Prison should be about rehabilitation but that's hard and you have to give a shit about people and maybe it costs you a bit extra. So that's no good when you're trying to earn a profit.
A philosophy of Punishment is easier and you can cut corners on care to boot. It's easier to sell too just say "I'm tough on crime!". And hey if you don't fix em, you can make em worse and leave them with no other choice that they just might come back.
It is a good thing, then, that I have been a vocal advocate against for-profit prisons for so long. We all tried "tough on crime" in the 80s and 90s and it was a disaster.
It looks like Rosello is going to resign next Friday, 2 August. The people of Puerto Rico are hoping they will get rid of corruption once he is gone, but I have sad news for them--they will only trade one form of corruption for another. The new administration will be very careful at first but it won't take them long to pick up where Rosello left off.
Wow, I can't recommend this video enough as a breakdown of why this issue needs to be dealt with NOW at it's inception. And it's also heartening to see channels like this getting traction to combat the alt-right dominance of YouTube:
Why do you guarantee corruption in Puerto Rico? Is this all governments or are you singling out Puerto Rico for some reason?
I don't trust *any* government all that much. On the other topic....good luck finding any other person who has been more "pro-Puerto Rico" in this thread than I have been.
I've never understood the "tough on crime" concept. The United States has the largest prison population on the planet and the highest per-capita incarceration rate. If longer sentences and higher conviction rates actually reformed criminals, the United States would have the lowest crime rates on the planet.
We don't.
There's some strange idea that criminals will learn to be law-abiding citizens if you just make them suffer more. It's the logic of a man who beats his disobedient dog and decides that the reason why his dog isn't behaving is because he's not beating his dog hard enough.
It does not profit me to have prisoners suffer. It only profits me if they hold down jobs and obey the law when they get out of prison--and they inevitably do get out unless they have the extremely rare and extremely expensive life sentence. I don't want overmuch taxpayer money spent on babysitting criminals, and the only way to minimize that is, in fact, rehabilitation.
I worked at the homeless shelter and many of the folks there were mentally ill, former addicts, and/or convicted criminals. The shelter had programs in place to treat mental illness, rehabilitate people with addictions, and reform convicts--not all of which were necessarily nonviolent. The shelter saved millions of dollars with these programs, and it didn't require inflicting suffering on anyone.
People think of criminals as people who live far away. The truth is, they live next door to you. They're your brother, father, your cousin-law, your lawyer, your wife, and in many cases, you. Only a few of them can go away forever. The others are going to stay married to you.
Let's not dance around the reason as to WHY most people are referring to only felons when the talk about "criminals". It's because they don't want to include themselves in the distinction. I don't know about you folks, but if you made it from the roughly the ages of 16-40 without having a SINGLE misdemeanor charge thrown at you, well, hats off to you, but where I come from that isn't remotely realistic. Of course, if we are going to make the distinction (which is meaningful) let's do so. For instance, Donald Trump's former campaign manager was convinced of multiple FELONIES. Those people crossing the border?? They are at worst guilty of the same level of "crime" as when your kegger got busted in college. No bonus points for guessing which group of voters believe the later is more serious than the former.
A lot of families do live paycheck to paycheck, and poor spending habits aren't the only reason it would be difficult or even impossible to take a $300 hit, or even half that. There are places in the states where wages are low and living expenses are high, and having disabled family members or health issues can make things even worse.
Especially because that's not necessarily the only $300 hit that might happen in a single year, or a single month.
I think we need to bear in mind that not every family is making the median wage. There are some expenses that would weaken a middle class family but flat out bankrupt a lower class family. The minimum wage ain't that high.
By definition, half the families make less than the median.
Wow, I can't recommend this video enough as a breakdown of why this issue needs to be dealt with NOW at it's inception. And it's also heartening to see channels like this getting traction to combat the alt-right dominance of YouTube:
The victims of violent criminals did not have protection against their attackers. The fates of violent criminals are not my problem--they made their choices and now they have to live with the consequences. I don't see the point in spending money to feed and house people who have, through their actions, demonstrated that they do not wish to be a part of any sort of civilized society.
edit/add: before you think me cruel, this logic applies to my own brother--he made his choices and now he has to live with them.
