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I just gave you all the examples. I can't tell whether you're being deliberately obtuse in hopes of setting some rhetorical trap, or whether I have mistakenly attributed to you a substantial knowledge of the law that you don't actually possess. (For some reason I thought you were a lawyer, but now I'm thinking I must be mistaken about that. If so, my apologies!)
What reason would they have to use a veto power on anything else?
Or maybe more importantly--why are you advocating for rural voters to never have a veto over ANY legislation, even legislation that intentionally discriminates against them? Because that is clearly the result of "one man, one vote."
No, you didn't because, as I said, those are examples of something different: "To make out an equal protection violation, a party cannot merely prove disparate impact—he must "prove `the existence of purposeful discrimination' motivating the state action which caused the complained-of injury." Johnson v. Rodriguez, 110 F.3d 299, 306 (5th Cir. 1997) (citing, inter alia, McCleskey v. Kemp, 481 U.S. 279, 292-93 (1987)). Specifically, "[d]iscriminatory purpose in an equal protection context implies that the decisionmaker selected a particular course of action at least in part because of, and not simply in spite of, the adverse impact it would have on an identifiable group." Woods v. Edwards, 51 F.3d 577, 580 (5th Cir. 1995) (quoting United States v. Galloway, 951 F.2d 64, 65 (5th Cir. 1992))." Allen v. Hays, (5th Circuit No. 21-20337, March 21 2023).
As I said, you are advocating for an absolute veto power, not the limited "veto power" re the narrow set of legislation that violates the Equal Protection Clause.
Are you kidding? Anything that they think does not serve their interests, or anything that they think might harm them (including anything that happens to have an adverse impact), or any culture war issue, for that matter. Or, any project that did not benefit them as much as they wanted. Or any budget that did not fund some useless pork in rural areas. Etc, etc, etc.
I'm not.
Such legislation that did not have a legitimate purpose would be subject to "veto power" under the Equal Protection Clause. If you are arguing that the standard under the EP clause should be higher -- eg, that rural residency should be a quasi-suspect or suspect classification, fine. But you are arguing for something much, much broader: For a certain group to have an absolute veto over ALL legislation.
Why should they be forced to go along with laws that don't serve their interests? The only reason available under "one man, one vote" appears to be "because they are in the minority, so too bad for them." How much more purposeful could discrimination possibly get, than to say "you get no benefit from this law, for no reason than because the majority is able to require that of you?"
Again--what protection do they have against the majority, then? If rural voters think something harms them, under "one man, one vote" that's just too fucking bad. "One man, one vote" is all by itself purposeful discrimination against rural voters, implemented by a court that was clearly dedicated to its own social engineering projects over and above any constitutional principles.
Yes, exactly. Rural voters having culture war issues dictated to them by urban voters was in practice, I think, the point of "one man, one vote." It was purposeful discrimination from the word go.
You haven't listed a single reason that doesn't sound like intentional discrimination against a minority, because they are a minority. Urban voters can veto any project that does not benefit them as much as they want. Urban voters can veto any budget that does not fund some useless pork in cities (like, say, the whole NEH). Etc. Etc. Why shouldn't rural voters have the same power? Ah, yes--because they are the minority. That is literally all "one man, one vote" means: mob rule at the state level. I have a hard time imagining more purposeful discrimination against rural voters.
If you agree with "one man, one vote" then actually yes--you are.
In fact I think the vast majority of legislation is totally illegitimate under a plain reading of the U.S. Constitution. That's kind of the theme of this discussion, though it was not my original intention: that 20th century jurisprudence basically threw the constitutional order out the window, substantially in favor of sweeping and often disastrous social engineering projects.
If that is discrimination then any law enacted in a mostly democratic nation is surely? Stealing is outlawed because the majority of the populace want it to be. Is outlawing theft discrimination against those who want to steal?
If so then it's so broad a term to be meaningless.
And there is nothing to stop rural voters outnumbering urban voters, there is plenty of open space in the US, more people could move to the country and still have it be near empty. If enough people wanted to be rural then they could be.
If rural voters get a veto then urban voters should get a veto and suburban voters, and criminal voters and car salesmen voters and Appalachians and Cajuns and so on and so on.
Laws against theft protect everyone against theft. I have never yet met a thief who was happy to be stolen from.
Sure, in theory. What do you think this shows?
