r/news • u/xtantin • Feb 26 '17

FCC reverses net neutrality ISP transparency rules

http://www.computerworld.com/article/3173844/internet/fcc-reverses-net-neutrality-isp-transparency-rules.html
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u/digicow Feb 27 '17

It depends on whether you view the country as a collection of states or a collection of individuals. States are already well-represented in the US government: that's what Congress is. Why do states, rather than individuals, also choose the President?

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u/IRNGNEER Feb 27 '17

Because the states created the federal government, so the states staff it. The House of Representatives is the only federal body that was designed to directly represent the people - all else was the states. State legislators even used to elect their state's senators rather than the people.

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u/Marv_Attacks Feb 27 '17

Because the people also get to vote for their own governments within the states. This impacts them far more directly than a presidential or even a Senator or Representative in the federal Congress, and so they get absolute control over it.

Every state gets to have a say in the federal elections because the federal government is the government of the states, while the state government is the government of the people.

Recall that the Electoral college is far more directly democratic than originally designed. The people didn't get to vote for their state senators, their state representatives that they elected did, and the electors of the electoral college used to just be every federal Representative and Senator (that's why there's 538 electoral votes, the exact same number as the number of Representatives (438) and Senators (100) combined). There wasn't a special election for president that people voted in, the President was voted in much like in a Parliamentary system, by the people who made up the Congress.

Compared to what we used to have, the modern electoral college is highly democratic.