Is a democracy legitimate if votes don't weigh the same?

[eniwetok]

61. No, YOUR concept is preposterous

Thanks for proving my point that we were brought up to see how STATES are represented... and not how PEOPLE are.

What you're buying into is the idea that the ONLY morally legitimate way to protect legitimate interests is to to give some minority group more power than they deserve in a democratic system... and to allow them to extend that power over ALL matters, not just in areas that protect those interests. So why not do this for ALL groups that have suffered very REAL historical discrimination or repression? Groups such as racial minorities and women? Why do they have settle for Brand X protections like mere laws? Why don't other nations rush to such antidemocratic "solutions"?

If you toss out whatever you learned in 4th grade history... and I say this not to be insulting... I know this is tough, you can EASILY see where there are DEMOCRATIC solutions to protecting legitimate minority rights. For instance there is that Bill Of Rights approach... which targets specific rights to be protected. We could insure that people who represent certain groups are guaranteed chairs in select committees that write legislation concerning their interests.

Once we go antidemocratic... then the power of these minority groups is not constrained to their issues... and in the Senate a mere 18% of the US population gets 52% of the seats... and a mere 30% gets a filibuster proof majority. In the amendment process states with a mere 40% of the population can pass any amendment yet states with a mere 4% can stop any.
To ANYONE who claims to value democratic concepts, this is just nuts.

I know this goes against our civic religion. Our early schooling is tough to question... and embarrassingly enough I didn't even give the Senate ANY thought until I was in my late 40s when I read a MoJo article called 75 Stars http://www.motherjones.com/politics/1998/01/75-stars it doesn't go as far as I would. I think the entire concept of state suffrage has to go... in EVERY part of the Constitution... the EC, Senate, amendment process. It's the ONLY way to finally make the US a democratic nation.