Abolition is Retardation: The Electoral College Rant
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- Опубликовано: 29 сен 2024
- With all the post-election talk of recounts, referendums and refunds, RazörFist delivers a timely rant on the grating groundswell to abolish the much-maligned Electoral College.
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"Win the election, but don't get to be president." We have the Electoral college to prevent the presidency from being a popularity contest... and it's worked fine thus far.
EDIT: The Senate is designed to make ALL states equally represented, while the House of Representatives gives proportional representation, and BOTH are required to pass legislation, to prevent the most populace states from dominating everything.
I've been hearing a lot of this abolishment of the electoral college at my school which is utterly disgusting. These people are now a threat to me and my country.
I was expecting a new Deus Ex rant...
Nexus8 I hoped he'd opine on the new hitman
2019, the world's still here, there's snow outside...
This is why I feel you and I should rule the damn world... I'm a socialist, an environmentalist, and I do believe that climate change is the result of human interaction with the environment (but Al Gore is little more than a doomsinger, his over-exaggerations only serve to damage the environmentalist cause). Despite all this I think we have more in common than would be apparent at first glance. I find your arguments very well thought out and engaging. You have a natural cynicism that I find refreshing and I think you give the right wing something it desperately needs. An intelligent voice. All too often the right wing has overly religious morons talking crap as it's representatives. While the left now has self-absorbed narcissistic crybabies as their spokespeople. It's why I often think my sister is right about on important thing in politics. It all comes down to education. Both the left and right wings are screwed because we lack decent education.
TornadoCreator It seems we have the same opinion
***** lol
***** That's a pretty bold generalization, i could just as easily say "you republicans are all racist bigots, too far away from the actual problems that you blame it all on other people"; but i choose not to, because that is the naïve thing to do. Socialists are also more and more accepted in modern society (compare society 300 years ago and society now), and it doesn't help that you back nothing of what you say.
***** I have a wide circle of friends, most of who also consider themselves socialists or social democrats; I think you're living a very sheltered life if you think socialism is somehow a fringe opinion... either that or you're naively presuming everyone here is American. I'm not, in case that wasn't obvious.
Now, if you want to ask me questions about my political position and why I hold it, I'm happy to explain it. I'm also happy to re-examine my opinions. I'm in every respect a swing voter and have voted for a different party every election so far because I vote based on issues and candidates, not brand loyalty.
I'm a socialist. I believe socialism is the best form of government because as a society we all function better if we maintain a baseline standard of living for everyone, with certain facets of society freely supplied by the state; such as healthcare, housing, transit, and education. These things are also far easier to achieve if we pool resources via a system of taxation. Once these are met, it frees up the populace to innovate and pursue projects or seek out careers best suited to them. The fact that there are potentially great engineers or lawyers for example, that can't realise that potential because they're born with a severe health problem or born to poor parents; and are forced to work low pay remedial jobs rather than seek out education and fulfil their potential is, I feel, a failing of the state.
Through automation, most hard labour work can be mitigated in modern society, and they're only really maintained because of the need for jobs in a capitalist system. We've been taught we need to work, with social stigma attached to those who don't work as a means of social control. We don't "have" to work. We could easily replace most service industry, factory work, agricultural work, and sanitation work with automation within the next decade if we tried. If we then have a universal wage and universal living standard, so people didn't have to work what are basically pointless jobs for money (because money would now be a luxury not a necessity); it would free those people up to create new innovations, businesses, and art. The profit motive would then reward those who add to society by giving them greater luxuries and more social status. Human being are easily bored, most people WANT to work given the chance, and with the unpleasant jobs in society taken care of, people will find themselves working on passion projects far more often.
That is what socialism is as I see it, and I can see an easy transition towards it through living wage systems, nationalised healthcare, public ownership of necessities, and government incentives to develop automation technology. I believe this will create a better society and some central European countries and Nordic countries are already moving in this direction. Considering they have some of the highest standards of living, highest GDPs, lowest crime rates etc. I think these ideals carry merit... Now, if you disagree, that's fine; but don't insult me, puff out your chest, and expect people to respect your position. Explain why you think I'm wrong and what alternatives you would suggest. Politics is nothing more than "how I thing society should be structured", there's no right or wrong answers necessarily; because it all depends on what you value in society. I feel my method would create a more prosperous, fulfilling, and equitable society; where people are still given reasonable reward and merit for their achievements, without a clear class divide or a need for a poor underclass; which I see as a necessity for capitalist systems to work. I welcome anyone who wishes to discuss or debate this.
Socialism makes the same wrong assumptions that Libertarianism and Communism do: That humans are fundamentally altruistic, generous and willingly communal. History has show that in non-homogenous societies(which America is) - socialism only has ever created a wealthy elite and masses of poor. Capitlism, while subject to the same corrupt and selfish whims of humanity that socialism is leave one very important mechanism for self regulation in place: Choice. Socialism does and always has taken choice away from individuals and given all the power to one central entity and relies on it to be uncorrupt and altruistic. What I am saying is that Both socialism and capitalism fail under the auspices of creatures that have been programmed to be hunter gatherers for the preservation of themselves and their offspring, not hunter-sharers for the preservation of some arbitrary construct of society. The short version is people aren't nice and resist force, always. It's better to let people have their money and property, which most will share freely where abundance exists. Capitalism always has and continues to create abundance. History has shown that Socialism and Communism create dependance, poverty and scarcity. People aren't ants and do not share the same capability, goals, motivation and ambition. Socialism punishes success. Capitalism largely rewards it.
I'm a little bit dissapointed that people are getting so heated over their view on the electoral college. It has pros and cons. Weigh them, and come to a conclusion.
