Is the United States the modern Roman Empire--too big to hold together?

[Stormy Daniels]

One of the reasons our politics have turned to shit is because everything is nationalized, then reduced to a false dichotomy, all while those elected to lead are increasingly insulated by gerrymandering (which only serves to encourage them to stoke the fires with increasingly radicalized ideas that excite and expand the fringes). Fewer and fewer House seats are competitive anymore, and Congress is the least accountable to the people it's ever been. Meanwhile, while the Senate is beyond the scope of gerrymandering, it's peculiarities largely reduce it to being determined by macro trends and tendencies (how many seats a given party has to defend in a particular election, the anti-Presidential-party effect, things like that).

A Republic where the assembly has little accountability to the people is an autocracy.

The necessary solution is to increase the size of Congress, so that districts would be smaller. Much smaller. Small enough that elected officials would be more directly responsible to the people for their bullshit. Small enough that gerrymandering would be inherently far more difficult in the first place, and mostly too cumbersome to bother with to a substantial degree. Currently, the average size of a House district is a little more than 700,000 people. But when our country was founded, the average was 33,000 per district. In fact, during the Philadelphia convention, an original proposal for a 40,000 to 1 ratio was rejected as too cumbersome to be effective, and the question was the one and only matter in which George Washington engaged in discussion. The first ever use of the President's veto power was in preservation of smaller population to representative ratios.

While it may not be necessary to return Congress to a 33,000 to 1 ratio, there is no reason why a 435 cap established nearly 100 years ago when the country was 1/3 its current population, should remain in perpetuity. Why are modern Americans only entitled to 1/3rd the Congressional representation? To restore representation quality to 1929 levels the size of the House needs to be increased threefold. At the same time, the Senate should also be increased by 50%, giving every state three Senators (one elected each time elections for the House are held).

But Congress themselves would have to provide for reapportionment of the House, and they have no motivation for doing so because it means they'd be more accountable to the electorate. And the Constitution would have to be amended to increase the size of the Senate, which is even more out of reach. So that brings us back to the question. Has the United States become too big to federally govern anymore?

 

[iamwhatiseem]

If the media would stop doing everything they can to divide us, and if the politicians would stop using divisionary tactics to deflect from their own bad actions - we would be fine.

And then of course, if the sheeple would stop being so easily duped.

 

[Oddball]

The size of congress is the best bastardization of the original charter, as to why things are so fucked up, is the best you can come up with?

wow

 

[Ralph Norton]

One of the reasons our politics have turned to shit is because everything is nationalized, then reduced to a false dichotomy, all while those elected to lead are increasingly insulated by gerrymandering (which only serves to encourage them to stoke the fires with increasingly radicalized ideas that excite and expand the fringes). Fewer and fewer House seats are competitive anymore, and Congress is the least accountable to the people it's ever been. Meanwhile, while the Senate is beyond the scope of gerrymandering, it's peculiarities largely reduce it to being determined by macro trends and tendencies (how many seats a given party has to defend in a particular election, the anti-Presidential-party effect, things like that).

A Republic where the assembly has little accountability to the people is an autocracy.

The necessary solution is to increase the size of Congress, so that districts would be smaller. Much smaller. Small enough that elected officials would be more directly responsible to the people for their bullshit. Small enough that gerrymandering would be inherently far more difficult in the first place, and mostly too cumbersome to bother with to a substantial degree. Currently, the average size of a House district is a little more than 700,000 people. But when our country was founded, the average was 33,000 per district. In fact, during the Philadelphia convention, an original proposal for a 40,000 to 1 ratio was rejected as too cumbersome to be effective, and the question was the one and only matter in which George Washington engaged in discussion. The first ever use of the President's veto power was in preservation of smaller population to representative ratios.

While it may not be necessary to return Congress to a 33,000 to 1 ratio, there is no reason why a 435 cap established nearly 100 years ago when the country was 1/3 its current population, should remain in perpetuity. Why are modern Americans only entitled to 1/3rd the Congressional representation? To restore representation quality to 1929 levels the size of the House needs to be increased threefold. At the same time, the Senate should also be increased by 50%, giving every state three Senators (one elected each time elections for the House are held).

