Correlation between income inequality and a partisan Congress.

[MagisterCultuum]

You could just not bother with districts, but use at large vote with proportional representation.

Alternately you could go so far as Professor Bernardo de la Paz suggested in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (which I just read last week) and forgo elections entirely in favor of selecting representatives by petition, possibly giving representatives unequal voting power based on the number of their supporters. That way no congressman would represent any minority that opposes his policies, and all minority groups could select alternative representatives.

 

[Cutlass]

Proportional representation is too radical a change to have any real chance of success in the foreseeable future.

As for the other, that's effectively like governance by referendum. And California demonstrates what a failed concept that is. You would get a government that did only what organized special interests wanted, and never considered the good of the whole at all.

 

[Cutlass]

"We shall not have any course but armed revolution should we fail with the power of the vote in November. This Republic cannot survive for 4 more years underneath this political socialist ideologue."
—

Ponch McPhee, editor of the Green County, Virginia, Republican Committee newsletter


The last time we had this level of partisanship, 600,000 Americans were killed by it.

 

[IdiotsOpposite]

Cutlass, I do hope that in your talks about "area", you also wish to minimize perimeter. Minimizing area is all well and good, but the truly wacky districts have a regularly sized area but a massive perimeter.

 

[Cutlass]

Yeah, that too.

 

[BasketCase]

I think gerrymandering would be actually quite easy to ban. Just lay down a few basic rules

The rules you listed were kinda complicated. So that there can be no monkeying with the system:

"Thou shalt make each district a square ten miles on a side."

End of problem.

 

[civ_king]

http://voteview.com/polarizedamerica.asp

Most of us hate the gridlock. Most of us are offended that politicians will leave their most touted positions to declare such positions anti-American just to score points. And it seems such times correlate to a rise in income inequality.

What's the cause? What's the solution? Is there a positive feedback loop?

correlation≠causation, see post #4

 

[Hygro]

correlation≠causation, see post #4

Are you sure? Because I'm pretty sure in my stats textbook it says it does.

 

[BasketCase]

Then your stats textbook has a typo in it.

Counterexample: every time a house is on fire, a fire truck shows up nearby. Obviously that means fire trucks cause fires, right?

Correlation does not imply causation. Thing A could be causing thing B, or in reality thing B could be causing thing A--OR, it's also possible things A and B are both being caused by something else entirely!

 

[Hygro]

omg I was kidding. We're already talking about it being a correlation, civ_king. But just because correlation does not equal causation doesn't mean that correlation can't include a causal agent. What this thread is discussing is a possible causal agent. Now you might make the case that there isn't a causal agent, but an appeal to statistics is useless if the appeal isn't actually valid...

 

[BasketCase]

Whoops! Forgot something.

Thing A could be causing thing B, or in reality thing B could be causing thing A--OR, it's also possible things A and B are both being caused by something else entirely!

Turns out there are FOUR options. The fourth option: thing A and thing B could be completely unrelated, and the supposed correlation between them, a coincidence.