The electoral college system does exactly what you claim it's there to stop. As it stands, a candidate need not do much more than swing the state's biggest city to get the entire state handed to them, rendering every vote outside that city null. As for state-vs-state, there seems to me, no reason that the most populous state in the country has 55 votes, while the least populous gets 3, more than 5%. Considering that California's population is about 12 billion. This means that one living in California, regardless of where in California they live, has less of a say than someone in the biggest urban area within one of these minimum vote states.
Most states don't have a monolithic megacity you dumbass. And the least populous states get 3 votes so that they can't get steamrolled by California. Do you really think that the needs of California coincide with the needs of Wyoming?
SemperVigilare 12 billion people in California? ....
That's chinatown for ya
Do you really think that the needs of every individual living in California are the same? His point is that an individual in Wyoming has more of a say than an individual in California.
Texas. Your argument is invalid.
0:56 The needs of different cities are completely different. There's some people who live in the inner parts of large cities, some who live in suburbs of large cities, some who live in small to mid-size cities, some who live in the south, some who live in rural America, but why should someone get a stronger say because they don't live in a city? Say you have 5 people who live in a major city, 3 people who live in suburbs, and 2 people who live in a rural area. They are electing a leader between Candidate A and Candidate B. In the city, 4 vote for A and 1 votes for B. In the suburbs, 1 votes for A and 2 for B. In the rural area, both vote for B. Candidate B won two areas, but A had 6 votes compared to only 4 for B. Should the B voters get to override the A voters based on where they live? In my opinion, of course not.
2:07 Voting Democrat isn't against the rights of other citizens.
2:10 There's a world outside of New York and LA. Alright. There's also a world outside of rural America. Argument goes both ways. Why should people who aren't in big cities be able to override the will of the people in the cities?
2:16 What the hell? 70% of the electorate in 3 cities? You mean like under 5%, don't you?
2:35 Someone can still win the election by talking to the "rural half" of America. It's not like the majority of Americans are crammed into inner cities, nor is it that 100% of urban people vote Democrat. In my state house district, which is based in the St. Louis suburbs, 44% voted for the Republican candidate.
2:47 The Constitution isn't infallible. It can be amended and is supposed to be amended when the needs of the country change. It is also flexible in some ways. In Article 2, Section 1, Clause 2, the states are given the right to choose how they select electors. That includes joining with other states to effectively abolish it. Also, the political leaning of states is not that correlated with the population. Big Dem: CA, Big Rep: TX, Big Swing: FL, Mid Dem: MN, Mid Rep: TN, Mid Swing: MI, Small Dem: VT, Small Rep: WY, Small Swing: NH, so state population seems to have little correlation with party.
After this you lose it, talking about one-party dictatorships. Minority rule sounds much more like a dictatorship than majority rule...
Nanny state =/= socialism, I support some expanded government programs like Social Security and Medicare but am completely in favor of individual/civil liberties. If I were President I wouldn't even hesitate to veto the Patriot Act re-authorization.
Farms and factories have dwindled in number because of the joining together of neocons like GWB and GHWB and neoliberals like Clinton and Obama.
11 measly votes? That's MORE THAN AVERAGE. Average is 10.76. You're complaining even though you have more than us, you're more competitive of a state than us, and you don't have a governor-elect that's an inexperienced buffoon like a state-level Trump. Your legislature doesn't have a supermajority, which is what you're complaining about, right? One-party control?
People SHOULD be convinced that climate change is a problem, but Fox News and Republican knuckleheads won't listen to 97% of climate scientists.
We're already past the tipping point. You're spreading propaganda for the fossil fuel industry. 2016 was the warmest year on record. Want to guess what year it beat for that title? If you guessed 2015, ding ding ding! You win!
This is painful to listen to. I'm going to stop.
i hadn't really made any effort to form an opinion on the electoral college, but i think we needed this video
I almost got expelled from school for pointing out the issues with Gore's flick
The Kilimanjaro bit cracked me up.
Sad that they only decide to abolish it after it kicks them in the ass.
Like installing traffic lights after a kid gets hit by a car.
"And mix an acid, a base, and a fuckin' paint shaker"
It's a funny mental image, but acids and bases don't usually violently react with each other. All this will do is create a salt solution. Not even a warm one.
Depends on the acid and the base, actually.
30 more years people and the entire south cost is gone
I think the electoral college is deeply flawed, but it is superior to a flat-out first past the post system. I think we should abandon the college and replace it with a preference based voting system.
another god tier rant from the shit talking king. you are my favorite youtuber
I have a honest question. Would all of you be ok if Ellectoral College voted for Hillary instead of Trump on december 19th? As far as I understand most states do not force ellectors to vote for particullar candidat and general election is considered to be more of a suggestion. And I know that that's not gonna happen. But still. I'm just curiouse.
Pastoral interests aside, why is that those in agricultural and industrial heart of America vote against those very interests. I disagree with you that urbanites ignore the need for industry or agriculture. I feel we need more farmers, but mining for non-renewable resources when we have the technology to use renewable resources, is a form of insanity. Why are we not building massive desalination plants, large scale solar farms and hydroponic farming? Oh yes I forget,there is no money in it.
Really dig the political videos, brother. Way to keep it real. \m/
do you have transcripts of your rants? Id like to get them if possible.
I used to hate the electoral college until my senior year when my government teacher explained why it was so important.
Nathan Higgins I learned more about it in my AP Government class, it's not perfect but we have it for a good reason
My HS teacher went with the "Fake democracy" of Electoral college
Similar story with me. My AP Civics teacher was really good at explaining the process of how government works and I learned alot through him.
