An Arcane Electoral College

    When the Founding Fathers laid the foundation for America, they wanted to avoid the danger of  “mob rule.”  The safeguards against the tyranny of the majority included electing representatives to filter popular thought and electing the president through the Electoral College.  Without the electoral college, America would chose its president in the fashion of a direct democracy.  By giving the people the complete power to chose the president, an abolition of the electoral college demolishes the precautions implemented by the founders against the tyranny of the 51 percent.  The Electoral College has the power to make decisions contrary to the voice of the people if they deem it foolish.  For example, if the majority of people elected a president who would take money away from rich to give to the poor, the Electoral College would have the power to ignore the popular vote and using their wisdom elect a president who they consider as a better leader.
    While the Electoral College takes power away from the people, it gives it to the states.  Congressmen Ron Paul points out the danger of throwing away the Electoral College by saying that, “A candidate receiving a large percentage of the popular vote in California and New York could win a national election with very little support in dozens of other states!”  Because the densely populated states would have the upper hand, in a sans-Electoral College only a few states could control the election of the president.  Delegating the authority of electing the president to the states, the Electoral College gives smaller states a slim disproportional advantage over the larger states.  By placing a limit on the power of large states and their interests, the Electoral College protects the smaller states.
    If this is the reason for the Electoral College, the question of whether it is still applicable remains.  Some protest the Electoral College by saying that it is arcane and unnecessarily confusing.  Challengers of the Electoral College complain about the disproportional nature of the  system.  Applying the same logic to congress, the senate should be abolished, because it also disproportionately represents the American people with two senators per state no matter what the  population.  Consistent opponents will recognize that criticism of the Electoral College inadvertently leads to criticism of the structure of the Senate.  Nevertheless, many doubt the propriety of a pure or direct democracy, though some support it.  The discarding of the safeguards implemented by the founders would prove to be detrimental to the nation.
    Advocates of the Electoral College must make one large assumption that the electors are more knowledgeable and wiser than the public.  If the electors have the same intelligence and understanding as the people, there is no point in having an Electoral College.  The same is true of congress.  When the Founding Fathers formed the American government, they assumed that the American people would choose men to lead them that are more knowledgeable and experienced than themselves.
    Nonetheless, in theory the Electoral College protects and gives voice to the diminutive states.  At the same time, it grants more power to the individual states rather than the people in order to avoid the tyranny of the 51 percent.

Protecting Life for Women and Children

    Steve Benen clearly wrote the article, “The poorly-named ‘Protect Life Act’” to a like-minded audience.  His purpose is to complain about the conduct of the Republicans, not to convince someone that opposes him.  He believes that the Protect Life Act will ironically cause the death of many women.
    Benen reprimands the GOP for not focusing on jobs bills, but ‘trivial’ anti-abortion legislation.  The social issue of abortion, however trivial in Benen’s perception, is profound for Republicans.  What he calls a culture war, to the Republicans is a war to save American lives.  I cannot expect Benen to sympathize with the Republicans, but I wish he could at least recognize why Republicans are so concerned with the issue.  On the other hand, Republicans must also recognize and deal patiently with Democrats who view the issue with apathy.  Taking into consideration his audience, Benen’s pejorative language is acceptable, but calling the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act odious and the Protect Life Act trivial will not sit well with the opposition.
    Benen’s second paragraph infers that Republicans are promoting this bill solely because they promised critical voters that they would fight to end the federal funding of abortion.  Perhaps, he is correct, but he does not elaborate or support this speculation.  Benen’s comment is not backed up by fact.  He could easily make the argument that the Republicans cannot expect to pass this bill over the threat of President Obama’s veto.   As a futile effort,  Republican’s Protect Life Act may be considered a waste of time; however, he makes no such comment.  
    Benen accurately states the position of the Protect Life Act: “Proponents want to empower hospitals to simply let the woman die.”  Under this act, if a woman’s life was endangered because of her pregnancy, she would be denied the option of abortion; however, like many other pro-abortion advocates, Benen spends time on this extremely rare case.   Because of scientific innovations in the medical field, the awful case where a woman must choose between her own life or the life her child is extremely rare.  By examining this case, Benen attempts to argue that this obscure case would be common.  In his understanding, the Protect life bill actually would kill more people.  Benen assumes that an unborn child is not a human and does not deserve human rights.  Given his audience, this assumption is most likely shared by the majority of his readers.  However, if one assumes a pre-born child is human, this opposition would note that the death rates among little ones (fetus in Greek) significantly out numbers the deaths of mothers during pregnancy.  Nevertheless, an anti-abortionist and pro-abortionist will have a difficult time in  debating when their assumptions are so different.  The Dawn Laguens statement assumes that abortions, unlike live births, are beneficial to women's health.  The opposition would question this belief. 
    Although the last two assumptions given in this article are shared by the author and his readers, their validity is presupposed.  His reasoning begins with assumptions considered false to many. Neither can a little one cannot be both human and inhuman, nor can abortion be safer than birth and birth be safer than abortion.  Benen chooses not to deal with the truth or even attack the opposition.  Instead of forming concessive arguments against his opposition, Benen preaches to his choir by merely telling his audience what they already know and what they want to hear.  He does not contribute to the debate or empower his readers to enter the argument.