2016 elections - because it's never too early

[Valmy]

The founding fathers did not believe rights come from the Bill of Rights.  They believed these rights were intrinsic.  I don't think any of them were out-and-out atheists though so the idea that they "come from God" is not off the wall.

Actually, from what I learned here on Languish all of them except for a couple were devout atheists and left references to the "Creator" in the Declaration of Independence as a sly way of making fun of Christians.

What you should have learned is that John Adams is the greatest of Unitarians

[The Minsky Moment]

You left out "supporting the gold standard" as one of his crazy policies. Because he thinks its more stable, when in fact it would be the opposite.

What makes it even more bizarre is that he also pursued the neo-monetarist (or "market monetarist") argument that Fed policy stance was too tight in 2007-2008.  Which is a perfectly respectable position but one completely at odds with advocacy of a hard commodity money standard.  It's like expounding on the virtues of Ricardian competitive advantage and then concluding by saying let's raise tariffs 50%.

The real problem with Ted is not that he is an evangelical or a conservative.  The real problem is that he is a high school debater that never grew up.

[The Minsky Moment]

Of course the Bill of Rights does not number all rights you have. But to say you want to "restore the constitution" in an originalist way and then say it comes from god seems strange to at least this Euro as my understanding of the founding fathers isn't that they were particulary religious in their motivations. They seem to be the very embodiment of Enlightenment.

They were very big on Locke's idea of natural rights, which were presumed to have been granted by the Creater.

Yes but Creator in the vague Deistic sense.
While it's wrong to assert that the Founders were atheist (except maybe Jefferson whose exact position is ambiguous), its also equally wrong to equate their positions with present day evangelical conservatives, whose views probably would have struck most of them as outlandish and retrograde.

[derspiess]

Yeah, Founding Fathers would be all pro-gay marriage and whatnot.

[Valmy]

Yeah, Founding Fathers would be all pro-gay marriage and whatnot.

Well duh. They guaranteed it in the Constitution.

[derspiess]

Yeah, Founding Fathers would be all pro-gay marriage and whatnot.

Well duh. They guaranteed it in the Constitution.

[The Minsky Moment]

Yeah, Founding Fathers would be all pro-gay marriage and whatnot.

Realize you are joking, but the FFs would have all considered marriage to be a purely state issue. 

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

Representing constituents isn't the same as blindly following whatever tactics constituents might applaud.  That is a key aspect of representative democracy.  The representative advocates for and pursues constituent interests and views, but using his or her own judgment as to effectiveness in a context of a political regime that requires cooperation and compromise to get things done.

I think it depends on what your philosophy on representative democracy is.  Some people do not agree with your view of what it should be, and instead think populism is exactly the way it should function.  To them, we have representatives simply because the body politic is too large to vote on everything directly, so we divide into smaller groups and send one person with our collective opinion (regardless of how insane or impractical it might be).

These are the people currently crowing about how their representatives have "betrayed them" and are backing candidates like Trump in Cruz.  They aren't interested in cooperation and compromise so much as arguing that their way is the right way.  In the words of David Brooks, it is anti-politics.

[derspiess]

Yeah, Founding Fathers would be all pro-gay marriage and whatnot.

Realize you are joking, but the FFs would have all considered marriage to be a purely state issue. 

As it should be.

[derspiess]

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-trump-ohio-insight-idUSMTZSAPEC3ATLGUM9

Will be interesting to see if there's any substance to this.  The article seems to be pushing the notion that Trump is attracting a lot of blue collar Dems in Ohio.  Yay protectionism? 

[Barrister]

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-trump-ohio-insight-idUSMTZSAPEC3ATLGUM9

Will be interesting to see if there's any substance to this.  The article seems to be pushing the notion that Trump is attracting a lot of blue collar Dems in Ohio.  Yay protectionism? 

I don't think there's any surprise in that.  By running a campaign that crosses a lot of the bright lines between parties (Trump stands for protectionism and single payer healthcare, most notably) I think it obvious he'd gain support from traditional Democrats.

But will it make up for the traditional republicans that refuse to vote for Trump for those reasons?  Who knows.

[derspiess]

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-trump-ohio-insight-idUSMTZSAPEC3ATLGUM9

Will be interesting to see if there's any substance to this.  The article seems to be pushing the notion that Trump is attracting a lot of blue collar Dems in Ohio.  Yay protectionism? 

I don't think there's any surprise in that.  By running a campaign that crosses a lot of the bright lines between parties (Trump stands for protectionism and single payer healthcare, most notably) I think it obvious he'd gain support from traditional Democrats.

But will it make up for the traditional republicans that refuse to vote for Trump for those reasons?  Who knows.

Yep. I'm less interested in the impact it will have on the primary and more interested in how it much it would help in a Trump vs. Clinton contest-- specifically how many disaffected GOP voters will stay home, vote third party or vote Hillary vs. how many Dems will vote Trump?

[Martinus]

Incidentally, I have been wondering recently whether the predominant mechanics of democratic elections we have is really the best way, or was it simply the best available way back when it was invented?

For example, we have technology now to set up a system where instead of having a primaries why not say that voting for the President takes place electronically (assuming you can deal with the issue of potential fraud/hacking) over a period of, say, 3 months, and during this time you can change your vote as many times you like, with the current votes of those who have already submitted their choice being displayed. So you could then have the undecided wait until the last moment, the decided vote early, and those who can be swayed by candidates responding to the current vote split change their vote - until the final deadline.

No need to have polls, primaries etc. this way - but you could end up with the consensus building around two or one strongest candidates eventually.

[Zanza]

I like the idea. But I am not sure if it works with human behavior. As humans like to procrastinate, they would probably wait until the last minute. You would probably get a gigantic peak in activity in the last hour or last minutes before the deadline when people frantically vote on their smartphone election app.

And as an IT guy I don't even want to imagine the amount of capacity you would need to ensure that all voters could theoretically change their mind in the last second before the deadline.

[celedhring]

Incidentally, I have been wondering recently whether the predominant mechanics of democratic elections we have is really the best way, or was it simply the best available way back when it was invented?

For example, we have technology now to set up a system where instead of having a primaries why not say that voting for the President takes place electronically (assuming you can deal with the issue of potential fraud/hacking) over a period of, say, 3 months, and during this time you can change your vote as many times you like, with the current votes of those who have already submitted their choice being displayed. So you could then have the undecided wait until the last moment, the decided vote early, and those who can be swayed by candidates responding to the current vote split change their vote - until the final deadline.

No need to have polls, primaries etc. this way - but you could end up with the consensus building around two or one strongest candidates eventually.

It seems to me the fraud potential is a pretty big stumbling block here. Otherwise I would agree if the "provisional results" were not public to anyone. If "politics by popularity poll" is already bad, I can't imagine if voting was dynamic and public like (if I understand correctly) you're proposing.