I actually had his class during the 2016 election and when I walked into class the day after the election I just looked at him and we both had huge grins on our faces lol. He was a cool guy.
I'm sure Nathan's teacher has long been since run out of town.
Razor: Make video on Electoral College
Comment Section: Devolves into shitfest about Climate Change
Good to see were on topic, gentleman.
On that note, does anyone know where I can find a 1970 Oldsmobile Cutlass for cheap?
It's a debate tactic progressive twits love to use. If they can't win on one issue bring up an issue that's not wholly related to the original issue and beat em over the end with it.
What can I say, these dickheads love their straw man!
From 5:25 onward he talks about the media which has very little to do with the Electoral College. Specifically he spends the time shitting on Al Gore and "an inconvenient truth" like he thinks climate change is BS. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, I don't know his true position but when he says things like that you almost think he doesn't believe in it.
Right, he was saying that the media has pushed narratives that has convinced bleeding hearts of things that they could just go out and see themselves. People who live in big cities look outside and see pollution and vote to enact legislation on the entire country without realizing that outside of giant congested cities, there isn't anywhere near the same pollution. So, the electoral college makes so that people outside of those areas still have the same voice, since no one want to listen to people in the rural areas scream 'hey fucktards, your policies are killing us and aren't needed here yet!'. They are missing the overall point entirely.
it became a debate cause he brought it up. Also the point wasn't to blast the efficacy of climate change. It was to show how media can get things wrong or blow stuff out of proportion.
i have a 72 cutlass S fastback for sale if you want.
You know I thought the world was pretty bad, but turns out we're doing great considering the world was suppose to end back in Jan 2016.
Not to mention the 2012 deal but hey. People thinking the mayans just running out of room was the end of us. Gotta love hindsight.
And in 2012
And June 6th, 2006. And January 1st 2000. Along with hundreds of other failed Doomsday predictions.
"Do not blame Caesar, blame the people of Rome who have so enthusiastically acclaimed and adored him and rejoiced in their loss of freedom and danced in his path and gave him triumphal processions. Blame the people who hail him when he speaks in the Forum of the 'new, wonderful good society' which shall now be Rome, interpreted to mean 'more money, more ease, more security, more living fatly at the expense of the industrious."
~Marcus Tullius Cicero
Nobody wanted to mess with the electoral college until they lost in 2016
Climate "denier" sounds like Heretic...."how dare you quest science" when science is about questions
We need to take it one step further and implement electoral colleges at state level. NorCal has been under the tyranny of SF and LA for far too long.
Perhaps Jefferson statehood in exchange for Puerto Rico statehood at the same time? Sounds like a good deal.
Amen.
Same with upstate ny
Same deal in Illinois. You literally need every single county in the state to vote the opposite way to overrule Cook County
@@kingdomofvinland8827Don’t forget Long Island, we hate them even more than you do.
Thanks for bashing Big Bang Theory. People keep trying to show me "funny" clips from it. I can't stand it for more than about 10 seconds.
It says a lot about the fall of our society when that show is held up as a peerless exemplar of humor.
here, here.
A relative of mine was trying to tell me how clever the humor was, implying I didn't get the jokes.
"HAHA THEY REFERENCED NERD CULTURE HAHA NO ONE ELSE DOES THAT HAHA". It's so fucking forced and contrived...
I know autistic people irl that are way funnier... but Penny is hot af, I'll give them that.
penny? UGH.
But seriously, I never liked the show either too much. I watched like the first season before I said NOPE, not terribly funny.
Meanwhile, all my idiot co-workers said "You'd like it, its about a show of nerds and geeks, and you act just like sheldon"
Oh yeah, what self respecting nerd thinks its funny to be made fun of and the butt end of a joke.
***** The "we're walking stereotypes and our neighbour is always baffled by it all" schtick got old fast, though.
You need to branch out into more political content, put that old degree to use. This was some good stuff.
If anything, we need another amendment to somehow completely defang busybodies. They need to be rendered completely unable to force their subjective views and values on anyone else.
Raging Golden Eagle that should be true of anyone moral busy bodies SJW's extreme religious people all of them we would be in a better world if we left each other alone
Ben Shifflet
Exactly.
Raging Golden Eagle also I say you should give Steve shives a lifetime achievement during the mangina of the year awards
That should be the job of an informed public. However, the subterfuge of the media has made it almost impossible to be objective and rational at this point. I somewhat agree with you though.
Raging Golden Eagle Part of me thinks the First Amendment was intended for this purpose. Hasn't stopped some from trying though
This guy is the best thing on youtube right now
this guy is the voice of my Id.real pipe hitting,w/a blowtorch & plier collection in his leather jacket pockets
For years now I wanted to see debate on the electoral college. I was always hung up on the fact that they didn't have to vote in agreement with their electorate. I also liked the idea of individual votes being equal to each other no matter the state. But I wanted to hear the counter arguments in favour of ridings, and the electoral college itself.
But I'm annoyed that most of the people bitching about the electoral college, only care cuz they lost. And if the situations were reversed they wouldn't say shit. They aren't really mad at the college, they just hate losing.
Thats the center of it. People only bitch when they lose. Kinda like bitching when you're favorite game of the year doesn't get awards.
Yup. Many were in favor of the electoral college all the way up until they lost. I felt the same way and am glad to finally have it fully explained.
There are ten million Californians who voted Trump that weren't represented. And over a million Alabamians who voted Hillary, too. Fractional electoral allocation would help with that, somewhat.
Nice name
@@zenith7949 you too
Thank God Al Gore invented the internet, or we would all be seriously influenced by the mainstream media.
