Media: pound inequity of the United States Congress!

President Obama has been conducting a seminar on health care with members of Congress. All day. Right now Obama is 30 minutes from the end and a senator from Wyoming, another of the Congressional Republican doctors, is running his mouth, protecting his interests. Who is this guy, representing fewer than 250,000 people (half Wyoming's population) when a senator from California represents 17,000,000 people (half California's population)? Media people should in every instance stress the inequity of the United States Congress. For senators, don't just indicate party and state, tell us how many people that senator represents. When senators vote on a bill, don't just show the number who voted for and against. Count up the number of people represented by those votes so we can see the relative weight on each side of the issue. In the House of Representatives, show a silhouette of the member's district and the percent of voters in the major parties. Embarrass the crap out of those in protected districts until the states adopt fair districting according to municipal boundaries. Better yet, call for a Constitutional Convention so we can fix the many deficiencies left by the Fumbling Founding Fathers.

Should liberals embrace states rights?

States rights. The very phrase has so many negative connotations outside of the DSA (Dumb States of America) - see previous post. In the first half of the history of the United States of America, states rights was an excuse to justify and maintain slavery, the south's peculiar institution. In the second half of our history states rights has been an excuse to justify and maintain second class citizenship for blacks and for other backward policies. The U.S. constitution is so flawed in the process for electing a president and in the legislature by having a senate in which California with 68 times more people has the same representation as Wyoming, it's no wonder that our policies are perverted. These inequities cannot be changed without the consent of the beneficiaries of those same inequities. The Founding Fathers were no better than what we have today. What a mess they created. And we still had a civil war. And the civil war didn't even result in addressing secession, the act which triggered it. Three constitutional amendments as a result of the civil war and none dealt with secession. Without a constitutional convention to make fundamental changes there is no way that this system will improve. So, if you can't beat them, join them. Liberals should stop worrying about Mississippi mistreating its citizens. Short of lynchings, Mississippi is unlikely to do anything really terrible with the universal spotlight of the world wide web. If needed, the feds can step in, like in the old days, the 1960s. Besides, people can vote with their feet. That's the phrase that Reagan popularized. Aren't they already doing that, migrating towards the coasts? Isn't that why old people move to Florida, Arizona and Nevada? Oops, real estate values collapsed in those states. Isn't it why retired LA cops move to Idaho? Liberals, stop cringing and embrace states rights. Change the dynamic and make the nuts cringe. Dismantle federal programs and let each state set policy that is not by its nature federal, such as national defense. When the same people get flooded out of their homes every ten years or so because they refuse to move out of Mississippi River flood zones, their state government, not the federal government, will be responsible for rebuilding their homes. Good luck there. And when a city that is built below sea level gets flooded, Louisiana will decide whether New Orleans is such a good idea after all. You want universal health care? Move to New York or California. You want to carry a concealed weapon? Move to Montana or Idaho. You don't want all that government regulation like brakes on cars? Move to South Carolina. Oh, and make each state pay for its stretch of interstate highway. Let's see how NASCAR nation likes that. Why should someone in New York City who does not own a car pay for interstate highways? States rights. Cool.

Dumb States of America (DSA)

The old Confederate States of America (CSA) could join with some of the western states that are also dumb and form the Dumb States of America (DSA). It could be a more perfect union than the one to which they currently belong. At the Olympic games DSA citizens could cheer on their athletes with chants of DSA, DSA, DSA! It should be easy for them to convert from the old USA chant to the new one. Dumb. That's what we have become. Increasingly we allow dumb people to make decisions and set policy on matters that require smart people: climate change, health care, the economy, ... People who are afraid of science. I don't know science but I know enough to know when most scientists have reached a consensus such as on climate change or health hazards of smoking tobacco or human evolution. The rest of the developed world must be laughing at us. We can't even decide to have universal health care. How dumb is that? And we act as if it's a complicated decision. Dumb. You can't have that. Smart people are not always correct but dumb people are usually incorrect. We have over 308 million people in the USA. Why do we let the dumb people have so much influence. Maybe we should split up. Let states secede and form the DSA. Then they can produce as many guns as they want, leave their children uneducated and have a nice weak central government like the old CSA. It was that weak central government that ultimately doomed the CSA.

The United States Senate is a dumb idea.

