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-   -   Decision 2016 (https://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?t=53250)

vegietarian18 December 20th, 2016 01:42 PM

Re: Decision 2016
 
Well of course California should and will matter far more than Wyoming, it does now, and would under a popular vote system. The goal is to reduce the swinginess while retaining the political power of statehood

Dysole December 20th, 2016 01:53 PM

A Thought
 
The inherent assumption in "California decides the election" is California is a monolithic people, which seems like a strange thing to argue given how diverse the state is demographically. You can argue it's more Democratic than average (but not as much as say DC or Hawaii), but you can just as easily compile states that are more Republican than average that add up to California population totals. I don't see a strong reason why there should be a considerable difference in looking at those populations.

~Dysole, admittedly not fully behind a popular vote initiative

Ixe December 21st, 2016 11:35 AM

Re: Decision 2016
 
Oddly enough, small states have highest elector to population ratio, meaning that they in a sense have the most electoral power. A proportional allocation system would in a sense give them more power, but I believe it would be more practical to get out the vote in more populous states where you'd get more bang for you buck.

In that same sense, a lot of states would probably get overlooked in a national election (probably even more so). From an efficiency perspective, population centers are clearly where you can reach the most people. A lot of these centers have more populations than entire states. Even what could be considered a large city for some states would be insignificant compared to even the fourth largest city in a state like California. It has a lot of appeal it's tough.

I am still intrigued by the proportional allocation, but that runs into issues when you consider that states themselves determine how it is done. There is nothing stopping them from allotting it by districts won instead of population in the state, which runs into gerrymandering issues. While I think the EC system could stand to be improved, I personally think gerrymandering is one of the biggest challenges that our system is facing.

Swamper December 21st, 2016 02:38 PM

Re: Decision 2016
 
I thought this was an interesting article regarding school choice.

https://news.vice.com/story/school-c...=vicenewsfbads

Hahma December 21st, 2016 03:15 PM

Re: Decision 2016
 
Yeah, not a fan of the charter school thing. They syphon off money from public schools and don't have to jump through the same hoops, as well as don't provide better education.

Not sure how the competition model is supposed to work to make public schools better, when they keep taking away from them.

Unlike business that may fail do to competition, failing schools hurt generations of people. It's not like a restaurant or bar that can't make it, failed kids end up losing a lot if potential as adults, cost taxpayers in welfare and crime etc.

vegietarian18 December 21st, 2016 04:18 PM

Re: Decision 2016
 
Very much agreed that failing schools consequences are generation spanning. Parents have a very important role in helping their kids succeed in school so even one generation of bad schools can hurt the future. I am really not sure why we don't pay teachers and the rest of the education system a ton more. They do such an important job and basically the incentive to do it now is that it is important (and 3 months of vacation). I'm pretty sure in terms of societal benefit (and probably overall economic, if you let the system reach equilibrium) paying teachers two to four times as much would be a positive. Not sure that could really happen any time soon though because the results would not visible during the term of the politician who could pass those changes.

Swamper December 21st, 2016 04:30 PM

Re: Decision 2016
 
My fiancée is a teacher, so I agree with upping the pay! 😂 😂 😂

Hahma December 21st, 2016 07:46 PM

Re: Decision 2016
 
Teachers' pay varies a good bit based on location. So some do better, depending on the district, city or state.
As with many jobs, some of the pay is based on cost of living for that area.

Indiana is one of the worst states for getting new teachers and retention of teachers. Mike Pence and our previous governor Mitch Daniels (who became president of Purdue University after being governor) have been bad for education in our state. Both pushing for Charter schools, and Pence and his cronies downstate pretty much made the state superintendent of education Glenda Ritz, powerless because she was a Democrat and won her election surprising the Republicans downstate. So they did to her, what the Republicans in I believe North Carolina are trying to do to the new Governor there, taking away lots of their power because they are on the "other side."

Many believe that Pence kept a tight hold on our state's 2 billion dollar surplus (thus denying money for education and other public services), in order to make himself look better for a run at the White House in 2020.

There are other things that Pence did relating to education that cost the state money just because he wanted to thumb his nose at the feds and switch to a different system. Lost fed money, plus the millions that it cost to implement the new system that ended up not working right and then having to change more stuff up.

One thing my sister noticed within our own district, is that the not so great students in high school were the ones looking to be teachers. Other kids with more going on looked for other career paths. Teaching seems to be on the lower end of the food chain when it comes to being desired career choices. Pretty sad that it's come to that.

Dysole December 22nd, 2016 01:11 AM

Watch the World Burn
 
Regarding electoral college, I kind of want to see someone win the top 11 states for electoral votes (exactly 270) and lose all the other states. Mostly, I kind of want to see the reactions to that situation.

~Dysole, who her contribution to the teaching thing is that education (along with health care) are things she's very wary about putting on the free market since economically you're expecting things to fail and both of those have really dire consequences when a business in that industry goes under

Swamper December 23rd, 2016 03:25 PM

Re: Decision 2016
 
Thought this was interesting.

http://qz.com/869587/using-science-i...more-partisan/

Tornado December 25th, 2016 09:34 AM

Re: Decision 2016
 
http://www.freakingnews.com/pictures...orial-7459.jpg

Swamper September 3rd, 2017 06:06 PM

Re: Decision 2016
 
At the risk of resurrecting old demons...

It's safe to say Trump has not turned out like I had hoped he would, and I don't have much confidence in him turning things around in his administration over the next three years. I suppose it was foolish of me to hope that the man could pivot from campaign Trump to governing Trump. I will not vote for him in the next presidential election, and I hope the Republicans run someone other than him. I could see myself voting Democrat to get Trump out of office, unless the Democrats run someone to the way way left.

A lot of the people here in Arkansas feel duped and betrayed by Trump. Hopefully we can learn from our mistakes.


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