*************
Meanwhile, 16 Marines were just arrested--while in formation--at Camp Pendleton in connection with a human- and drug-trafficking ring.
Uh, no, it does NOT work that way. People who imprison people are RESPONSIBLE for the imprisoned.
So says, oh, the Constitution, the Geneva Conventions, and the U.N., and over 300 years of modern thought regarding the humane treatment of prisoners of war and crime.
This is why those two sheriff deputies were charged with manslaughter after the two female mental patients they were transporting drowned because they were driving during Hurricane Florence.
So Trump is, essentially, the weakest incumbent since Jimmy Carter. All things being equal, without some shift in the paradigm as we move into the next election, Trump has maybe a 30% chance at re-election, and closer to a 5% chance if Biden is the nominee.
Impeachment might improve those odds, or it might hurt those odds. There's no honest way to know. Game theory says you do not take large risks when you're in an advantageous position. Politics is all about game theory.
The thought of Trump having even a 20% reelection chance makes me ill.
Wow, I can't recommend this video enough as a breakdown of why this issue needs to be dealt with NOW at it's inception. And it's also heartening to see channels like this getting traction to combat the alt-right dominance of YouTube:
The victims of violent criminals did not have protection against their attackers. The fates of violent criminals are not my problem--they made their choices and now they have to live with the consequences. I don't see the point in spending money to feed and house people who have, through their actions, demonstrated that they do not wish to be a part of any sort of civilized society.
edit/add: before you think me cruel, this logic applies to my own brother--he made his choices and now he has to live with them.
*************
Meanwhile, 16 Marines were just arrested--while in formation--at Camp Pendleton in connection with a human- and drug-trafficking ring.
Uh, no, it does NOT work that way. People who imprison people are RESPONSIBLE for the imprisoned.
So says, oh, the Constitution, the Geneva Conventions, and the U.N., and over 300 years of modern thought regarding the humane treatment of prisoners of war and crime.
This is why those two sheriff deputies were charged with manslaughter after the two female mental patients they were transporting drowned because they were driving during Hurricane Florence.
So Trump is, essentially, the weakest incumbent since Jimmy Carter. All things being equal, without some shift in the paradigm as we move into the next election, Trump has maybe a 30% chance at re-election, and closer to a 5% chance if Biden is the nominee.
Impeachment might improve those odds, or it might hurt those odds. There's no honest way to know. Game theory says you do not take large risks when you're in an advantageous position. Politics is all about game theory.
The thought of Trump having even a 20% reelection chance makes me ill.
I mean, I look to the betting markets on anything like this, because it's people dealing in real money. It's basically a toss-up, simply because of how our system is structured. He could conceivably get 5 million less votes and win.
Wow, I can't recommend this video enough as a breakdown of why this issue needs to be dealt with NOW at it's inception. And it's also heartening to see channels like this getting traction to combat the alt-right dominance of YouTube:
The victims of violent criminals did not have protection against their attackers. The fates of violent criminals are not my problem--they made their choices and now they have to live with the consequences. I don't see the point in spending money to feed and house people who have, through their actions, demonstrated that they do not wish to be a part of any sort of civilized society.
edit/add: before you think me cruel, this logic applies to my own brother--he made his choices and now he has to live with them.
*************
Meanwhile, 16 Marines were just arrested--while in formation--at Camp Pendleton in connection with a human- and drug-trafficking ring.
Uh, no, it does NOT work that way. People who imprison people are RESPONSIBLE for the imprisoned.
So says, oh, the Constitution, the Geneva Conventions, and the U.N., and over 300 years of modern thought regarding the humane treatment of prisoners of war and crime.
This is why those two sheriff deputies were charged with manslaughter after the two female mental patients they were transporting drowned because they were driving during Hurricane Florence.
So Trump is, essentially, the weakest incumbent since Jimmy Carter. All things being equal, without some shift in the paradigm as we move into the next election, Trump has maybe a 30% chance at re-election, and closer to a 5% chance if Biden is the nominee.