The United States of America was founded on states rights. The best example of this is the absurd nature of the United States Senate in which each state has the same number of senators regardless of population. According to http://www.census.gov/ here is the U.S. population today: 308,742,516. This includes non-American citizens. The first census was done in 1790. The state totals are here: http://www2.census.gov/prod2/decennial/documents/1790a-02.pdf I created a document for the 1790 census, which shows the data: http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=tx0ONS8ONKuPMlty8v0CSqg&output=html In 1790 Virginia had 13 times more people per U.S. senator as Delaware. Each Delaware resident had 13 times more influence as each Virginia resident. Here is the state by state population for the 2000 census and through July 2009: http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/GCTTable?_bm=y&-geo_id=01000US&-_box_head_nbr=GCT-T1-R&-ds_name=PEP_2009_EST&-_lang=en&-format=US-40S&-_sse=on California has the most residents and Wyoming the fewest. Their ratio of residents per U.S. senator as of July 2009 is 68. 68! That's five times worse than the max/min ratio in 1790. Wyoming residents have 68 times more influence than California residents. This is ridiculously outrageous. Instead of laughing at each others sophomoric wisecracks, those tea party morons should be pushing to reform the system of government. Fundamental reform of the system is the only hope we have of getting better results.

Two Americas? At least.

Former Senator John Edwards used the phrase and theme "two Americas" when he ran for president. Unfortunately, there are at least that many and always have been. Our current political gridlock is derived from the mess of a start that the United States had. Ridiculous compromises and expedient deals were made simply to found this country and they persist in our system of government. The only way to purge them is to change the system, which constitutionally, is unlikely to change. In their desire to have all the relevant British colonies become part of the new nation, the founding fathers made deals that make today's look principled. Not only did they not abolish slavery, they permitted the importation of slaves for another 20 years. They permitted the offspring of slaves to be slaves even though in other parts of the world those children would have been free. They implemented a compromise in which three of five slaves would count as free people for the number of seats in the House of Representatives. They maintained the British aristocratic concept of the House of Lords by establishing the U.S. Senate. Wyoming and California each have two senators. And we wonder why our federal government has become so dysfunctional. I have written about constitutional changes before:

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2008 Electing the President: a new system

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2008 Electing the Vice President: a new system

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2008 City States in America:

New York City ... could be a new state with its own perspective and issues... The U.S. constitution has many flaws. An obvious one is the disproportionate nature of the Senate. The founders did not intend for the Senate to be proportionate but they could never have imagined that it would become so hugely disproportionate because they could not have imagined that cities would become so populous... Once New York sets the precedent, all large U.S. cities should follow... Once cities started to secede the Congress would have no choice but to admit them as city states. _________________________________

What to do?

1. Let states and other municipalities secede. No, the American Civil War did not settle this issue. Show me the constitutional amendment, which addresses this. If Lincoln had truly been great there would have been no civil war. When slave states seceded, he should have let them go. He could have corrected some of the original mistakes while leaving the original sin of slavery where it belonged: with the slave states of the Confederacy. The peculiar institution would have ended in about twenty years and the Confederacy would have failed by then. Those states could have been considered for re-admission but on terms that would have made far more sense than what evolved out of the civil war.

2. Within the limited federal functionality that remains, let states do what they want. If they want to rely on the federal government a lot, let them. If they don't, don't force them. If people in Mississippi want to continue to act against their own best interests, let them. Let health insurance companies in Mississippi rule that industry. But if people in New York state want to rely on the federal government, that should be allowed, too. New Yorkers can have a government option on health insurance, some alternative to the private companies. New York has a lot of regulation on health insurance already. Let New York have as much as it wants. Let Mississippi continue to lose population to places like ... New York. In other words, don't fight the two Americas, the many Americas. Let them exist. With our current constitutional structure there is no choice. So unless you are willing to change the U.S. Constitution or, dare I say it, start over, multiple forms of government will exist. Give tea party people (Are they all grouchy old white people?) the option to live under a form of government that suits them. It seems that about one third of Americans are pretty nuts. You cannot reason with nutty people. Obama needs to learn this and stop wasting his time. You cannot reason with terrorists either. Obama, get over it. There is bipartisanship only with those who are not partisan. Another third of Americans are committed to their political thoughts but are not nuts. Then there are the remaining third of Americans who are dumb, either by birth or by choice. Jay Leno interviews them on the street. We generally are appalled at how much they do not know. They are morons. No offense to former Alaska governess Palin or to any of her neglected kids. Hey, to each his/her own.