quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank: Kate: Most conservatives don't have a problem with changing the constitution, since, you know, there's a mechanism for doing so built right in.
What they object to is "changing" (disregarding) the constitution without using that mechanism.
The reason for that has less to do with Moses bringing down the Constitution and more to do with respect for civilization and the law of the land.
In this particular instance, conservatives are strongly opposed to changing the Constitution because while doing the census through sampling will be tons cheaper and a great deal more accurate, a lot of this accuracy will be in counting people in heavily Democratic areas, leading to a larger number of democratic seats in Congress.
It's a case where it is both more fiscally responsible and more in keeping with the spirit of the constitution, but will never get past Republicans because it would be to their political disadvantage. Or at least, that's how it seems to me and I've never actually heard a good argument for why we should not switch to sampling, other than that that is not what is in the Constitution.
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Yes. Anyone who tries to suggest any major politician, much less an entire party, would have a disinterested outlook with that much political weight in the balance is selling something.
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quote:Kate: Most conservatives don't have a problem with changing the constitution, since, you know, there's a mechanism for doing so built right in.
Actually, I'd say they would have more of a problem, given that reluctance to turn away from what the Founders supposedly intended is much more powerful among conservatives.
Well, except if we need to keep the gays from marrying.
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In reading Article 1 Clause 3 of the Constitution I don't see where it says anything about how the census it to be conducted, other than that Congress gets to decide. Am I missing something?
IIRC the West Wing episode on this cast the Republicans has saying that the "whole persons" terminology meant you had to count everyone individually (no sampling), but the Democrats (and Mr. Willis (?)) discussed how this terminology meant "white people" and said nothing about how the count was done.
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quote:Kate: Most conservatives don't have a problem with changing the constitution, since, you know, there's a mechanism for doing so built right in.
Actually, I'd say they would have more of a problem, given that reluctance to turn away from what the Founders supposedly intended is much more powerful among conservatives.
Well, except if we need to keep the gays from marrying.
Maybe I pay attention to the wrong circles, but this is definitely not what I've seen.
I've even seen conservatives specifically rant about how aggravating it is when leftists accuse them of being hypocrites for wanting to change the constitution via an amendment. Because that's how you're supposed to do it.
They more commonly object to what they see as changing or disregarding the constitution through judicial or other extraconstitutional methods.
Squicky, I don't know much about the census issue, so I'm speaking more broadly. Could be that the Republican party is hypocritical on that issue, I have no idea.
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Still, I prefer that to how Whedon does his dialogue. I think you could mix and match half the non plot specific dialogue between shows and you'd never even know which show the banter belonged to.
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