Impeachment might improve those odds, or it might hurt those odds. There's no honest way to know. Game theory says you do not take large risks when you're in an advantageous position. Politics is all about game theory.
The thought of Trump having even a 20% reelection chance makes me ill.
I mean, I look to the betting markets on anything like this, because it's people dealing in real money. It's basically a toss-up, simply because of how our system is structured. He could conceivably get 5 million less votes and win.
I'm thinking even odds myself. Coin flip. I'd give Biden slightly better than 50/50 but he's the only Democrat I'd be willing to put any money on for beating Trump. I just have a bad feeling we're going to see how unreliable 'popularity' polls are. Mark my words...
I mean, I look to the betting markets on anything like this, because it's people dealing in real money. It's basically a toss-up, simply because of how our system is structured. He could conceivably get 5 million less votes and win.
Those numbers tend to have a lot of uncertainty factored in. It's a coinflip today because anything could happen in the next 15 months. It was also a coinflip that the Republicans would hold the House of Representatives 15 months before the midterms, and the Democrats ended up with a wave election, picking up 40 seats and decisively taking the chamber.
I read the same article that postulated Trump could lose the popular vote by 5 million votes and still win the electoral college. That's his most realistic path to reelection.
I think Biden would win the general comfortably, and probably with big enough margins that the Democrats win the Senate. I dont really like Biden at all, but part of me thinks the best case scenario might be him winning the nomination, as it gives Democrats their best chance at controlling the senate (Thus guaranteeing that the GOP cannot steal another SCOTUS seat).
I mean, I look to the betting markets on anything like this, because it's people dealing in real money. It's basically a toss-up, simply because of how our system is structured. He could conceivably get 5 million less votes and win.
Those numbers tend to have a lot of uncertainty factored in. It's a coinflip today because anything could happen in the next 15 months. It was also a coinflip that the Republicans would hold the House of Representatives 15 months before the midterms, and the Democrats ended up with a wave election, picking up 40 seats and decisively taking the chamber.
I read the same article that postulated Trump could lose the popular vote by 5 million votes and still win the electoral college. That's his most realistic path to reelection.
I think Biden would win the general comfortably, and probably with big enough margins that the Democrats win the Senate. I dont really like Biden at all, but part of me thinks the best case scenario might be him winning the nomination, as it gives Democrats their best chance at controlling the senate (Thus guaranteeing that the GOP cannot steal another SCOTUS seat).
I could live with Biden. He's one of the candidates I'd piss my vote away on the Libertarian if it was him vs. Trump.
I think people are severely underestimating the Republican attack machine and what it is capable of. They may be an abject disaster at governing, but by god do they know how to rat-fuck their way to election wins time after time. This is the exact same calculus we used when we nominated John Kerry in 2004, and we saw what they did to him. If it hadn't been for the Iraq War debacle and the economy cratering, it would have worked against Obama in 2008 as well. It doesn't matter how much farther to the right or center Biden is than Sanders, Warren or Harris. By the end of the Republican convention, 40% of the country will be convinced he's the second coming of Mao. This isn't even taking into consideration the group of liberal voters who find his past position on the crime bill in the '90s and his vote on the bankruptcy bill total anathema in 2019.
I like Biden fine personally, and no doubt his positions have evolved (as they should have). But people are seriously overestimating his chances vs. everyone else on the ticket. Not to mention he is a walking gaffe machine. Whoever was in charge of keeping him relatively in pocket while he was Vice President didn't get paid nearly enough. His comments also show a fundamental misunderstanding about what he is up against on the other side of the aisle, and are even more ridiculous coming from someone who lived through all 8 years of the Obama Administration in the #2 position. It's strikes me as borderline delusional that he thinks Mitch McConnell is going to "work" with him.
All this by vote talk has got me curious with a math problem, so I summon @Mathsorcerer (or anyone else) to figure it out.
On a neutral American map, with a 100% turnout in every state, what is the minimum amount of votes that a person could get and still win the election.
Well technically he/she'd only need to win states by one vote that have enough Electoral Votes to have a majority of those. The other states he/she could get 0 votes and it wouldn't matter. I'm going to give an educated guess at 25.00000001%.