Now Razor, I'm not sure whether you are too familiar with RUclips's Terms and Conditions guidelines.
But I am pretty sure they have a rule against posting a video that is, in essence, pure pornography. So be careful. Next thing we know, you'll post THREE rants a day and actually cause RUclips's servers to erupt in nuclear ooze. Godspeed!
Well, yeah. Democracy kinda is just a glamorized version of mob rule. The problem with democracy is that you need a well-informed populace to vote on those big decisions. So instead of having a system that makes way too goddamn many individual votes obsolete, how about we start informing the public?
Seriously, what the fuck happened to the days when you could see a discussion about say...the problems that the dairy industry is facing on national television? Fucking hell, I've seen Russian news shows where Putin has some pretty damn intellectual conversations about the state of Russian agriculture, but I can't remember the last time I saw anything similar on American television.
bartholen Never said it would be easy to drag this pop culture brainwashed generation to watch some actual news. It's not about what's easy, it's about what's right.
Thats the great thing about this kinda system. Sure it doesn't reaches the heights of someone who knows what their doing but it never gets the lows of when his/her bastard child takes the helm and drives it in the dust.
And we aren't a pure democracy. More of a republic.
Mazzmaker69
The problem is, how do we make sure what they learn is fact and history, and not just biased articles and propaganda?
Mazzmaker69 that's the thing though the press doesn't want to fully inform the public at lest not what would hurt the trust of their chosen future president
Yep, what was it hat Churchill used to say? Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.
You should do more political videos. People without even half your verbal skills or understanding are rocking 500k subs.
Two videos in one day!? We've been blessed!
All glory be to the gods of youtube. May they long inspire creators and stop fucking up shit.
Yeah this one has something to debate about. Double blessing!
Toonami4Life And neither of them is about music. Crazy.
haha..."Death Wish"...
sadly, Bronson will never be known to the youth of today.
I’m 17, saw the first death wish a few months ago. Loved it. Also, love your user name and profile. I love foxes.
My dad looks like Charles Bronson
NGL the first time I've known of the guy a decade ago was when I watched "Dirty Dozen" on AMC channel and thought he looked kind of like Ronald Reagan.
I think the main reason TJ wants the electoral college gone is because he thinks the election shouldn't be determined by states but rather by the collective. He thinks that if the country votes as a collective it becomes less "X amount of people in Alabama voted for Trump" and "X amount of people in America voted for Trump"
What he doesn't realize is this causes these politicians to favor the largest population centers in the country more than anyone else. He views this as being no different than politicians solely campaigning in swing states. But it eventually becomes that regardless of if everyone in the midwest voted for someone, it wouldn't matter because California had more people than every one of those states combined. And the people in California not only work different kinds of jobs and have different priorities but are easier to sway with left wing policies. Which tend to benefit them at the expense of the rest of the country. It becomes a case where the richer left wing states decide everything and the poorer midwestern states just hope that they eventually see reason and throw them a bone once in a while.
I can sort of see it from his perspective but it feels very short sighted, idealistic and collectivist. The whole "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few". So the few eventually just never get represented.
Also it's very foolish to care so much about trying to abolish it in my mind. Since it's never going to be abolished. They'd need to get 3/4ths of the states to essentially say "my votes in the next election will not matter". It would also be monumentally easier to rig an election since it would shift to the Federal government for responsibility of determining who won the election and not the states.
The only way the smaller states agreed to join the union was with some offsetting of the weighting of the large population colonies. Ergo, no electoral college equals no small states joining the union. So you want the electoral college gone, fine. However, there will be no reason for the small states to stay as the deal made with them is broken.
I was forced to watch "An Inconvenient Truth" in High School, and even then I knew it was bullshit.
Natendowii You could not escape that movie in the (my autocorrect is fond of the 90s) early 2000's.
We are not the United States of California
Jao Bai Din and Commala are doing their best to make that the new normal. Freedom!
2020: Long Live the electoral college!
"Mr. Gore, someone used your documentary as an academic source!"
"Well. This calls for a celebration."
'CEEEEEELEBRATE THE TIMES! COME ON!'
"I will."
The greatest explanation about the electoral college and how it's fair is that the Presidential race is not a singular one but rather 51 races that all end on the same day. Each race is worth different points and each contestant is trying to get to at least 270 points. So imagine a best of 7 series where one team scores 790 points over the 7 games while another team scores 735 points. If I tell you the team that scored only 725 total points won the series you might be confused until I explained that team scored 105 in each game while the other team had 3 games where they scored 130 points but 4 games where they only scored 100 each. Dems run up the score in NY and CA and think those votes should carry over into other races.
I'll be honest, your understanding of the electoral college and ability to understand it gave me a half chub. Well done sir!
Razorfist and Amazing Atheist have a love-hate relationship.
We know who takes it up the ass though.
not really , friends can disagree on things. Shocker. -_-
+Patrick McKoin
Do we though?
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
We all know they suck each other off after they have an argument.
***** Yeah but this vicious? I doubt it.
It wasn't until this election that I fully appreciated why we have an Electoral College. Awesome video man!
We need to do away with the party system and repeal the 17th amendment, and RESTORE the Electoral College.
Just found this guy....Decided I like this guy, and promptly subscribed to this guy...god fucking speed
lol@ the climate cultists in the comments when he mentions it for 1 minute out of a 10 minute video about the electoral college protecting against the tyranny of the majority.
Goddamn, the only thing better than Rageaholic's gaming reviews are his political videos
I'd say I'm a liberal, but I was cheering through this whole video. I try my best to explain the necessity of the Electoral College to anyone who bitches about the popular vote. Well done mate.