But Congress themselves would have to provide for reapportionment of the House, and they have no motivation for doing so because it means they'd be more accountable to the electorate. And the Constitution would have to be amended to increase the size of the Senate, which is even more out of reach. So that brings us back to the question. Has the United States become too big to federally govern anymore?

While your suggestion makes some sense for the house (though a bit unwieldy as you are suggesting over a 1300+member house) what benefit is there to having 3 senators?

 

[Stormy Daniels]

If the media would stop doing everything they can to divide us,

But that's how they make their money. So you want them to act against their best interests.

and if the politicians would stop using divisionary tactics to deflect from their own bad actions

But that's how they get re-elected. So you want them to act against their best interests.

And then of course, if the sheeple would stop being so easily duped.

But that would require using their brains. So you want them to act against their best interests.

 

[22lcidw]

One of the reasons our politics have turned to shit is because everything is nationalized, then reduced to a false dichotomy, all while those elected to lead are increasingly insulated by gerrymandering (which only serves to encourage them to stoke the fires with increasingly radicalized ideas that excite and expand the fringes). Fewer and fewer House seats are competitive anymore, and Congress is the least accountable to the people it's ever been. Meanwhile, while the Senate is beyond the scope of gerrymandering, it's peculiarities largely reduce it to being determined by macro trends and tendencies (how many seats a given party has to defend in a particular election, the anti-Presidential-party effect, things like that).

A Republic where the assembly has little accountability to the people is an autocracy.

The necessary solution is to increase the size of Congress, so that districts would be smaller. Much smaller. Small enough that elected officials would be more directly responsible to the people for their bullshit. Small enough that gerrymandering would be inherently far more difficult in the first place, and mostly too cumbersome to bother with to a substantial degree. Currently, the average size of a House district is a little more than 700,000 people. But when our country was founded, the average was 33,000 per district. In fact, during the Philadelphia convention, an original proposal for a 40,000 to 1 ratio was rejected as too cumbersome to be effective, and the question was the one and only matter in which George Washington engaged in discussion. The first ever use of the President's veto power was in preservation of smaller population to representative ratios.

While it may not be necessary to return Congress to a 33,000 to 1 ratio, there is no reason why a 435 cap established nearly 100 years ago when the country was 1/3 its current population, should remain in perpetuity. Why are modern Americans only entitled to 1/3rd the Congressional representation? To restore representation quality to 1929 levels the size of the House needs to be increased threefold. At the same time, the Senate should also be increased by 50%, giving every state three Senators (one elected each time elections for the House are held).

But Congress themselves would have to provide for reapportionment of the House, and they have no motivation for doing so because it means they'd be more accountable to the electorate. And the Constitution would have to be amended to increase the size of the Senate, which is even more out of reach. So that brings us back to the question. Has the United States become too big to federally govern anymore?

The establishment of a Fiat Currency has caused a lot of rancor. The currency now may be in its final throes of usefulness in its current form. Once people learn to vote for things, the genie is out of the bottle. So voting for people becomes much more extreme and using in our case the diverse groups that live in our nation by those who know how to do so, quickens the end of the beginning and something else replaces it.

 

[Oddball]

The establishment of a Fiat Currency has caused a lot of rancor. The currency now may be in its final throes of usefulness in its current form. Once people learn to vote for things, the genie is out of the bottle. So voting for people becomes much more extreme and using in our case the diverse groups that live in our nation by those who know how to do so, quickens the end of the beginning and something else replaces it.

1913 is the least recognized pivotal -in the worst way- year in Murican history.

 

[1srelluc]

So we need a Eastern and Western Empire?

 

[Stormy Daniels]

While your suggestion makes some sense for the house (though a bit unwieldy as you are suggesting over a 1300+member house) what benefit is there to having 3 senators?