Edit: That's if only two candidates are running. If there are more candidates then that percentage would be even lower...
All this by vote talk has got me curious with a math problem, so I summon @Mathsorcerer (or anyone else) to figure it out.
On a neutral American map, with a 100% turnout in every state, what is the minimum amount of votes that a person could get and still win the election.
Well technically he/she'd only need to win states by one vote that have enough Electoral Votes to have a majority of those. The other states he/she could get 0 votes and it wouldn't matter. I'm going to give an educated guess at 25.00000001%.
Edit: That's if only two candidates are running. If there are more candidates then that percentage would be even lower...
Ya. Two candidates, and I actually think it is less than 25% of the vote.
All this by vote talk has got me curious with a math problem, so I summon @Mathsorcerer (or anyone else) to figure it out.
On a neutral American map, with a 100% turnout in every state, what is the minimum amount of votes that a person could get and still win the election.
I concur with @Balrog99 -- first we have to identify the minimum number of States required to earn a sufficient number of Electoral votes to win (270 EC votes), then we figure out what the base voting population is in those States (check that State's Secretary of State or Registrar's Office websites), the we approximate the usual voter turnout in Presidential years (typically around 45% of eligible voters). I can look up all those numbers in only an hour or two but I can't do it while at work.
Now, if we presume 100% voter turnout then we don't apply that last approximation; that makes the number-crunching a little easier but I still can't do it at work. If I throw out educated guesses, then 340 million people...discount one-third as being too young to vote (or for other reasons)...I think you can hit 270 EC votes with only 12 or 13 States...population is not evenly distributed in every State...but probably somewhere around 60 million.
You could get to 269 electoral votes with half of all states except CA, TX, NY, FL, PA, IL, OH, MI, GA, NC, and VA. By 2017 government estimates of voting-age population, that's 54.4 out of 252.1 million, or 21.6%. Not sure if that's optimal, but probably not too far off.
All this by vote talk has got me curious with a math problem, so I summon @Mathsorcerer (or anyone else) to figure it out.
On a neutral American map, with a 100% turnout in every state, what is the minimum amount of votes that a person could get and still win the election.
I concur with @Balrog99 -- first we have to identify the minimum number of States required to earn a sufficient number of Electoral votes to win (270 EC votes), then we figure out what the base voting population is in those States (check that State's Secretary of State or Registrar's Office websites), the we approximate the usual voter turnout in Presidential years (typically around 45% of eligible voters). I can look up all those numbers in only an hour or two but I can't do it while at work.
Now, if we presume 100% voter turnout then we don't apply that last approximation; that makes the number-crunching a little easier but I still can't do it at work. If I throw out educated guesses, then 340 million people...discount one-third as being too young to vote (or for other reasons)...I think you can hit 270 EC votes with only 12 or 13 States...population is not evenly distributed in every State...but probably somewhere around 60 million.
Or you could go with winning all of the low population states that have 'bonus' EC representation by one vote and make up the difference by winning 9 or 10 of the higher population states by one vote. You might be able to pull off a victory with 23 or 24% of the popular in that case.
All this by vote talk has got me curious with a math problem, so I summon @Mathsorcerer (or anyone else) to figure it out.
On a neutral American map, with a 100% turnout in every state, what is the minimum amount of votes that a person could get and still win the election.
I concur with @Balrog99 -- first we have to identify the minimum number of States required to earn a sufficient number of Electoral votes to win (270 EC votes), then we figure out what the base voting population is in those States (check that State's Secretary of State or Registrar's Office websites), the we approximate the usual voter turnout in Presidential years (typically around 45% of eligible voters). I can look up all those numbers in only an hour or two but I can't do it while at work.
Now, if we presume 100% voter turnout then we don't apply that last approximation; that makes the number-crunching a little easier but I still can't do it at work. If I throw out educated guesses, then 340 million people...discount one-third as being too young to vote (or for other reasons)...I think you can hit 270 EC votes with only 12 or 13 States...population is not evenly distributed in every State...but probably somewhere around 60 million.