There's 3100+ counties in the United States. Trump won more than 3000 of them, and lost less than 100.
Also, if you take out the 5 counties that include New York City, New York State was in a dead heat, with only 1200 votes making the difference.
If you take out California, the election becomes much closer on the popular side.
Herman Cillo And we all know there are at least a million illegals voting in favor of hillady
That was a beautiful and eloquent monologue, sir; bravo.
Razorfist, you're quickly becoming my favorite RUclipsr. Thanks so much for helping me to put words to my thoughts.
I would be fine with eliminating the electoral college if we made receiving any government subsidies a disqualification for voting.
Include salaries. No one should be able to vote for their own paycheck.
Boom. Subbed. 'God -FUCKING- Speed' to you as well, good sir.
I think the Electoral College is a great system for electing a unitary executive, however it has clearly been perverted by the winner-takes-all system 48 states currently employ. I think we would be better off if the two extra votes were split between state legislative chambers, while the remaining electoral votes are awarded to each candidate IN PROPORTION to their share of the statewide popular vote. Alternatively, they can be divided among the congressional districts, but only if we can eliminate gerrymandering entirely (which we can :0).
While I agree the college should not be abolished outright I do feel it need to be reworked. Theoretically, with the system currently in place, a candidate could win the Presidency with only 22% of the overall vote. While I do acknowledge that the example mentioned is on the more extreme of circumstances, it still doesn't dissmis a glaring flaw in the system that could be exploited. We need to redistribute the point values of the states so that candidates do not spend 3/4 of their time campaigning in "battleground states" and the overall popular vote winner should also be awarded a large (not absurdly large) point value.
I once had a dicussion with a pro EC family member that a law forcing the EC of a state to vote in proportion of a state's pop vote. The biggest gripe I see is that most states EC aren't force to vote the same way of the state and that getting in the EC varies from state to state. And Since Im pretty bad at polictial science I don't really know a good solution to this.
Rob McHenry
I think a percentage of the vote equals the amount of electoral votes they get. Like say in a state with three votes, if 60% of the population votes Democratic, and the rest voted for Republican, 2 of the votes go to the Democrats, and the last one goes to the republicans.
LikeASir9719
Considering I am pro Trump, I say I am among the victors.
Those states are already ruled by the big cities, might as well give others some voice. Those points total the states have would very, just like they do right now.
It was also a suggestion of how to improve the electoral college.
What if we re-drew the lines? Separating areas of equal population, and then allocate the vote fractionally?
@Bad Beard Bill - Good luck convincing Alabama to adopt Panama City Beach.
Al Gore didn't convince me. Then again I am an Geologist and have access to loads of scientific papers on the subject. I listened to them and not politicans.
Getting 100% of the votes in the 1,000 most populated cities wouldn't get you a majority in a straight popular vote. So get your facts straight first off.
A straight popular vote would actually give greater power to rural voters then the electoral college in most states. As it stands you only need 51% of the vote in each state to win that states electoral votes. It is possible in many states to reach a significant percentage of voters just by visiting population centers. With a straight popular vote, candidates would need all the votes they could get as getting a percentage of the vote higher than 51% in a state would improve their chances of being elected. This would force candidates to appeal to voters in less populated areas to help rally support wherever they could find it. Also, a straight popular vote would allow candidates to effectively campaign to their constituents who live in opposing states. For example, a GOP candidate could rally support with the third of New York and California voters that vote republican.
The electoral college disenfranchises voters. Roughly 42% of votes cast in the 2016 presidential election were ignored because they were cast for the minority candidate in their state. A straight popular vote would get more people involved in the process because their vote would actually mean something.
This is EXACTLY what we have in Israel!
We have a popular vote/multi-party system, and that leads to Bibi Netanyahu ALWAYS WINNING, because we have large populations of Orthodox Jews huddled in large and smaller cities that ALWAYS vote the same way no matter what, which grants Netanyahu a PERMANENT ADVANTAGE. We have so many people in this country that want him OUT already, but they're never going to get their wish. Pure Democracy is TERRIBLE!
Razor please do an update in this issue. The big brains are trying to end the college again as I'm sure you've seen.
Look at canada for a good example of why the electoral college is needed
It's a purely representation by population system and the 2 biggest population provinces Ontario and Quebec control the federal government while other provinces who have unique needs due to geographic realities get their needs ignored and have been outright exploited in the past
Not just the past. Isn't Alberta still sending transfer payments to Quebec? even though Alberta's wealth comes from non-renewable resources.
hey razor, i am on said ration from New York and i still vote republican, and i am a staunch constitutionalist, to the point that i think we need to cut the excess laws and regulations that strangle commerce, allow people to flat out ignore whole sections of the bill of rights (bail and the eighth amendment anyone?) and allow for the slow erosion of our right to bear arms, heck John Paul Jones basically lead a pirate fleet when he was raiding the British isles during the american revolution, and after ward, if one was rich enough, one could buy an actual military grade fleet for private use, and expect it to have the same capabilities as the american navy at the time. now a days you are lucky to be able to get away with a motor boat and a 9 mm for an armed vessel. soon it will be a canoe and a stick for the civies and a modern battleship for the government.
The man who was instrumental in the "Fast and Furious" scandal telling us that we need to get rid of the electoral college? Jesus. That man should be barred from politics or any position of power greater than pushing carts in a goddamn Walmart parking lot.
If I am getting this right, we should keep the college to push against the majority because the majority can be "easily manipulated?" The issue I find with this is that this changes with what you find to be right or wrong in a situation. Sure there are some objective truths, but when it comes to politics, there is a lot of gray area. To say that what the majority believes is the wrong choice is in itself imposing your beliefs onto others, something you argued against. Is there something I'm missing here?