While the Senate was meant to provide equal representation to the states themselves, not their populations, the fact is that our modern day Senate is elected by the people. Accordingly, Senators should be accountable to their electorates. But it's inherently difficult to achieve that when a Senator's electorate is so large. And as things currently stand, the Senate's bi-yearly compositional changes are subject mostly to structural factors than the will of the voters. Mid terms always carry momentum away from the President's party. Then again, some mid terms may mean that the President's party is only defending a quarter of the seats being reelected at the time, which would therefore insulate that party from losses, and therefore create an overall result inconsistent with the will of the electorate.

Having every state elect one Senator every second year would reduce the importance of structural factors and enhance the significance of the voting public in determining the Senate's composition. It won't necessarily make individual Senators more accountable to the voters, but it will make the body as a whole more accountable to the voters.

 

[Stormy Daniels]

The establishment of a Fiat Currency has caused a lot of rancor.

 

[Resnic]

Our problem is too much diversity. It's been pushed and forced on us so much that now we are full of groups and such groups of people from allover the world with vastly different religious, political, social and belief ideas and no one wants to conform to society, they want society to conform to them.

We need a society that can confirm to America and weed out the ones who won't. They don't need to give up their beliefs, they just need to understand when you live in a country you have to be a part of that country. If someone comes in my house and won't follow my rules and tries to tell me how to do things and that I need to cater to them then they can get the fuck out. America is the same way.

Look at Switzerland. They lack diversity because to become a citizen you have to pay, you have to abide by their rules and customs, you can't even become a citizen unless you speak the language. But they have incredibly low violent crime, high employment rates, high education rates, good health care and a very calm society because they all respect the system and they don't feel uncomfortable being wedged in with all kinds of different people all wanting things their way. When you live among familiar people you're more at ease, it's in our DNA. It's why most animals don't hang out with other animals.

Love and respect for ones country is diminishing, ultimately that's our problem.

 

[Bootney Lee Farnsworth]

One of the reasons our politics have turned to shit is because everything is nationalized, then reduced to a false dichotomy, all while those elected to lead are increasingly insulated by gerrymandering (which only serves to encourage them to stoke the fires with increasingly radicalized ideas that excite and expand the fringes). Fewer and fewer House seats are competitive anymore, and Congress is the least accountable to the people it's ever been. Meanwhile, while the Senate is beyond the scope of gerrymandering, it's peculiarities largely reduce it to being determined by macro trends and tendencies (how many seats a given party has to defend in a particular election, the anti-Presidential-party effect, things like that).

A Republic where the assembly has little accountability to the people is an autocracy.

The necessary solution is to increase the size of Congress, so that districts would be smaller. Much smaller. Small enough that elected officials would be more directly responsible to the people for their bullshit. Small enough that gerrymandering would be inherently far more difficult in the first place, and mostly too cumbersome to bother with to a substantial degree. Currently, the average size of a House district is a little more than 700,000 people. But when our country was founded, the average was 33,000 per district. In fact, during the Philadelphia convention, an original proposal for a 40,000 to 1 ratio was rejected as too cumbersome to be effective, and the question was the one and only matter in which George Washington engaged in discussion. The first ever use of the President's veto power was in preservation of smaller population to representative ratios.

While it may not be necessary to return Congress to a 33,000 to 1 ratio, there is no reason why a 435 cap established nearly 100 years ago when the country was 1/3 its current population, should remain in perpetuity. Why are modern Americans only entitled to 1/3rd the Congressional representation? To restore representation quality to 1929 levels the size of the House needs to be increased threefold. At the same time, the Senate should also be increased by 50%, giving every state three Senators (one elected each time elections for the House are held).

But Congress themselves would have to provide for reapportionment of the House, and they have no motivation for doing so because it means they'd be more accountable to the electorate. And the Constitution would have to be amended to increase the size of the Senate, which is even more out of reach. So that brings us back to the question. Has the United States become too big to federally govern anymore?

I think the word you were looking for is corrupt.

The U.S. is too corrupt to hold together. Centralized government that the tyrant communist authoritarians have always envisioned as a utopia is a terrible model. Everybody will be dissatisfied.

