<story><title>Trump to Sign Executive Order Waiving Key Environmental Laws</title><url>https://e360.yale.edu/digest/president-trump-to-sign-executive-order-waiving-key-environmental-laws</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>cgrealy</author><text>Because your system of government is so fundamentally broken it barely even qualifies as a democracy anymore?&lt;p&gt;All the systems built into the US government were designed for a country with 1% the number of people it has now, when the fastest method of communication was a horse and the majority of it&amp;#x27;s populace were farmers.&lt;p&gt;There are a few simple things that could be done right now to fix the US government (abolish the EC and gerrymandering to start with), but no one has the political will to do it.</text></item><item><author>tathougies</author><text>Why have we as a people allowed our past three administrations to continue to rule by fiat? Ultimately, these are probably perfectly reasonable ideas,  but this kind of action must come from the legislature.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>veeralpatel979</author><text>I hate gerrymandering too. More competitive elections, in my view, makes politicians less partisan and incentivizes them more to deliver for their districts.&lt;p&gt;But who should determine who draws electoral lines? Right now, it&amp;#x27;s in the hands of elected officials, so you can at least vote them out if they gerrymander.&lt;p&gt;If electoral lines are drawn by a nonpartisan commission, who appoints the commission? How do you ensure the members of the commission stay nonpartisan? Can the public hold members of this commission accountable?&lt;p&gt;Definitely our current system is broken; what are some alternatives to elected officials drawing electoral lines that are promising?</text></comment>
<story><title>Trump to Sign Executive Order Waiving Key Environmental Laws</title><url>https://e360.yale.edu/digest/president-trump-to-sign-executive-order-waiving-key-environmental-laws</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>cgrealy</author><text>Because your system of government is so fundamentally broken it barely even qualifies as a democracy anymore?&lt;p&gt;All the systems built into the US government were designed for a country with 1% the number of people it has now, when the fastest method of communication was a horse and the majority of it&amp;#x27;s populace were farmers.&lt;p&gt;There are a few simple things that could be done right now to fix the US government (abolish the EC and gerrymandering to start with), but no one has the political will to do it.</text></item><item><author>tathougies</author><text>Why have we as a people allowed our past three administrations to continue to rule by fiat? Ultimately, these are probably perfectly reasonable ideas,  but this kind of action must come from the legislature.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>JPKab</author><text>I support abolition of the EC, but only if there is some form of geographic weighting (ideally a smart one) that doesn&amp;#x27;t allow a handful of cities to dominate the Federal gov&amp;#x27;t.&lt;p&gt;I understand that this sounds crazy to people, but as a resident of Colorado who occasionally enjoys marijuana, a substance that my state allows but the Federal gov&amp;#x27;t has long outlawed, I like the fact that the current system puts a higher emphasis on winning over broader regions of the country without just focusing on cities.&lt;p&gt;Obviously, I want it to be more of a sane weighting.  My concern with not having some form of geographic weighting is that it sets up the USA not for some dramatic Civil War 2 that some people envision, but instead for a peaceful secession of certain regions who would end up going decades without having a voice in the Federal gov&amp;#x27;t.&lt;p&gt;Most Americans don&amp;#x27;t have a strong grasp of WHY the Senate was made the more powerful chamber of Congress.  It was done over the objections of the two largest, most powerful states at the time (Virginia and Pennsylvania) at the demand of Connecticut, Delaware, Rhode Island, Mass, etc.&lt;p&gt;They explicitly stated that they were worried that Philadelphia, New York City, etc would dominate the Federal Gov&amp;#x27;t and permanently ignore the smaller states who were irrelevant to the power process.  It&amp;#x27;s an odd situation, because the Federal Gov&amp;#x27;t of the US was a creation of the state governments, not vice versa like many Europeans seem to think.&lt;p&gt;Obviously, the current EC is pretty silly and feels arbitrary and unjust.  But I don&amp;#x27;t foresee there being a single US nation without some mechanism to prevent a massive, contiguous chunk of the country from being permanently alienated from the legislative process.  The history books are pretty clear on the longevity of empires whose governments ignore citizens outside of their urban centers.  You can drive from Mexico to Canada in the US without driving through a single state that Hillary won in 2016.  I don&amp;#x27;t see those people putting up with 6 elections in a row of defeat for their candidate.  They frankly are already combative as it is.&lt;p&gt;Ironically, many states in the US already have this issue within their own governments.  The citizens of upstate New York are pretty much ignored at the expense of the citizens of New York City.  Property taxes reflect this.  My home state of Colorado is so dominated by Denver that a minimum wage law was enacted that ignores the vast differences in cost of living across the state, forcing small businesses in tiny towns with extremely low rents to pay as if their employees live in the relatively expensive Denver metro area.  The Denver Post, which is absolutely not a conservative rag, opposed the minimum wage law&amp;#x27;s implementation due to this fact.</text></comment>