The Supreme Court...?

[SilverTauron]

200 million people, and 41 states, treat carrying a firearm for personal protection as normal.

100 million, in 9 states, do not.

How do we lose, again?

The 100 million in 9 states believe their cause must be expanded to the other 200 million come hook or crook, out of a warped sense of political obligation.

Meanwhile, the 200 million in 41 states still believe in respecting the other side's choices even if they are dead wrong.

[Gray Peterson]

The 100 million in 9 states believe their cause must be expanded to the other 200 million come hook or crook, out of a warped sense of political obligation.

Meanwhile, the 200 million in 41 states still believe in respecting the other side's choices even if they are dead wrong.

What gave you the impression those of us in the 200/41 camp respect their camp's (the 100/9's) choice to use their governments to ignore civil rights?

[jamesob]

Don't vote for the lesser of two evils candidate. Vote for who you really want to do the job.

If everyone did this instead of sheepishly playing along with what the media/political assclowns want you to do, we wouldn't get ourselves into this predicament.

People just don't understand how to vote. The purpose of voting is to cast a vote for the person you want to take the job, not "the person that can win" or "the person from the other party of the guy you don't want to win."

Again, if everyone voted for the person they actually wanted, instead of the one that gets the most national news time, the country would be in much better shape.

dont vote for the lesser of the 2 evils? i hope your not serious. in that case don't even vote since the 3rd party has a snowballs chance in hell. right now we need the lesser.

[Meplat]

Lies? Insults? Your high school indoctrination by leftist teachers did you no favors in your civics class. And that's a big part of the problem.

Don't presume to tell me who and what a communist is. I lived under communism and my family escaped with our very lives from communism. We lost almost EVERYTHING but our lives. You live here in the US in your little insulated shell spouting all sorts of nonesense and HAVE NO F**KING CLUE what the hell you're talking about.

This once great nation is being destroyed from within by imbedded communists in media, government, and education while all of you fat, lazy, pampered citizens fiddle away watching American Idol. The same thing is happening here that happened where I came from and NO ONE is doing a damn thing about it. You keep voting for it for Chissakes!!! My family is petrified and we feel like we're living through "Groundhog Day." You're about to lose your vaunted Republic and you don't even care. One day you'll wake up and it's gone. And you'll wonder what the hell happened. I'll tell you exactly what happened. Look in the mirror. You and your ilk passively and actively participated.

As Ayn Rand once said "There is no difference between communism and socialism, except in the means of achieving the same ultimate end: communism proposes to enslave men by force, socialism - by vote. It is merely the difference between murder and suicide." What do you think Obama has been doing? He has been ruling by dictate. His weapons are Executive Orders, appointments without approval of Congress, leaks, treaties, and nationalization. There have been no votes. It has been by force. And what few changes he actually used the vote, it was gladly granted by idiots in Congress and the public. Yes you, the American public, are idiots. You have no idea how good you have it and you're willingly giving it away.

Another quote you should familiarize yourself with is by an American socialist, Norman Thomas. He once said "The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism, but under the name of liberalism they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program until one day America will be a socialist nation without ever knowing how it happened."

You sir, are the problem. I'm sorry if the truth hurts your ever so delicate and sensitive psyche. Grow up and grow some balls and fight for your damn country for once in your life. Use your gray matter before it atrophies. For sooner than you know, it will be too late. My family has been there, done that.

HEAR! HEAR!

[sholling]

People who argue for a vote in favor of the "lesser of two evils" argue that any other vote is wasted, because the vote goes towards someone who cannot win.

There was a lot of talk about some states including California switching to a system where the state's EC delegates would be required to vote for whoever receives the majority popular of vote nationally. If that has been actually implemented anywhere then every vote for the 2 main candidates count.

[Meplat]

There was a lot of talk about some states including California switching to a system where the state's EC delegates would be required to vote for whoever receives the majority popular of vote nationally. If that has been actually implemented anywhere then every vote for the 2 main candidates count.

Folks have been grousing for ever about the Electoral College and how it allows for the election of a president who has not actually won the popular vote; IIRC that has happened only once in our 200+ year history. Without the EC, candidates could disregard the entire rural population of the country. All that would be needed would be to cater to the massed morons of a dozen or so urban centers. People who could not survive beyond the sidewalks would be telling the rest of us how to live. Basically, the whole country would be like CA.!

Direct democracy is mob rule. It is not a sacred cow, but a golden calf.

[Gray Peterson]

Folks have been grousing for ever about the Electoral College and how it allows for the election of a president who has not actually won the popular vote; IIRC that has happened only once in our 200+ year history. Without the EC, candidates could disregard the entire rural population of the country. All that would be needed would be to cater to the massed morons of a dozen or so urban centers. People who could not survive beyond the sidewalks would be telling the rest of us how to live. Basically, the whole country would be like CA.!

Direct democracy is mob rule. It is not a sacred cow, but a golden calf.

Eh, it's actually happened four times. Copied from infoplease:


In 1824, Andrew Jackson won both the popular and the electoral vote—that is he received more votes than any of the other candidates. But, no one in the four-man race won a majority, or more than 50%, in the Electoral College, so the House of Representatives decided the outcome. The House picked John Quincy Adams, who had come in second in the popular and electoral votes.

In 1876, Samuel J. Tilden won 51% of the popular vote, while Rutherford B. Hayes captured 48%. However, Hayes won 185 electoral votes, while Tilden got 184. A special electoral commission picked Hayes to be president.

In 1888, Benjamin Harrison became president by winning 233 electoral
votes, even though he received only 47.8% of the popular vote. His opponent, Grover Cleveland, garnered 48.6% of the popular vote, yet received only 168 electoral votes.

In 2000, Al Gore won 48.38% of the popular vote and 266 electoral votes. George W. Bush won only 47.87% of the popular vote but received 271 electoral votes, thus won the election.


The NPIV plan, or the Amar Plan, is completely constitutional in that it uses the state's inherent powers to select electors.

At the risk of being hit with arrows to the back (or the knee, ha), the statewide popular vote for electors is not something that's actually universal throughout history. In the 1788/1789 Presidential elections:

(a) Only 6 of the 10 states casting electoral votes chose electors by any form of popular vote.
(b) Less than 1.3% of the population voted: the 1790 Census would count a total population of 3.0 million with a free population of 2.4 million and 600,000 slaves in those states casting electoral votes in this election.
(c) Those states that did choose electors by popular vote had widely varying restrictions on suffrage via property requirements.

The current system as it's currently done is not what the framers intended, but it is completely constitutional under the state's inherent power to chose electors. Eventually, all 50 states went to a statewide popular vote determining the state's selection for the electoral college, and that came from a lot of political lobbying throughout the 19th Century.

One can use statistical analysis to get what we want, but the high population elector states (except for Texas for the long term and Florida is toss-up/lean right) are already in the bag for the "left" candidate" anyway. Right now, it's all about swing states, basically 5 of them, while the remaining 45 pretty much get ignored.

What I'm saying is, don't take the current system for granted for the idea that it somehow protects us. It protected gun owners once, in 2000 with the Bush v. Gore election. Don't count on it happening again.