Pandalius The EC gives more power to certain people in order to create intellectual diversity, the only kind of diversity that matters.
Okay, so urban voters are susceptible to mass-market manipulative malarkey. But is the judgement of rural people all so much better that per-state majorities of them deserve whole state representation? Are Republicans that much better than Democrats?
Living Infernus "are republicans that much better than democrats?"
"of course" they are, according to razor's fanbase. and "of course" democrats are that much better than republicans according to, say, moviebob. This two-party tribalist cancer is a scourge to america.
Or maybe, just maybe, we are people not committed to any party and look at the people running for office as individuals instead of a party. I vote for the person, not the party. It's a whole lot easier to vote for your own self interest if you don't tie yourself to a party and/or see the other party as your enemy.
Living Infernus Both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party are parties of the upper class. Neither truly care for the people they pander to, they end up serving the wealthy capitalists when in power. The problem is unless people spend every moment of their life studying politics and history, they will end up following the biggest voices, the major parties that have been financially elevated above the others. This is made worse by the fact that a lot of people do not have the economic means or stability to take the time out to get informed, they are, by design, kept in the dark by their economic chains.
Both parties pander to different groups, and make each other out to be enemies, but both serve to maintain the dominance of the rich over the people.
Razor, it takes no courage whatsoever for a RUclipsr to comment upon matters popular when your words fall athwart that line of reasoning.
But what you do, hammering with hard, eloquent truth against popular and deeply ingrained ideas takes some serious testicular might.
I knew long ago, from your acknowledgement of Breath of Fire to your no-nonsense social commentary to your reviews of films that deserve to be dusted off, that you have your head screwed on well and proper.
To paraphrase CinemaSins: 'I'll follow you anywhere, leatherclad mirrorshaded metalhead!'
We were shown the "hockey stick graph" excerpt from Inconvenient Truth in a required class back when I was in art school (surprise ending, right?)
Truth be told, it changed how I looked at everything. I had never before thought it possible for al gore to be hefted that far off the ground.
So I stumbled across your video about Mechwarrior 5 and was the first I heard of that so that was really cool and something to look forward to, watched your video on the lore of Battletech I thought it was great, then I came across this one and hit subscribe. I could not stop laughing at the "Go to Chicago to die" bit you rock man.
You are my favorite RUclips channel. You are like Dennis Miller after taking the Limitless Pill. Fucking LOVE YOUR SHIT.
I liked the electoral college until I actually read Hamilton’s letters. At which point I realized it never was about defending “rural” communities and all about defending an effective aristocracy of academic elites, through electors. Up to and including basically letting them override their own constituents. Note this was part of the pitch.
And then the Supreme Court ruled faithless electors unconstitutional. Also not that 2% of the population lived in cities at the time, they never even thought of that number ballooning to 30%
The issue abolitionists have is they don't understand our government. We have 3 levels: local, state, and federal. States generally reserve the most power, with the intent being that the federal government has minimal power. The purpose of the federal government is to deal with issues of inter-state or international import, e.g. those no state has jurisdiction over. The purpose of state governments is to run the state how the people of the state want, and local governments get shit done on the local level (think that road that's heavily fucked up, you call your local government, not the state, and not Obama). Abolitionists live in areas where their ilk utterly dominate the local government, and often the state government. What they don't like is that people in the rest of the country live and govern themselves in a way the abolitionists don't like. So their idea is that the federal government should basically be their local/state government, but forced onto everyone. That's the issue, that's not what the federal government is, and enabling 3% of the land mass in this country to force the other 97% to live how idiot hypocrites in big cities think they ought to live, that's not democracy. It's inherently dictatorial. If taxation without representation was enough to cause a revolutionary war, what about confiscation and usurpation of rights with no say in the matter? The people who designed that system just came off the heels of having this exact bullshit done to them, which is why they built the government this way. Go down this road and there's a guaranteed civil war.
It's just the classic "well I have armed guards and live in a high-rise apartment complex, someone breaking into my home is difficult, and since I don't need a gun, nobody should" stupidity. You don't know enough about how people even 20 miles away from you live to have a reasonable take on how they ought to live, let alone 200 or 2000. Get off your throne made out of the bodies of homeless people you claim to care about glued together with shit and used needles and fuck off. You're welcome to run your shithole empires however you want, but this country will never be ruled by you absolute dumbfucks, and if you ever manage to pull this garbage off, your cities will be razed to teach your descendants not to fucking try it for another 200 years.
Al Gore's documentary surely was way too catastrophist, but climate change (yes, man does contribute) is still a thing. It's about the average temperatures, not the single years getting progressively hotter, one after the other. Even if predictions were too pessimistic, that's still not an excuse not to act to hold it back. It only means we have more time to do so, which is nice.
Exactly, we know how carbon dioxide acts (and methane, too. Methane is actually much worse) as a greenhouse gas, it really is a no brainer.
1. Pump greenhouse gas into the atmosphere
2. ???
3. Profit!
All he did was point out how An Inconvenient Truth is complete bullshit yet absurdly influential as an example of the media. At no point did he even remotely suggest he doesn't believe in climate change.
Yet up until the 1970s, the same people who are now crying that man made carbon will burn up the planet, were crying that man made carbon was going to freeze the Earth in a new ice age.
The lesson that should be learned is stop crying "apocalypse."
"Meh we can't say for sure." You know who's saying that? RUclips pundits. The people working at NASA are very clear on how much we contribute AND on what will happen if we don't reverse the course.
Somillian Yeah, I could tell by his choice of words that he's not a "climate change denier", I was just giving a hint for a discussion.
