After a particularly disappointing night of election results for Republicans, former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) lamented “pure democracies,” where major decisions are left up to voters …
My example of cribbage players is indeed absurd, but it’s no less absurd than the reality we have learned to accept through conditioning. That’s not reductio ad absurdum, it’s legitimate use of unfamiliar absurdity to make familiar absurdity visible.
The distribution of power to the states instead of the people was a political necessity to keep some states from leaving the table, not a visionary principal of anyone’s ideal democracy. It never “made sense” at all, but was made necessary by the political realities of the time. No, it was not intended to give the vote to land, but that was it’s effect.
Your example of taxation by land mass is a far better example of reductio ad absurdum. If democracy is to be viewed as tyranny of the majority, then any alternative is, by the same exact logic, a tyranny of the minority. Any power caries with it the risk of tyranny, no matter how it’s distributed. Generally speaking, the less centralized power is, the less likely it is to be abused, but the risk is never zero.
Distributing power to the states instead of the people sounds like a step in the right direction from putting it in the hands of the federal government, but it’s actually the opposite. There are countless examples where states get trapped in a race to the bottom. For instance, a state that raises the minimum wage has to risk jobs shifting to another state, or failing to find a privately owned business could move it to another state. Much of the power states have only exists until they try to use it. Since states can’t control their borders and regulate trade with other states, the whole system just becomes an obstacle to reform.
My example of cribbage players is indeed absurd, but it’s no less absurd than the reality we have learned to accept through conditioning. That’s not reductio ad absurdum, it’s legitimate use of unfamiliar absurdity to make familiar absurdity visible.
The distribution of power to the states instead of the people was a political necessity to keep some states from leaving the table, not a visionary principal of anyone’s ideal democracy. It never “made sense” at all, but was made necessary by the political realities of the time. No, it was not intended to give the vote to land, but that was it’s effect.
Your example of taxation by land mass is a far better example of reductio ad absurdum. If democracy is to be viewed as tyranny of the majority, then any alternative is, by the same exact logic, a tyranny of the minority. Any power caries with it the risk of tyranny, no matter how it’s distributed. Generally speaking, the less centralized power is, the less likely it is to be abused, but the risk is never zero.
Distributing power to the states instead of the people sounds like a step in the right direction from putting it in the hands of the federal government, but it’s actually the opposite. There are countless examples where states get trapped in a race to the bottom. For instance, a state that raises the minimum wage has to risk jobs shifting to another state, or failing to find a privately owned business could move it to another state. Much of the power states have only exists until they try to use it. Since states can’t control their borders and regulate trade with other states, the whole system just becomes an obstacle to reform.