I think it wouldn't be the minimum number of states, but the minimum population required to get 270 ECVs. So if a bunch of small states equal the ECVs of one big state, but the total population of the small states is less than the big state, you would want the small states instead of the big state. This is the opposite of what you want if you're minimizing the number of states.
All this by vote talk has got me curious with a math problem, so I summon @Mathsorcerer (or anyone else) to figure it out.
On a neutral American map, with a 100% turnout in every state, what is the minimum amount of votes that a person could get and still win the election.
Well, technically the election is won by electoral college votes - and states don't necessarily bind their electors to vote in accordance with the voting results, so you don't need any votes from the general population in those states. I haven't tried to check just how many that applies to, but if it's enough then the answer would be 270 (and it wouldn't surprise me if @deltago was looking for that answer to a 'trick' question ).
Yes, but they allocate two electors according to the state popular vote winner and the remaining electors according to the popular vote winner in each congressional district. So you can still get all of those states' electors as long as you also have a majority in each of their districts, which comes "for free" in terms of this exercise.
Stuff like winning the presidency due to the EC while losing the vote and the fact that Bush and Trump lost the popular vote but they became President anyway are why the EC needs to go away.
As an extreme example, Hitler lost the popular vote in a democratic election, so maybe having extremists run your government who don't win the popular vote is a bad idea. In Hitler's case it's possibly less of a injustice lol because the vote was just split among many candidates, when there's only two choices and more people want the other choice the system is fundamentally broken.
Just because we have a rule or a system of how things are done doesn't mean that can never change. We've had plenty of things that were legally acceptable that were just terrible ideas in the past. Like slavery for one extreme example.
I realize mentioning nazis, slavery in the same post is going to trigger some people to ignore the points but it really shouldn't affect your perception of the facts. Consider:
- Why is having the person most people didn't want become President a good idea? I certainly can't imagine a good answer for that, maybe someone has a better imagination than I do. Why is using an artificial arbitrary game to rig the vote better than just letting "We the People" have their say?
CA 55
TX 38
FL and NY 29
IL and PA 20
OH 18
GA and MI 16
NC 15
NJ 14
VA 13
WA 12
AZ/IN/MA/TN 11
MD/MN/MI/WI 10
AL/CO/SC 9
KY and LA 8
CT/OK/OR 7
AR/IA/KS/MS/NV/UT 6
NB/NM/WV 5
HI/ID/ME/NH/RI 4
AK/DE/DC/MT/ND/SK/VT/WY 3
Winning from the least populous up means a candidate would have to carry every State from New Jersey on down to surpass 270; that's 41 States (we count DC as a State for this purpose). Interestingly, winning from the most populous down means carrying CA to NJ; this puts you at 270 exactly and 11 States.
In recent elections, the majority of Presidential candidate focus has been spent in Nevada (not sure why), Colorado, New Mexico, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire/Vermont, and Florida. The other States barely get any attention.
CA 55
TX 38
FL and NY 29
IL and PA 20
OH 18
GA and MI 16
NC 15
NJ 14
VA 13
WA 12
AZ/IN/MA/TN 11
MD/MN/MI/WI 10
AL/CO/SC 9
KY and LA 8
CT/OK/OR 7
AR/IA/KS/MS/NV/UT 6
NB/NM/WV 5
HI/ID/ME/NH/RI 4
AK/DE/DC/MT/ND/SK/VT/WY 3
Winning from the least populous up means a candidate would have to carry every State from New Jersey on down to surpass 270; that's 41 States (we count DC as a State for this purpose). Interestingly, winning from the most populous down means carrying CA to NJ; this puts you at 270 exactly and 11 States.
In recent elections, the majority of Presidential candidate focus has been spent in Nevada (not sure why), Colorado, New Mexico, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire/Vermont, and Florida. The other States barely get any attention.