The Overton Window on the Electoral College is basically "keep it the same" - "abolish it" while I think a case could be made that every district's vote counts and states don't have a winner take all strategy.
You say exactly what I think. Therefore, you aren't bias.
Dude thanks for this. People need to know this info
Try to be a bit less edgy and you could see way more growth. I feel like I am watching a 90's metalhead in 2016. wait.....
On point as always. I'm "super-serial." In the sign of the horns, fellow liberty loving metalhead! \m/
"LaND dOesN't VoTe, bRUh"
-Leftist blue checkmark
Didn't the Electoral College, in conjunction with the popular vote, send Barack Obama to the Oval Office twice?
For the record, the furthest back we have to go to see a President win the Electoral College and not the popular vote (and there's no deadlocks or any other political shenanigans) is 1888. That's the only other time this has happened.
I don't quite think it's a good idea to change the rules of the game just because one's preferred candidate didn't win.
Maybe you should change the rules if the games broken?
@@aviz8590 Not a bad idea… but how would you change the game, assuming hypothetically that it needs to be changed at all?
@@SamaritanPrime direct democracy ofc, as far as I know there is nothing wrong with a direct democracy, but with an electoral college it’s just undemocratic, the millions of democrats in Texas, and republicans in California don’t have a say in the election in a winner takes all scenario
@@aviz8590 I have a better idea: just allow the states to split their votes. Maine and Nebraska do this.
@@SamaritanPrime that’s certainly better, but it’s just scaling down the situation and not exactly fixing it.
Climate change aside, is a "Man-bear-pig" situation resolved already?
More of these political vids please! :)
The electoral college will not be abolished because the states would have to ratify it. That means the smaller states would have to vote to diminish their own influence. Not going to happen.
I just watched this as a result of a link you put on twitter. Honestly, I've only ever watched your music related stuff, particularly Metal Mythos. You're entertaining as all hell. I really didn't realize you hit more serious topics like this. Damn good video. Some great points. I guess i'm going to have to look around your channel more, see what else I've missed(i'm not a gamer, so it wont be those).
Eric Holder, the man instrumental in rekindling racial strife in the United States, wants to abolish the electoral college.
this guy is like the right wing amazing athiest
Jerry Wiggins II except he is not absolute shit.
I don't Want To Change My Name, RUclips. Fuck Off. right. exactly
around 7:15 you ask if we believed Inconvenient Truth. The movie came out in 2006 (for reference). It was the same year I graduated highschool.
Yes, I believed it. I didn't watch the whole thing, but I believed it. I seem to remember being a little suspicious about some of his claims but I can't remember what they would have been. I considered myself a liberal (or left-leaning) up until trump threw a wrench in the politics of the day.
I will point out, though, that while I was a liberal, I was routinely baffled by fellow lefties. The rise of sjws really made me turn away from them, but I had long since become disillusioned by Obama (it was pretty clear within the first year of his presidency that he was just another deep state puppet, but I naively held out hope for another year that he might turn things around. I didn't vote in 2012, knew obama would win, but didn't see romney as a viable alternative).
Unfortunately, even though it's been almost 2 years since I first started researching trump, it seems like I've hit the motherload of things to research and old beliefs (or "knowledge") I had that no longer represented reality. Or it was information that I could no longer hold confidence in, meaning I have to spend a ton of time re-evaluating things. It's weird that I've gotten less opinionated, while simultaneously having a lot of very firm opinions that seem to piss everybody off.
climate change is big, because it's tied to academia, msm, and the sciences. Scientific reporting is horrendously bad (esp thru msm), and while that might not be due to malevolence, it might as well be at this point.
I've always loved science. As I learned more about the universe (and my own mind, re logic), it's become increasingly more difficult for me to believe a LOT of the main scientific narratives (like climate change). There is SOO much handwaving and manipulation of language and blatant propaganda that I just..I don't even know where to start digging. I'm not a professional either, I'm just someone with decent intelligence who has a deep respect for the scientific method and the quest for knowledge.
unfortunately, while I don't know if I believe in climate change anymore, I DO know I'm very sensitive to a lot of the climate change talking points. 99% of scientists, the fact that I heard that for so long, from people who supposedly CARE about the sciences, pisses me off like you can't imagine.
is the climate changing? yeh. why? i have no earthly clue. do I think humans are impacting the environment? ofc. Do I think global warming is caused by humans? I'm not sure, leaning to not a chance. Do I think global temperatures are rising? I dont' know, I've seen mixed results about it. It doesn't help that the vast majority of citizens don't know much about science. It means it's a topic that's INCREDIBLY easy for msm to manipulate and propagandize. The cult of science, in a sense.
My first clue should have been when the left stopped calling it "global warming" and played word-salad to rephrase it as "climate change". I love science. I hate when people use science as a synonym for truth. ESPECIALLY when they don't understand their own opinion, just parroting what the TV says. i was guilty of it too, but youth is naive by nature. I'm just one of the lucky ones that's starting to figure out wtf the msm has been doing. And it angers me so much. All the love and passion I had for the sciences, turned to ash, filling me with anger at the elite puppetmasters who are even worse then I imagined when I was a teenage edgelord.
You describe a lot of people’s journey - similar to mine: Check out Alex Epstein’s book “ The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels.” Lots of facts, science and logical critical thinking about the issue. You can get it in audible form or listen to him for his main conclusions on the Rubin Report. He is not a climatologist but a think tank guy who did the deep dive on the topic. I think you would enjoy it.
