• Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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      17 hours ago

      If you want to see the US without the Senate, watch The Hunger Games. It’s called “Panem”.

      12 numbered districts whose collective population is a minority of the total, controlled from afar by a single district comprising the majority. Whatever that distant, popular majority wants, it commands the minority districts to provide.

      The solution to the inequities in Panem is a Senate with the power to veto the whims of the Capitol district.

      • Natanael@infosec.pub
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        14 hours ago

        Instead you let a minority control the majority

        Veto powers should be limited to that which directly impacts each state materially, not simply everything including things happening afar

        • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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          14 hours ago

          Instead you let a minority control the majority

          Myth. The House vetos the minority from controlling the majority. That’s the purpose of the House.

          Veto powers should be limited to that which directly impacts each state materially, not simply everything including things happening afar

          If the majority wants to enact something without the consent of the Senate, they are free to enact it at the state level: For themselves, rather than imposed against a minority populace that would reject it for themselves.

          If that is not a viable option, then the federal government has too much power and needs to be reined in.

          • Natanael@infosec.pub
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            14 hours ago

            The purpose is not what it is doing anymore.

            if the majority wants to enact something without the consent of the Senate, they are free to enact it at the state level

            Then the veto should not apply to (more than a representative percent of) federal budgets. A shared project which states want to coordinate should not be vetoable by non-participants.

            If that can still be vetoed then the vetoing states have too much power and must be reined in

            • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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              13 hours ago

              A shared project which states want to coordinate should not be vetoable by non-participants.

              Rejected. Individual states are free to establish contractual arrangements with eachother. They can create and fund joint commissions for such shared projects.

              Where these “shared projects” are conducted and controlled by the federal government, there are no “non-participant” states. As participants in the federal government, these states have an interest in the budget of that government.

              • Natanael@infosec.pub
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                3 hours ago

                Real life math from real countries says you’re wrong. The federal government is that contract between states and those smaller states are generally net receivers, not payers, so when they veto projects not dependent on them for anything and which don’t cost them anything, your entire argument is dead in the water.

                You do not have a legitimate interest in that the budget is prevented from building good things like infrastructure for states who due to regulations and state plus federal law must use the federal government for coordination.

                The option is of course that the big states stop funding the feds, this directly harms the small states as they used to be net receivers of funds, and now the fed is only a paper entity that does nothing. If the small states veto self funded projects by large states which gets managed federally, they deserve this outcome.

      • ayyy@sh.itjust.works
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        14 hours ago

        Lmao you do know there are many other forms of democratic government in the world that aren’t the USA right? You don’t have to resort to ham-fisted YA fantasy.

        Also I need to confirm with you: you know the hunger games is fiction and not real life, right?

        • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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          14 hours ago

          Fiction widens the contrast, bringing the problem into stark relief. It makes the pattern easily recognizable, so more subtle intrusions don’t go overlooked.

          There are, indeed, many other forms of democratic government in the world that aren’t the USA. Some better. Many far, far worse. The best have strong factors differentiating them from simplistic, populist governance.