In my lifetime, Texas will no longer be a part of the US. And it will be glorious.

 

[Thinker101]

One of the reasons our politics have turned to shit is because everything is nationalized, then reduced to a false dichotomy, all while those elected to lead are increasingly insulated by gerrymandering (which only serves to encourage them to stoke the fires with increasingly radicalized ideas that excite and expand the fringes). Fewer and fewer House seats are competitive anymore, and Congress is the least accountable to the people it's ever been. Meanwhile, while the Senate is beyond the scope of gerrymandering, it's peculiarities largely reduce it to being determined by macro trends and tendencies (how many seats a given party has to defend in a particular election, the anti-Presidential-party effect, things like that).

A Republic where the assembly has little accountability to the people is an autocracy.

The necessary solution is to increase the size of Congress, so that districts would be smaller. Much smaller. Small enough that elected officials would be more directly responsible to the people for their bullshit. Small enough that gerrymandering would be inherently far more difficult in the first place, and mostly too cumbersome to bother with to a substantial degree. Currently, the average size of a House district is a little more than 700,000 people. But when our country was founded, the average was 33,000 per district. In fact, during the Philadelphia convention, an original proposal for a 40,000 to 1 ratio was rejected as too cumbersome to be effective, and the question was the one and only matter in which George Washington engaged in discussion. The first ever use of the President's veto power was in preservation of smaller population to representative ratios.

While it may not be necessary to return Congress to a 33,000 to 1 ratio, there is no reason why a 435 cap established nearly 100 years ago when the country was 1/3 its current population, should remain in perpetuity. Why are modern Americans only entitled to 1/3rd the Congressional representation? To restore representation quality to 1929 levels the size of the House needs to be increased threefold. At the same time, the Senate should also be increased by 50%, giving every state three Senators (one elected each time elections for the House are held).

But Congress themselves would have to provide for reapportionment of the House, and they have no motivation for doing so because it means they'd be more accountable to the electorate. And the Constitution would have to be amended to increase the size of the Senate, which is even more out of reach. So that brings us back to the question. Has the United States become too big to federally govern anymore?

Certainly can't be held together with Veggie Joe at the helm.

 

[Damaged Eagle]

Or we could make it so that each voting districts' vote goes directly to the candidate that they actually voted for at the federal level instead of the state determining who they'll cast a vote for after counting the districts.

*****SMILE*****

 

[jwoodie]

Has the United States become too big to federally govern anymore?

Is this an excuse for the shitstorm the Democrats have created?

 

[Stormy Daniels]

though a bit unwieldy as you are suggesting over a 1300+member house

So does that mean the US is too big to federally govern?

 

[Billy000]

One of the reasons our politics have turned to shit is because everything is nationalized, then reduced to a false dichotomy, all while those elected to lead are increasingly insulated by gerrymandering (which only serves to encourage them to stoke the fires with increasingly radicalized ideas that excite and expand the fringes). Fewer and fewer House seats are competitive anymore, and Congress is the least accountable to the people it's ever been. Meanwhile, while the Senate is beyond the scope of gerrymandering, it's peculiarities largely reduce it to being determined by macro trends and tendencies (how many seats a given party has to defend in a particular election, the anti-Presidential-party effect, things like that).

A Republic where the assembly has little accountability to the people is an autocracy.

The necessary solution is to increase the size of Congress, so that districts would be smaller. Much smaller. Small enough that elected officials would be more directly responsible to the people for their bullshit. Small enough that gerrymandering would be inherently far more difficult in the first place, and mostly too cumbersome to bother with to a substantial degree. Currently, the average size of a House district is a little more than 700,000 people. But when our country was founded, the average was 33,000 per district. In fact, during the Philadelphia convention, an original proposal for a 40,000 to 1 ratio was rejected as too cumbersome to be effective, and the question was the one and only matter in which George Washington engaged in discussion. The first ever use of the President's veto power was in preservation of smaller population to representative ratios.

