People skeptical of my support for the electoral college will like this little vignette.
Before class started last night the election came up and the focus was on swing states obviously. One of my colleagues from Thailand was a little confused about what the deal was with the swing states because she did not know about the electoral college. So of course I did a quick explanation of how it worked.
She shot me one of the most incredulous "why the hell do you do that?" glances I've seen in a long time.
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
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You should listen to her more often
ReplyDeleteYou can tell her it is the result of a now more than two century old compromise between those who wanted to have a popularly elected President (few in number but prominent) and those who wanted the President appointed by Congress (not a majority, but strong enough to block any measure more popular in its composition than what came into being). The electors were supposed to be men of good standing who could in good conscience vote for the candidate. This sort of thinking was obviously heavily inculcated with 18th century English notions of politics. Nothing terribly sacred about it.
ReplyDeleteWhen I first moved to the US from France, I thought the electoral college was prima facie evidence that you were all just a bunch of nuts. I warmed up to it eventually. Your posts on it were a big influence and now I'm the one defending it against my liberal friends who have still not gotten over 2000.
ReplyDeleteYay!
DeleteGood to hear. I was happy to share Cochrane's agreement on it, but I have to say that didn't give me quite as much comfort as this does.
No system is perfect but this one seems to preserve the will of the people just fine and in the process it diffuses sectionalism and conflict. I think our history pretty well indicates that that's a very good thing to do when you can.
I just realized that you, Daniel, represent "Americans" to your foreign peers. And yes we are smug, melodramatic, and self-righteous, aren't we? (I was the same thing, compared to my foreign NYU classmates.)
ReplyDeleteI don't know what you're talking about!
DeleteSeriously, though, with that discussion yesterday. Here's where I agree: yes, I get indignant about all sorts of things. I will only admit it occasionally but this is one of those occasions.
But where I disagree is on the particular voting point. Pointing out bizarre melodramatic anti-voting arguments isn't self-righteous and melodramatic. It's like this tendency to call those who call people out on being jerks "jerks" for taking it upon themselves to do that. Equivalences like that just don't work, and I haven't been doing dumbed down arguments on here about democracy or vague P. Diddy "cause it's just right" kind of arguments. I may be self-righteous at some times, but not on this one by a long stretch.
Neither are you, I should add. I think I mentioned before that you don't come across that way. Simply thinking that non-voting is preferable and having an argument on that is not what I have a problem with. Neither is thinking that the "voter paradox" argument (tired as it is) works for you. It's the guys like Jason Brennan calling people "morally rotten" for voting without meeting his qualifications that are the problem - the ones that take the voter paradox and go out on crazy limbs with it.
I'm pretty mild-mannered in class. Much of my cohort is more skeptical about the mainstream than I am, and a lot of my questions are clarification type questions. I don't try to hide my confrontational side or anything, class just always seems like a weird place to whip it out. You're learning a body of knowledge... confrontation is more relevant for things like seminars where new work is being presented (I have asked more confrontational questions at things like brown bag seminars).
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