As I note to gdanning below: yes. And not just groups of people, but individuals, too. The vast majority of governance is both unnecessary and coercive.
Which is basically just invalidating democracy as a political option. Which is fine. But there don't appear to have been any non-coercive societies. Even going back to hunter-gatherer tribes. Not following the rules got you killed or exiled and you probably didn't get a say in what the elders decided.
I'd argue the whole scope of human history is that governance is exactly what we need. The trick is to make people want it and buy into it. Which democracy is pretty good at, because everyone (in theory) gets an equal say. If you can persuade enough people to agree with you, you can enact Libertarianism or Communism or Neo-liberalism. It's the opposite of discrimination in that everyone is equal. A rural vote is worth an urban vote is worth a black vote is worth a white vote is worth a womans vote is worth a mans vote. Rural voters who hold position X can attempt to persuade urban voters to hold position X and vice versa. People who think there should be fewer rules can try and persuade everyone else. If a rural vote is worth more than an urban vote, that is discrimination surely?
Though to be clear, that doesn't mean it might not be JUSTIFIED from a practical perspective. If urban living is more attractive (for whatever reason) and you start to have issues with rural people being less important (democratically) and this causes instability then you might want to as part of a package of measures inflate the importance of rural votes and rural wealth. Decrease taxes on rural economic drivers, push each rural vote to be worth 1.01 votes of everyone else for example. Discrimination can actually be practically necessary. But democratically it should just be transparent. Make a case for why it is needed see if you can convince enough voters etc.
I think our values are somewhat contrariwise in that I think humanity has shown we need pretty firm governance and the main thing to worry about it buy in and stability not maximizing individual liberty, which is (in my view) much less important than the overall health of society (which will in turn mean individuals are better off than they would be on their own). But I am pretty flexible in what steps are necessary for that. That different groups may need different treatment and various thumbs on the scales in pursuit of that larger goal is I think absolutely plausible.
Indeed I would argue the two groups in the US right now that do need that treatment are (primarily) black urban communities and (primarily) white rural communities and increasing the value of their votes could be one way to achieve that. Just not because they should have a veto for a principled libertarian reason or because we need less governance overall. Not sure if that would put us on the same side pragmatically or not though.
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Only if, and because, they are the majority. Not because they are given extra votes due to their status.
And, there are lots of groups in the numerical minority; bookkeepers are a minority of voters; do they get a veto? Why not? What about bus drivers? What about people who live near the beach? They are a minority. So are residents of all sorts of geographic areas, not just those who live in "rural" areas. What about African Americans? Do they get a veto? And Vietnamese Americans? And Mien Americans? And Italian Americans? What about the top 1% - they are a minority. But, so are the bottom 1%. Do they all get vetoes?
No, they don't. We don't give any of those groups a veto, or an extra vote. Again, what is so special about rural voters that they should be given a veto, if none of the other 10,000 numerical minorities don't?
"The majority gets to do those things because they are the majority" is not an explanation, it's you repeating the premise. It's certainly not a constitutional principle. If anything, it violates the constitutional edict that the federal government ensure a republican form of government in each individual state. Republican governments have never in history been "one man, one vote" until the Warren court said so.
Well, yes! This is the true spirit of "equal protection." The end result is intensely libertarian, which is how it should be. The only time the government should act at all is when, by so doing, everyone benefits. Otherwise government is just a grand, complicated exercise in "who, whom."
Did you think this was some kind of persuasive "gotcha?" Here's Ayn Rand:
I'm very much on board with this. Today the Court just picks-and-chooses minorities for special legal protection. Rural voters are out, black voters are in. Mormons are out, Muslims are in. Asians are out, "indigenous peoples" are in. This is legal bullshit of the highest order, a complete abandonment of the rule of law.
Like hell we don't. Black and Hispanic voting districts are a thing, and redistricting in race-neutral ways draws all kinds of ire. Nobody gets to thumb the scales in similar ways for politically disfavored minorities.
I haven't said anything about denying anyone a veto--remember, that's your (inconsistent) position. I'm the one defending minority rights here. If you want to come over to my side and have a chat about who else should also get a veto, I'm definitely open to that! But you don't actually seem inclined to do that--you seem instead to simply be grasping for any possible reason to defend the idea that rural voters are just the natural and appropriate political slaves of urban America.