Which is why the argument that "candidates will only campaign in big cities" which is frequently used to defend the Electoral College is ridiculous. Because they are spending exactly ZERO time in Los Angeles and New York now, yet no one thinks THAT is a problem for some reason. The idea that in 2019, in an age of instant media access on multiple devices 24/7, that it is going to make a lick of difference WHERE a candidate announces a policy position or lands a hard zinger on their opponent is simply no longer realistic. People aren't standing at the train station hoping to get a glimpse of the candidate anymore. The whole "some places won't get enough attention" argument is completely bogus when 5 or 6 states have been getting the bulk of the attention for 20 years anyway. It's yet another example of people (supposedly) caring very much about certain places with lower populations being at risk of not getting enough love, yet they completely ignore the fact that the biggest population centers in the country like LA, NY, Houston and Chicago are essentially ignored and have been for decades. It's created a situation where lines were drawn on a map (in some cases hundreds of years ago) is exponentially more important than the actual voting. With the Urban/Rural divide nearly totally entrenched, not amount of campaign skill or brilliant stump speeches can overcome the fact that those smaller rural states just flat-out out have more power, thus anyone who lives in them does as well. We are a tiered citizenry, and the less people live in your state, the higher your tier is.
CA 55
TX 38
FL and NY 29
IL and PA 20
OH 18
GA and MI 16
NC 15
NJ 14
VA 13
WA 12
AZ/IN/MA/TN 11
MD/MN/MI/WI 10
AL/CO/SC 9
KY and LA 8
CT/OK/OR 7
AR/IA/KS/MS/NV/UT 6
NB/NM/WV 5
HI/ID/ME/NH/RI 4
AK/DE/DC/MT/ND/SK/VT/WY 3
Winning from the least populous up means a candidate would have to carry every State from New Jersey on down to surpass 270; that's 41 States (we count DC as a State for this purpose). Interestingly, winning from the most populous down means carrying CA to NJ; this puts you at 270 exactly and 11 States.
In recent elections, the majority of Presidential candidate focus has been spent in Nevada (not sure why), Colorado, New Mexico, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire/Vermont, and Florida. The other States barely get any attention.
Which is why the argument that "candidates will only campaign in big cities" which is frequently used to defend the Electoral College is ridiculous. Because they are spending exactly ZERO time in Los Angeles and New York now, yet no one thinks THAT is a problem for some reason. The idea that in 2019, in an age of instant media access on multiple devices 24/7, that it is going to make a lick of difference WHERE a candidate announces a policy position or lands a hard zinger on their opponent is simply no longer realistic. People aren't standing at the train station hoping to get a glimpse of the candidate anymore. The whole "some places won't get enough attention" argument is completely bogus when 5 or 6 states have been getting the bulk of the attention for 20 years anyway. It's yet another example of people (supposedly) caring very much about certain places with lower populations being at risk of not getting enough love, yet they completely ignore the fact that the biggest population centers in the country like LA, NY, Houston and Chicago are essentially ignored and have been for decades. It's created a situation where lines were drawn on a map (in some cases hundreds of years ago) is exponentially more important than the actual voting. With the Urban/Rural divide nearly totally entrenched, not amount of campaign skill or brilliant stump speeches can overcome the fact that those smaller rural states just flat-out out have more power, thus anyone who lives in them does as well. We are a tiered citizenry, and the less people live in your state, the higher your tier is.
Off the top of my head I can say we were never intended to be a true democracy. In that way, things are working as intended.
Edit:
Sorry JJ, I meant this as an answer to @smeagolheart's earlier question about 'We the people' having their say...
Comments
A philosophy of Punishment is easier and you can cut corners on care to boot. It's easier to sell too just say "I'm tough on crime!". And hey if you don't fix em, you can make em worse and leave them with no other choice that they just might come back.
It looks like Rosello is going to resign next Friday, 2 August. The people of Puerto Rico are hoping they will get rid of corruption once he is gone, but I have sad news for them--they will only trade one form of corruption for another. The new administration will be very careful at first but it won't take them long to pick up where Rosello left off.
I don't trust *any* government all that much. On the other topic....good luck finding any other person who has been more "pro-Puerto Rico" in this thread than I have been.
We don't.
There's some strange idea that criminals will learn to be law-abiding citizens if you just make them suffer more. It's the logic of a man who beats his disobedient dog and decides that the reason why his dog isn't behaving is because he's not beating his dog hard enough.