While it may not be necessary to return Congress to a 33,000 to 1 ratio, there is no reason why a 435 cap established nearly 100 years ago when the country was 1/3 its current population, should remain in perpetuity. Why are modern Americans only entitled to 1/3rd the Congressional representation? To restore representation quality to 1929 levels the size of the House needs to be increased threefold. At the same time, the Senate should also be increased by 50%, giving every state three Senators (one elected each time elections for the House are held).

But Congress themselves would have to provide for reapportionment of the House, and they have no motivation for doing so because it means they'd be more accountable to the electorate. And the Constitution would have to be amended to increase the size of the Senate, which is even more out of reach. So that brings us back to the question. Has the United States become too big to federally govern anymore?

The first step is eliminating the GOP. Democrats have their own flaws that need correction, but the country will always suck with republicans in power.

ideally, we need two different parties: centrist and leftwing.

 

[Dragonlady]

If the media would stop doing everything they can to divide us, and if the politicians would stop using divisionary tactics to deflect from their own bad actions - we would be fine.

And then of course, if the sheeple would stop being so easily duped.

Pssst. It’s not the media which is dividing you, it’s the Republicans. They have no policies and no agenda and they need to keep poor white people hating on minorities to avoid have poor whites joining forces with poor minorities, and taking power from rich white people.

It was Reagan who ended the war on poverty and claimed minorities were just voting for “free shit”.

 

[Independentthinker]

One of the reasons our politics have turned to shit is because everything is nationalized, then reduced to a false dichotomy, all while those elected to lead are increasingly insulated by gerrymandering (which only serves to encourage them to stoke the fires with increasingly radicalized ideas that excite and expand the fringes). Fewer and fewer House seats are competitive anymore, and Congress is the least accountable to the people it's ever been. Meanwhile, while the Senate is beyond the scope of gerrymandering, it's peculiarities largely reduce it to being determined by macro trends and tendencies (how many seats a given party has to defend in a particular election, the anti-Presidential-party effect, things like that).

A Republic where the assembly has little accountability to the people is an autocracy.

The necessary solution is to increase the size of Congress, so that districts would be smaller. Much smaller. Small enough that elected officials would be more directly responsible to the people for their bullshit. Small enough that gerrymandering would be inherently far more difficult in the first place, and mostly too cumbersome to bother with to a substantial degree. Currently, the average size of a House district is a little more than 700,000 people. But when our country was founded, the average was 33,000 per district. In fact, during the Philadelphia convention, an original proposal for a 40,000 to 1 ratio was rejected as too cumbersome to be effective, and the question was the one and only matter in which George Washington engaged in discussion. The first ever use of the President's veto power was in preservation of smaller population to representative ratios.

While it may not be necessary to return Congress to a 33,000 to 1 ratio, there is no reason why a 435 cap established nearly 100 years ago when the country was 1/3 its current population, should remain in perpetuity. Why are modern Americans only entitled to 1/3rd the Congressional representation? To restore representation quality to 1929 levels the size of the House needs to be increased threefold. At the same time, the Senate should also be increased by 50%, giving every state three Senators (one elected each time elections for the House are held).

But Congress themselves would have to provide for reapportionment of the House, and they have no motivation for doing so because it means they'd be more accountable to the electorate. And the Constitution would have to be amended to increase the size of the Senate, which is even more out of reach. So that brings us back to the question. Has the United States become too big to federally govern anymore?

Good question but one of the major weaknesses of the Roman Empire was how spread out it was all over the world, very difficult to defend or maintain, especially in those older days. For the most part, the US is only in one fairly small geographic area, basically surrounded by friends on the top and the bottom and oceans on the left and on the right. We just have to learn how to be able to live with each other. The US is mainly comprised of bigger cities and a bunch of rural areas. The big cities don't want to be governed by rural ideals while the rural areas don't want to be governed by big city ideals. The bad thing about democracy is that the 50.1% think they can force their ideals on the other 49.9%. Both sides need to have empathy for how the other side feels.

 

[Ralph Norton]

So does that mean the US is too big to federally govern?

No.