Great Rant
Hey Razorfist, would you consider doing a video on the Article 5 'Convention Of States'? To my knowledge, it's the only thing legally powerful enough to bypass all 3 branches of government to propose and ratify constitutional amendments without congress, the president, or the supreme court being able to do anything about it. Great video by the way.
I think the popular vote would be better, that way every vote actually counts. Like if you live in Cali and want to vote for Trump you might as well stay home and not waste your time. The way it is now millions of votes actually don't count at all. Various interests in different areas spread out across the country is what the house of reps and the senate are for, electing the leader of the executive branch it doesn't make much sense to use this electoral type of system.
MrNickPresley
Yep, maybe if they knew their vote actually counted for something they would cast a real vote instead of make a joke.
And you are still thinking of _states_ for some reason. Popular vote has nothing to do with states, just people. That argument is dumb anyways because right now the way it is *states with more population get more votes*! So a state like Cali gets 50 some freaking votes and always goes democrat! How is that not dominating the election??
Again, we already have a proportional by population representation system in place in congress, it's pointless for electing our executive.
MrNickPresley Is having NY and CA deciding for us worse than having a few swing states decide for us?
dalmation black Yes, if what I've seen of their constituency is any indication (especially that college crowd).
The system we have right now is not perfect. But, it is a hell of a lot better than what you are suggesting.
MrNickPresley What have I suggested?
dalmation black Abolition.
HEY. We have two shitting holes down here in Alabama.
I have to admit, when Gore lost the election but won the primary vote, I was one of the people who was screaming for its abolition. I was 20 years old at the time, and the vote in the electoral college came down to Florida (my home state). Whoever won Florida won the election, and the Florida margin was *razor* thin. In essence, Bush was elected by 500 Florida voters, but if the numbers had been flipped, then Gore would have been elected by 500 Florida voters. So I can understand the cries of the new millennials (the 20-somethings of today) that the electoral college is unfair. But, it's not like Hillary just lost the electoral college either. She lost 306 to 232. The only razor thin margin in favor of Trump was Michigan, and that was around 10,000 votes. So give Hillary Michigan, and she still loses. It's like complaining about a touchdown getting called back when your favorite team gets beat 43-12. Sure, those points would've been nice, but it's still not enough to determine the game. (Slightly bad analogy, I know, since one TD in football can radically alter the flow of the game, but it should be good enough to make my point for me.)
To me, the electoral college solves the problem of the farmer. Imagine a city that was founded in 1900 to help nearby farmers get the supplies they needed without having to drive for an hour to the nearest city. Over time, the city became popular and exploded in the 80s due to the computer bubble. Now, the city is hemmed in on all sides by farms and can't expand, hindering it's ability to compete in a tech world. The city tries to buy out the farms, but no one is selling, so they hold a city meeting to force the farm owners to sell. The urbanites (the ones who live in the city proper and suburbs) all vote against farmers, while all the farmers vote against the urbanites. Who's going to win that fight? If we use pure democracy, the farmers will be forced to sell their land, which has likely been in their family's heritage for decades if not centuries so the city can "modernize". If we use an electoral college, who knows? The point is, not every vote *should* count the same. That's why we have an electoral college.
nychold Florida in 2000 had these weird ballots where you had to punch a hole with a tack to vote
Well, most of the ballots had a punch card system. The butterfly ballots (where the candidates were on both sides of a booklet) caused a lot of problems.
Well said sir - the Electoral College is the foundation of our Republic - it will ALWAYS remain so - pure democracy is MOB RULE - it cannot survive - this is one righteous video
The Kilimanjaro's snow coverage used to be perennial prior to the 20th Century, now it recedes and grows seasonally coinciding with the rainy and dry seasons. The photo shown of the Kilimanjaro as of 2015 was taken after one of such rainfalls, all that ice melted again as soon as the rainy season ended.
Democracy= Two wolves and one sheep voting on what to have for lunch.
USA = Constitutional Republic.
The electoral college is archaic and stupid. It simply gives 2 votes per state plus population percentage, it does not proportion votes out per "industry" or "agriculture". If everyone was living in California with only one person in each other state, California would have over 70% of the electoral college and would decide it all, so even with the electoral college a few urban centers can still override all the low population states.
A better system would be Instant run off/rank-choice voting as Maine is doing now. We have the technology to tabulate these things now. Such a system would reduce the power of our two very corrupt parties and provide a equal voice to everyone. Candidates would have to appeal to as many people as possible to get their second and third choice votes and could not simply appeal to specific voter blocks to win out right.
One vote per state.
Mr Richard
No it is two electors per state, just as there are two senators per state. The rest represent house of representative members per state which is distributed per population.
The voting power of an individual depends on the state they are in. If you are in say North Dakota with 3 electors and a population of 757k, than there is one vote there for every 252k people. If you live in California with 55 electors and a population of 39.1Mm than there is one vote there for every 712k people, that is nearly 1/3 the voting power per person as North Dakota. This distribution of voting power has nothing to do with you being a farmer or an urbanite, or how much land you own, it only depends on what state you live in. Worse if you happen to have an opinion that disagrees with the majority of everyone else in your state, your vote becomes worthless. So Say a republican farmer in California as fuck all to say about who is president.
With a popular vote using rank-choice, all the farmers in the nation, no matter the state, would have a say equal to everyone else, and even if their first most pro-farming choice candidate was eliminated by the other more urban voters the other candidates would need to have to appease them enough to get second choice. With rank-choice the most polarizing candidate would never win unless more then 50% of your population was the fucking Borg.
frbe0101 we would have to abolish the senate then
David Stubbs Why? I'm talking about changing how we vote, not what we vote for, we would still vote for president, house members and senate members.
frbe0101 I was suggesting, each state votes once.