It does not profit me to have prisoners suffer. It only profits me if they hold down jobs and obey the law when they get out of prison--and they inevitably do get out unless they have the extremely rare and extremely expensive life sentence. I don't want overmuch taxpayer money spent on babysitting criminals, and the only way to minimize that is, in fact, rehabilitation.
I worked at the homeless shelter and many of the folks there were mentally ill, former addicts, and/or convicted criminals. The shelter had programs in place to treat mental illness, rehabilitate people with addictions, and reform convicts--not all of which were necessarily nonviolent. The shelter saved millions of dollars with these programs, and it didn't require inflicting suffering on anyone.
People think of criminals as people who live far away. The truth is, they live next door to you. They're your brother, father, your cousin-law, your lawyer, your wife, and in many cases, you. Only a few of them can go away forever. The others are going to stay married to you.
I live this.
By definition, half the families make less than the median.
I watched that for 30 minutes.
I think everyone else should.
Personally I think that community service should be mandatory for the public in general.
Uh, no, it does NOT work that way. People who imprison people are RESPONSIBLE for the imprisoned.
So says, oh, the Constitution, the Geneva Conventions, and the U.N., and over 300 years of modern thought regarding the humane treatment of prisoners of war and crime.
This is why those two sheriff deputies were charged with manslaughter after the two female mental patients they were transporting drowned because they were driving during Hurricane Florence.
The thought of Trump having even a 20% reelection chance makes me ill.
I mean, I look to the betting markets on anything like this, because it's people dealing in real money. It's basically a toss-up, simply because of how our system is structured. He could conceivably get 5 million less votes and win.
I'm thinking even odds myself. Coin flip. I'd give Biden slightly better than 50/50 but he's the only Democrat I'd be willing to put any money on for beating Trump. I just have a bad feeling we're going to see how unreliable 'popularity' polls are. Mark my words...
Those numbers tend to have a lot of uncertainty factored in. It's a coinflip today because anything could happen in the next 15 months. It was also a coinflip that the Republicans would hold the House of Representatives 15 months before the midterms, and the Democrats ended up with a wave election, picking up 40 seats and decisively taking the chamber.
I read the same article that postulated Trump could lose the popular vote by 5 million votes and still win the electoral college. That's his most realistic path to reelection.
I think Biden would win the general comfortably, and probably with big enough margins that the Democrats win the Senate. I dont really like Biden at all, but part of me thinks the best case scenario might be him winning the nomination, as it gives Democrats their best chance at controlling the senate (Thus guaranteeing that the GOP cannot steal another SCOTUS seat).
I could live with Biden. He's one of the candidates I'd piss my vote away on the Libertarian if it was him vs. Trump.
I like Biden fine personally, and no doubt his positions have evolved (as they should have). But people are seriously overestimating his chances vs. everyone else on the ticket. Not to mention he is a walking gaffe machine. Whoever was in charge of keeping him relatively in pocket while he was Vice President didn't get paid nearly enough. His comments also show a fundamental misunderstanding about what he is up against on the other side of the aisle, and are even more ridiculous coming from someone who lived through all 8 years of the Obama Administration in the #2 position. It's strikes me as borderline delusional that he thinks Mitch McConnell is going to "work" with him.
On a neutral American map, with a 100% turnout in every state, what is the minimum amount of votes that a person could get and still win the election.
Well technically he/she'd only need to win states by one vote that have enough Electoral Votes to have a majority of those. The other states he/she could get 0 votes and it wouldn't matter. I'm going to give an educated guess at 25.00000001%.
Edit: That's if only two candidates are running. If there are more candidates then that percentage would be even lower...
Ya. Two candidates, and I actually think it is less than 25% of the vote.
I concur with @Balrog99 -- first we have to identify the minimum number of States required to earn a sufficient number of Electoral votes to win (270 EC votes), then we figure out what the base voting population is in those States (check that State's Secretary of State or Registrar's Office websites), the we approximate the usual voter turnout in Presidential years (typically around 45% of eligible voters). I can look up all those numbers in only an hour or two but I can't do it while at work.
Now, if we presume 100% voter turnout then we don't apply that last approximation; that makes the number-crunching a little easier but I still can't do it at work. If I throw out educated guesses, then 340 million people...discount one-third as being too young to vote (or for other reasons)...I think you can hit 270 EC votes with only 12 or 13 States...population is not evenly distributed in every State...but probably somewhere around 60 million.
