returned to the states. How do you think the ~20 million people in New York will vote? There is zero risk of abortion becoming illegal in New York. Zero. So what are people in New York crying about? Their argument, the argument you and the other libs make, is that the people of New York should have some kind of "right" to force their will on people in North Dakota? Quite an astounding argument from the supposed champions of diversity.

Context is important. All of these matters need to be brought back down to earth. Liberals in these massive population centers, CA, New York, etc., are not fighting to protect "their rights." They are fighting to force their way onto others.

You're exactly right. Context is important. And part of that context is that the Constitution has been amended several more times in a way that increased democracy. Women and slaves got the right to vote. Voting was expanded to folks other than landowners. Election of senators was moved from statehouses to citizens. All of these changes were also examples of the Constitution working as intended: allowing change to adapt to a changing country.

The Connecticut compromise was intended as a balance between high and low population states. But the population disparities between the largest and smallest states were much smaller than they were today. I'm not sure it envisioned the current political alignment with one party dominating small states and the other dominating large ones. It was never intended as a mechanism to allow a political minority to consistently impose its will on the majority. Although I don't think we're there yet, I think there's a pretty good argument that things are heading in that direction. My concern is political stability. If a political minority is able to impose its will on the majority, the majority can only be expected to tolerate that for so long.

I don't think you understand what pro-choice folks are worried about. If a state passed a law that permitted it to round up and kill all children under one year of age, do you really think the federal government would be powerless to do anything about that? That's the fear. And I think it's realistic because the Pences and perhaps the Kavanaughs of the world think abortion is the same thing as rounding up and killing babies. Without choice as a constitutional right, there is arguably nothing to stop the federal government from making abortion a crime in every state.

[_EAllusion]

North Dakota population: 755,393 (2017)
New York population: 8,622,698 (2017)

Explain to me again why, if you were designing a democracy from scratch, you would think it was a good idea that those two groups should have precisely equal representation in a crucial national legislative body that (as in the present case) decides who gets to make legal decisions that affect more than ten times New Yorkers than North Dakotans.

There may be historical reasons why that decision was made when the Constitution was written in the 18th century, but why is it a good idea that this should remain the case under present circumstances?

Actually, New York, the state, has a population of ~20 million. I'm not sure how you'd like me to respond. I suggest you start by punching "connecticut compromise" into google. This bug you describe is precisely the feature it was designed to be. We are witnessing the constitution working as it was designed to work.

Tell me, what is the fear liberals have in this case? They are afraid Roe will be overturned? Ok. Let's say that happens. The authority over whether abortion is legal is then returned to the states. How do you think the ~20 million people in New York will vote? There is zero risk of abortion becoming illegal in New York. Zero. So what are people in New York crying about? Their argument, the argument you and the other libs make, is that the people of New York should have some kind of "right" to force their will on people in North Dakota? Quite an astounding argument from the supposed champions of diversity.

Context is important. All of these matters need to be brought back down to earth. Liberals in these massive population centers, CA, New York, etc., are not fighting to protect "their rights." They are fighting to force their way onto others.

The Constitution was written under the assumption that political parties wouldn't exist. It's good for when it was written, but it has major flaws that are better understood now that political science has progressed beyond an era when people didn't know germs cause disease. That's why when the US has had a heavy thumb on another nation's democratic framework - for example in Germany and Japan - the systems we wrote are quite different from ours. We've already significantly changed the Senate once with changing to popular election of Senators.

I think you need to step back and not look at any specific policy, but the idea that population trends in the US have gotten to the point where a small minority of the population can control the most important lever of government. This was not anticipated when the Constitution was written and ratified. It's a majoritarian document with some anti-majoritarian checks. Democratic societies don't do well when small factional minorities seize and maintain power. That's when you get either authoritarian takeover of democracy or revolution. It doesn't matter what policies they are pursuing for that to be the case.

We've got a situation where rural populations have self-sorted into one political party and are massively over-represented in the Senate. It's getting worse and if population trends continue, a tiny fraction of the population will control the Senate in a generation. Regardless of how you feel about Roe or any specific political issue, this is a powder keg underneath our democracy. If Democrats only cynically care about it because they are on the losing side of the equation, that doesn't matter for it being objectively dangerous. We might be able to band-aide it by admitting a few Democratic territories to the Union to balance it out, but a Constitutional fix would be better.

[_Chap]

I think you need to step back and not look at any specific policy, but the idea that population trends in the US have gotten to the point where a small minority of the population can control the most important lever of government. This was not anticipated when the Constitution was written and ratified. It's a majoritarian document with some anti-majoritarian checks. Democratic societies don't do well when small factional minorities seize and maintain power. That's when you get either authoritarian takeover of democracy or revolution. It doesn't matter what policies they are pursuing for that to be the case.

Thanks. That's the point I had in mind.