Comment by dlp211
4 years ago
No. I don't even know how you get to this idea. First of all, there is only one national election, you still have your Representative and 2 Senators in addition to your State, County, and Local governments. Second of all, there are more Republicans in New York and California then in a significant amount of the middle states combined. The idea that NY or California has some singular voice that will be force upon you is just a ridiculous concept.
The country clearly leans slightly center left as a whole, but we are trending hard right right now and that is a recipe for disaster and the electoral college is in large part to blame.
It’s what I call the Democratic wobble.
We’ve been trending left for fifty years. Maybe it’s time to go the other way for awhile. And hand some power back to the states, where it belongs.
"We’ve been trending left for fifty years."
Depends on the topic. Gun rights, for example, have gone decidedly to the right. Few people now remember that Ronald Reagan signed some significant gun control legislation without losing support of his voters.
Not really. In the late '50s, when I was a teenager, I lived in a rural area. I had my own rifle, and so did my friends. I also bought a 22 revolver and carried it around the country in the early '60s and never thought twice about doing that.
In the '60s, high school students carried rifles on the NYC subway while going to target practice. Try doing that today.
So, I'd say there has been a lot of pressure to move the window on gun regulation to more restrictive over the last fifty years. I don't think it's done any good at all relative to reducing crime committed with guns. Law abiding gun owners have always had low incidence of gun infractions compared to, say, the police.
The real problem is not enforcing the gun laws we have had for years. Chicago is a prime example: very restrictive laws, but very few convictions for gun offenses, which are frequent. Why is that?
4 replies →
Gun rights/control didnt used to be a "right-wing" topic.
Democratic wobble is about shifting political demographics. In other words, the majority of the country wobbles between center right and center left. This isn't that.
Sure it is, just in a longer time scale.
i can understand not wanting power to be centralized in the hands of a faraway federal govt. but i dont understand the fetish of states rights. why not city rights or county rights. or heaven forbid maybe even individual rights
It's a balancing act between individual rights and ability of the society to govern itself without disintegrating (at which point nobody would have any rights).
But, yes, states are just as artificial as US as a whole. Municipalities feel like they're the lowest level organization that is actually somewhat organic and interconnected.
4 replies →
1 reply →