@deltago
Or you could go with winning all of the low population states that have 'bonus' EC representation by one vote and make up the difference by winning 9 or 10 of the higher population states by one vote. You might be able to pull off a victory with 23 or 24% of the popular in that case.
I think it wouldn't be the minimum number of states, but the minimum population required to get 270 ECVs. So if a bunch of small states equal the ECVs of one big state, but the total population of the small states is less than the big state, you would want the small states instead of the big state. This is the opposite of what you want if you're minimizing the number of states.
Well, technically the election is won by electoral college votes - and states don't necessarily bind their electors to vote in accordance with the voting results, so you don't need any votes from the general population in those states. I haven't tried to check just how many that applies to, but if it's enough then the answer would be 270 (and it wouldn't surprise me if @deltago was looking for that answer to a 'trick' question
As an extreme example, Hitler lost the popular vote in a democratic election, so maybe having extremists run your government who don't win the popular vote is a bad idea. In Hitler's case it's possibly less of a injustice lol because the vote was just split among many candidates, when there's only two choices and more people want the other choice the system is fundamentally broken.
Just because we have a rule or a system of how things are done doesn't mean that can never change. We've had plenty of things that were legally acceptable that were just terrible ideas in the past. Like slavery for one extreme example.
I realize mentioning nazis, slavery in the same post is going to trigger some people to ignore the points but it really shouldn't affect your perception of the facts. Consider:
- Why is having the person most people didn't want become President a good idea? I certainly can't imagine a good answer for that, maybe someone has a better imagination than I do. Why is using an artificial arbitrary game to rig the vote better than just letting "We the People" have their say?
TX 38
FL and NY 29
IL and PA 20
OH 18
GA and MI 16
NC 15
NJ 14
VA 13
WA 12
AZ/IN/MA/TN 11
MD/MN/MI/WI 10
AL/CO/SC 9
KY and LA 8
CT/OK/OR 7
AR/IA/KS/MS/NV/UT 6
NB/NM/WV 5
HI/ID/ME/NH/RI 4
AK/DE/DC/MT/ND/SK/VT/WY 3
Winning from the least populous up means a candidate would have to carry every State from New Jersey on down to surpass 270; that's 41 States (we count DC as a State for this purpose). Interestingly, winning from the most populous down means carrying CA to NJ; this puts you at 270 exactly and 11 States.
In recent elections, the majority of Presidential candidate focus has been spent in Nevada (not sure why), Colorado, New Mexico, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire/Vermont, and Florida. The other States barely get any attention.
Which is why the argument that "candidates will only campaign in big cities" which is frequently used to defend the Electoral College is ridiculous. Because they are spending exactly ZERO time in Los Angeles and New York now, yet no one thinks THAT is a problem for some reason. The idea that in 2019, in an age of instant media access on multiple devices 24/7, that it is going to make a lick of difference WHERE a candidate announces a policy position or lands a hard zinger on their opponent is simply no longer realistic. People aren't standing at the train station hoping to get a glimpse of the candidate anymore. The whole "some places won't get enough attention" argument is completely bogus when 5 or 6 states have been getting the bulk of the attention for 20 years anyway. It's yet another example of people (supposedly) caring very much about certain places with lower populations being at risk of not getting enough love, yet they completely ignore the fact that the biggest population centers in the country like LA, NY, Houston and Chicago are essentially ignored and have been for decades. It's created a situation where lines were drawn on a map (in some cases hundreds of years ago) is exponentially more important than the actual voting. With the Urban/Rural divide nearly totally entrenched, not amount of campaign skill or brilliant stump speeches can overcome the fact that those smaller rural states just flat-out out have more power, thus anyone who lives in them does as well. We are a tiered citizenry, and the less people live in your state, the higher your tier is.
Off the top of my head I can say we were never intended to be a true democracy. In that way, things are working as intended.
Edit:
Sorry JJ, I meant this as an answer to @smeagolheart's earlier question about 'We the people' having their say...