So, you are literally advocating that every numerical minority -- bookkeepers, etc; heck, even every individual! -- get veto power over legislation? Meaning that no law ever gets passed? I am pretty sure that that is not what the framers had had in mind.
Yes, but so are rural districts. Black and Hispanic districts are the same size as other districts, right? So, why should rural districts be an exception.
That's an odd claim for someone who is arguing that urban voters should be the political slaves of rural America. I have yet to see a principled statement of why that should be the case.
And that is the source of the problem: There is no such thing. Fighting inflation helps creditors but harms debtors. So, according to you, govt should do nothing when inflation rises. But, wait! Doing nothing is ALSO a policy choice! One which helps debtors and harms creditors. That is true of all policy issues. So, if you are starting from the premise that there are any government actions from which "everyone benefits," your argument rests on rotten foundations.
Well, in a way.
Why should it mean that? Laws do pass unanimously in the House and Senate from time to time, and if we were voting on very basic matters I think we could often generate consent--especially if we limited citizenship to people who could pass a test of reasoning. Anyway I don't believe in direct democracy but so long as you have robust property and personal rights protected by a minimal government, a single person or group's decision to not participate in this or that regulatory scheme doesn't seem worth getting worked up about.
Well, probably not all of them. But some of them do seem to have felt approximately as I do. The "Great Compromise" is, I remind you, the best evidence we have available that, whatever else they believed, the Framers did not think "one man, one vote" was going to work for the United States.
Black and Hispanic districts are created specifically to maximize Black and Hispanic impact. It's harder to do this with rural districts primarily because the sheer size of cities makes giving equal power to rural voters basically impossible under "one man, one vote."
Now you're just being pointlessly absurd. Nothing I have said implies that urban voters should be the political slaves of rural America. You're the only person here arguing that a certain minority deserves to be coerced because it is a minority. I think the Great Compromise was an interesting move. A bicameral legislature, with one house apportioned by population and one apportioned by geography, seems like a very functional resolution. It was so brilliant that many states copied the move with their own state legislatures--until the Warren court attacked.
This is bullshit. Laws against murder, rape, arson, theft, etc. are all to the benefit of everyone. Even a stable monetary system is arguably to the benefit of everyone. I see no need to pander to the last standing contrarian; people who don't want to participate in the government should be afforded maximum opportunity to do that, for example through aforementioned strong protection of individual and property rights. We live under an absolutely outrageous amount of regulation and government bloat today. None of it is necessary. Most of it is actively harmful to many while being slightly beneficial to a select few. There is nothing just about that; there is certainly nothing constitutional about it.
Unanimity is a lot easier in a group of 435 than in a group of 330 million. And, in fact there is rarely a unanimous vote in the House for anything of substance.
It isn't about reason. It is about interests.
The Great Compromise was about the distribution of power among states, not voters. Where is the evidence that the Framers were particularly worried about the power of groups of voters? And, why is the argument in Reynolds v. Sims re the irrelevance of the federal analogy, wrong? And, how relevant is the understanding of the Founders in 1787 to the meaning of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment? After all, in Dobbs, the Court looked the understanding of "Due Process of Law" when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted, not when the Fifth Amendment was adopted.
I am not sure why you went from "maximizing Black and Hispanic impact" to giving "equal power" to rural voters. Rural voters' power can also be maximized, and in fact that is exactly why states like PA and WI have lopsided pro-R legislatures.
Regardless, what does this have to do with whether it is OK to give some types of voters extra votes, which was the practice before one man, one vote?
That is certainly a more accurate description of the situation pre-one man, one vote than is your description of the current situation as rural voters being the slaves of urban America
No, I haven't. I have asked what is so special about a particular minority -- rural voters -- that they have a right to be given extra votes and a veto, as was the case in the past.
It is a functional resolution only if you think there is something special about geographic minorities, rather than all the other numerical minorities.
That argument means that the govt can do anything, because anything can be framed as being to the benefit of everyone. Want to cut welfare? It will incentivize work, which in the long run will strengthen the economy and thereby benefit everyone. Want to increase welfare? It will provide additional spending power to the recipients, which will strengthen the economy and thereby benefit everyone. Etc, etc.
What does that have to do with one man, one vote?
It's downstream from the objective reality that urban areas cannot exist as we know them without the rural, but the rural absolutely can exist without the urban. I get that your hobby horse is to complain about how much the urban pays to keep the rural in good shape, but you don't seem to understand the reality that the strategic position of cities is extremely perilous.
