If Democracy Is The Basis For Morally Legitimate Government...

[eniwetok]

18. we were sold a bill of goods

We've all be brought up to believe that the Great Compromise that led to the House and Senate made the system fair. But it's an illusion based entirely on looking at how STATES are represented. But if we look at how any given CITIZEN is represented... the rationale all falls apart.

Take any citizen in WY... they have a presidential vote 3.3x that of any citizen in CA. They have a 70x bigger senatorial vote. But we're told that CA's bigger House delegation makes it fair.

But any given citizen in CA does NOT vote for their entire state's "delegation"... they only vote for ONE representative. So the net effect is their presidential vote is 1/3 that of the person in WY and 1/70 that for the Senate.

In our system those individual citizens living in large population states are treated unfairly... and those in small states have power they don't deserve in a democratic (rule by the people) system. in our system even though all states MUST have civic equality in the vote... where all votes weighed the same in terms of representation... on the federal level... there is grotesque discrimination based on choice of state residence. One might think liberal Dems might be out there protesting this obvious discrimination... but it's fair to say the vast majority embrace it. How do they live with this cognitive dissonance of believing they have a monopoly on democracy and yet betray it? It's because they never bother defining what democratic principles are. They just never moved past what they learned in 4th grade US history.