

Abolish the senate - don't just reform it - jawartak
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/abolish-the-senate-dont-just-reform-it-2011-01-05

======
nlavezzo
Abolishing the right to filibuster as the author proposes would truly make our
democracy "two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner".

Sorry Mr. Nutting, but there's no "tyranny of the minority"...

Tyranny: "A government in which a single ruler (a tyrant) has absolute power"

The minority can't enforce their wishes on anyone directly - they simply have
the power, if they are a highly significant minority, to stop certain wishes
of the majority being forced upon them ("tyranny" of the majority). Minorities
having some power to block actions of the majority is a great check on
government power, and we're fortunate to have it.

~~~
krakensden
So the tyranny of 59 representatives is evil and undemocratic but the tyranny
of 61 is just?

There are many legislative bodies in the world, maybe we could talk about
process and policy in an informed way instead of whipping out the tyranny card
every ten minutes.

------
GrandMasterBirt
I'm sorry, this is a bit dumb. The senate was not founded because "we cannot
trust the people" but because in the senate EACH STATE has equal power,
regardless of size, while in the congress each state has power proportinal to
the population. This ensures that small states with 0.2% of the population are
not entirely ignored in all politial matters because they might literally have
the ability to break ties, no more. It might wind up being that ruling NY + NJ
+ FL + TX + CA would give you enough power to outvote every single other
state.

The senate is critical and not to be abolished.

~~~
krakensden
But why should each state have equal power? The reason that was important when
the constitution was drafted was because they were the polities that already
existed, and you needed their assistance to build a larger union.

Today, states command less loyalty than baseball teams, and are covered so
poorly in the media that they are close to unsupervised by the people. They're
an anachronism, why should we care about their individual power?