Cities exist to turn primary goods into secondary goods- both by refining them or using them directly. Cities cannot generate primary goods on its own: food, water, electricity, minerals, wood must all come from outside the city. If the rural population is hostile, that means the city people has to go into hostile territory to take them. The rural people, by contrast, depend far less on secondary goods from the city when all they're doing is subsistence farming; dropping to an early 20th century tech level would hurt them (and their ability to project power) far less than a city that all depend on the highest tech.
The security budget to permanently secure hundreds of miles of electric transmission line would be astronomical and the attackers have surprise on their side. It doesn't take much to seriously disrupt electricity supply to a city; it doesn't take much to seriously disrupt trucks and trains from delivering food and goods either.
And lest you think "but the city and the rural areas would definitely never go to war over policy, and if they did the city would crush them" recent events have proven otherwise. Note the rural victory despite 20 years of the most powerful military on Earth deploying their most advanced technology to erase them, and note that this group outlasted the second most powerful military 40 years ago too.
So I'd say that outsized rural representation in an otherwise democratic system, the occasional veto, and more generally confining the social engineering schemes to the city itself rather than the entire surrounding polity is an absolute bargain (probably still underselling rural power a bit, but I digress) when it comes to keeping the rural areas from flipping the table and reverting to the war of all against all because when it comes down to it the city will almost certainly lose if that happens.
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Calling them "extra votes and a veto, as was the case in the past" continues to beg the question, as you have done from the moment you joined this conversation. They weren't "extra" votes, it was the way the system was set up to protect certain minority interests from mob rule. If you prefer mob rule, like--I doubt I'm in any position to talk you out of that.
Most of what you're writing now suggests that you are either unwilling or unable to understand the answers I've already given you, so I should probably just leave it at that.
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Actually no, I don't think so. For an individual being able to kill people who say have a car I want, or the house I want is to my benefit or just to stop them doing something I don't like. If I am bigger and stronger or more aggressive than average, even more likely to be beneficial. Or more charismatic so as I can persuade others to kill who I want, or to join me. The strong get more individual benefit from more freedom than do the weak.
These laws make society better overall, but they are certainly not beneficial to everyone individually. Which is the point. We sacrifice things that are individually beneficial for things that have distributed benefits across society.
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Those things would be a form of discrimination against them, no?
No, not intentional discrimination. It certainly would not meet the standard for purposeful discrimination, as noted above: "Specifically, "[d]iscriminatory purpose in an equal protection context implies that the decisionmaker selected a particular course of action at least in part because of, and not simply in spite of, the adverse impact it would have on an identifiable group." Woods v. Edwards, 51 F.3d 577, 580 (5th Cir. 1995) (quoting United States v. Galloway, 951 F.2d 64, 65 (5th Cir. 1992))." Allen v. Hays, (5th Circuit No. 21-20337, March 21 2023)."
Moreover, all laws affect some people differently; that doesn't make them intentional discrimination.
So "we want to ban cattle farms for ideological reasons" would not constitute discrimination against cattle farmers to you?
Either way, this is the sort of thing the geographically based houses were designed to prevent -- Reynolds was bad because it stripped States of the right to decide how their Houses should be constituted, based on an invented "right" to "one man one vote" -- which is totally baseless in terms of the design of the Union.
? Yes, a law that explicitly on its face applies to a particular group is intentional discrimination against that group. But it isn't intentional discrimination against rural residents, even though such a ban would disproportionately affect rural residents. Similarly, the current ban on growing opium poppies intentionally discriminates against opium poppy farmers, but it isn't intentional discrimination against rural residents, even though it disproportionately affects rural residents.
But, speaking of intentional discrimination, do you know what is intentional discrimination? Geographically based houses, which intentionally discriminated against urban residents. But somehow that is ok? Because the correct team is being harmed?
First you need to prove that "one man one vote" is a right in the US -- it never was, and still isn't (as evinced by the process for electing Federal Senators).
Nor is there a right to raise cattle. The point is that you are being selective in your outrage about discrimination.
Note, btw, that the Fourteenth Amendment was designed to limit the states, not the federal govt, so the Senate is not particularly relevant. Plus, the Constitution says that "no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate." Just because all baleful discrimination cannot be eliminated does not mean that none can.
"Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness" ought to cover it.
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