The World is Full of Bad Ideas, and Eliminating The Electoral College is One of the Worst (and Dumbest)

There has been a lot of talk (when, screeching, for the most part) about eliminating the Electoral College. For the most part, this is being done by people who have no understanding of why it was established as a fundamental element of the system of government defined in the U.S. Constitution, no understanding of the actual consequences of eliminating it, and what appears to be a spectacular ignorance of history.

The Founding Fathers put the Electoral College in place because the U.S. isn't one big governmental entity, but is actually a federation of multiple (currently 50) individual entities that started from the first 13 that agreed to work together. The Constitution was specifically and intentionally designed to keep the federal government out of everything that did not absolutely require it. The fundamental concept was to protect the rights of each individual, and of each of the sovereign states that agreed to participate.

For a federation of independent, sovereign states to work, even the smallest of those states must believe that it has a say and cannot be walked all over by larger or stronger states. Relative differences in population can be taken into consideration of course, but why would anybody cooperate if they knew that they were the slaves of the whims of everyone else?

The system that the Founders established ensured a number of things.

One is that the United States would not be a democracy (the Founders knew that true democracies ALWAYS ended very, very badly, and always would), but would function based on the rule of law, specifically the Bill of Rights and the various mechanisms to ensure that the rights of every individual were protected, from the government, of course, but also from their neighbors. In a democracy, people can vote away your inherent rights (or more accurately, your legal right to exercise those rights) any time they choose, if their mob is big enough.

Under the rule of law in which your rights are not subject to the beliefs of others and in which you do not require the permission of others to exercise those rights, they can never be voted away. Ever. It would require abandonment of that rule of law for that to happen. And the Constitution--as it was written and intended and explained clearly by the people who wrote it--is intended to prevent that rule of law from ever being abandoned.

The Electoral College is one of the most important safeguards built into the system established by the Constitution. When implemented correctly, it helps protect against both governmental tyranny and the tyranny of the mob (i.e., your neighbors who disagree with you).

Another one of the most important safeguards was the way Congress was originally established. The members of the House of Representatives were to be elected represent the PEOPLE. That's why voting takes place in local districts. It much more accurately reflects the will of the people. So, the people had a say in national matters.

On the other hand, members of the Senate were to be elected to represent the STATE, not the people. They were elected by the state legislatures (so the people were still involved). So, the state had a say in the national matters.

The third party involved is the executive branch, which represents the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. Some people working in the executive branch are elected in some manner, but the bulk are appointed by the head of that branch (the president), not by the people. So, the federal government had a say in national matters.

The judicial branch--the Supreme Court--is also appointed, but their role as defined in the Constitution was that they were merely to apply the stipulations of the Constitution to circumstances in which there was some question (basically, did a law or action, etc., violate the rule of law as established in the Constitution), if and when such questions arose. It was supposed to be as neutral and objective as humanly possible, and not a forum for legislation, social engineering, or otherwise reflecting the personal beliefs of the justices. It was intended to be a referee of sorts between the people, the states, and the federal government. You could also say that the Supreme Court was intended to ensure that the Constitution had a say in national matters. The final say, in fact, particularly the Bill of Rights.

Unfortunately, one of the vital safeguards was torn down and the system of checks and balances crippled in April 1913 when three-fourths of the then 48 states essentially committed mass suicide and ratified the 17th Amendment.

What did that do? It meant that the state government no longer had a real say in national matters, and created what is essentially nothing but a second House of Representatives. Now, when a bill goes from the House to the Senate, or to the Senate from the House, it's just going from one group of representatives of the people to another group of representatives of the people, a redundant, wasteful, virtually meaningless exercise is bad government.

The rights of the states has been in steady decline ever since. The decline of the rights of the individual states is also a decline of the rights of the people of that state. A huge obstacle to tyranny by the federal government and tyranny by the masses was eliminated. And now people are trying to remove the other massive obstacle to those two types of tyranny: the Electoral College.

When that happens, say goodbye to your rights. If the federal government and the majority of your neighbors decide that they support what you want to do and be, you might be okay...until the winds of whim change and the federal government and the majority of your neighbors decide that they are against what you want to do and be. At that point--to use a popular expression--you're totally screwed.

We've already got one foot in that cesspool of hellish nightmares, and the other foot is dipping a toe into the mess.

Something that is vitally important to remember is that it wasn't supposed to matter very much who was elected president, or who was elected to any office, really. They're all sworn to uphold the Constitution. The Constitution is not a complicated document. We even have thousands of pages of commentary by the people who wrote it explaining even more clearly what they meant.

The federal government was never intended to be part of the everyday lives of the people. It was intended to be completely uninvolved in most cases, and strictly limited to a very tiny area. The Electoral College was one of the most important and effective measures to ensure that everyone had a say in things that would affect everyone, and that people wouldn't have a say in things that were outside their own sphere of rights. With so much power now in the hands of the federal government, and so little in the states, local communities, and individuals, you're now vulnerable to the whims of Washington, D.C., and those of your neighbors who are willing to use the federal government to violate your rights.

Eliminating the Electoral College will not increase fairness or freedom. The only people who might have more say are the majority, who will stomp you out if you don't conform. And, as is always the case, they'll use the federal government to do it.

The "popular vote" is fun when you're part of the popular crowd, but not so much when you're not.

To quote a certain Swedish philosopher, "Be careful what you wish for. You might find what you fear."

Welcome to Dystopia.

Your God-given Right to Hate (Is Stupid to Use, But You've Got It)

Hating people is stupid. It's evil. It destroys you. It prevents you from being happy. It makes your path to Hell smooth and straight.

You have the right to do it, though, and you're not violating anyone's rights by doing so. The question of whether you were motivated by hate when you committed a crime is 100% irrelevant to your guilt or innocence. And it's nobody's business but God's.

I don't have much of a problem with private companies banning people, etc., from their products, services, etc., for the things the people say. The company is the exclusive property of the owner(s), who have no obligation to provide a forum for people to speak. I might think that the company is foolish for banning someone, etc., but it's their property, and no right to freedom of speech exists in that context unless the owner grants it. Everybody has the God-given right to do stupid and/or bad things. Unless it violates someone's rights to his or her life, liberty, or property, no earthly court has the legitimate authority to impose penalties, or get involved in any other way, for that matter.

What I do have a problem with--what I am staunchly and eternally opposed to--is the government punishing people based on the mythical "hate speech" standard. An individual should not be prosecuted for emotions, but only for actual behavior that violates the rights of others to their life, liberty, and property. In some cases, a person's intentions can be taken into consideration (e.g., when it's clear that someone caused a death accidentally), but those cases are extremely limited. Even in those cases, it requires quite a bit of pretending to read people's minds.

Having an emotion, even a deeply negative emotion, violates nobody's rights. Even if the emotion motivates the individual to commit a crime, the only thing that can legitimately and justly be subject to prosecution is the crime that was actually committed. Does what the person said constitute fraud? That's a violation of an actual right, so it can be prosecuted. Was the person full of hate when she said it? Doesn't matter. Was the person full of love when she said it? Doesn't matter. The actual act is all that matters. A person saying hateful things is not violating any rights, just being a bad person.

The same thing goes for so-called "hate crimes." If I rob a bank, or murder someone, or run a scam to con people out of a bunch of money, or vandalize someone's house, or beat somebody up, I have violated actual rights. It doesn't matter why I did it. It only matters that I did it.

To begin with, how many crimes are committed against people out of love for that person? None, for all intents and purposes. Sure, there are crazy people who say that it's for love, but they're crazy, so they don't count. Someone's hatred for me does not violate my rights in any way or to any degree whatsoever. Someone stabbing me in the kidney does, whether the person hates me or not.

Emoting Makes You An Idiot

Emotions are not tools of cognition. The way you "feel" about something does not change the nature of that something. Your emotional state at a certain time does not reflect the actual circumstances. It is nothing more nor less than your reaction to your perception of your circumstances.

There is no such thing as "my truth," "your truth," "his/her truth," or any so-called truth other than the actual truth: what actually was, what actually is, and what actually will be. As Ben Shapiro reminds us, facts don't care about your feelings. What is, is. What is not, is not.

That's it. Black and white. No gray area. There is no place in between existing and not existing. To believe that what is is not, or that what is not is, constitutes one of two things: (1) ignorance of reality or (2) a disconnect from reality (otherwise known as "insanity").

Thinking and reading can fix (1).
Thinking and reading and psychotherapy can fix (2).

Don't be an ignoramus. Don't be a lunatic. They're both bad things.

You're genetically a man but you "feel" like you're a woman? Or "identify" as a woman? That's super neato, but your actual physiological makeup states unequivocally that you're a man, regardless of what clothes you wear or how you mutilate your genitalia.


Palestinians constantly engage in acts of war against Israel and Israel shows incredible restraint but does defend itself, but you "feel" that Palestinians are being oppressed and abused by Israel? That's also super neato, but the Palestinians are still largely a violent group of terrorists and their supporters and enablers, and they have no actual intention to ever live peacefully with Israel.

Despite every actual attempt at implementing some form of socialism resulting in physical and spiritual harm and never resulting in long-term peace and prosperity, you "feel" like it's right to confiscate property from one person and give it to somebody else, or for the government to tell people what they can and can't do? That's, again, super neato, but any form of forced collectivism or statism (whether its called "communism," "socialism," "democratic socialism," "fascism," or whatever; no meaningful difference between them) is irrational, immoral, and doomed ultimately to fail miserably at anything other than creating a degraded, disgusting society of food for the Morlocks.

Reality is reality. Your feelings don't--and can't--change that.

Maybe our mortal weaknesses make it impossible for us to be perfectly objective. It doesn't matter. We can still get very, very close. Only lazy, narcissistic people persist in resisting objectivity or rejecting truth.

So, stop being an idiot. Truth matters. Your feelings don't. Think. Don't emote.

Emoting makes you an idiot.