jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Someone just sent this to me. It appears to be leftover from the Fourth of July.

http://games.toast.net/independence/

Mac Loc: Pittsburgh, Philadelphia now Hernando Co. Fl.

I got 28 correct, missed #21 and #28.

Ambrose Loc: North America

I got 5 wrong . But I also got an education!

Spoiler....

(The U.S. has NO official language? That threw me).

Blurryeyed Loc: NC Mountains.

Hate to admit it but missed three, impeachment, official language, and who said give me liberty or give me death... hmmm seems that I should have known that one.

heyrob Loc: Western Washington

Missed 2 #23 & #28

oldmalky Loc: West Midlands,England.

I scored 17 and failed

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

For someone from the UK, that's very good. I'm sure there are many Americans who would do worse.

oldmalky Loc: West Midlands,England.

I was never going to get the amendments right and i thought the PRESIDENT was elected by the people, must take more notice
of the American Hogs when they argue politics.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Yeah, the electoral college probably served a purpose at one time, but now it seems like an anachronism. More than once, a candidate has received more votes but has come in second in the two-man race. How would you feel if you won the election, but were not given the office? For strictly political reasons, the politicians refuse to change it.

heyrob Loc: Western Washington

Jerry, many people have the same opinion about the Electoral College that you do, but I believe that that is due to a failure to understand why it was put in the Constitution in the first place.

The reason for the Electoral College was because the founders feared a true democracy, and wanted to put an extra layer of protection between a popular vote and the election of a President. In his book American Democracy Alexis de Tocqueville called this "the tyranny of the majority". The founders distrusted too much power in the hands of one person, and the executive branch is the only branch of our government which rests in the hands one man. Therefore it is the only office which is not elected by a popular vote.

As for situations like the 2000 election where Gore won the popular vote, but lost the election to GWB, this was not so much a problem with the EC itself, since electors are most often loyal to the party who appointed them, but rather how the individual states apportion those electors. In every state but Maine and Nebraska, electors are awarded on a winner-take-all basis. So if a candidate wins a state by even a narrow margin, he or she wins all of the state’s electoral votes.

The Electoral College was not the only Constitutional limitation on direct democracy, but we have discarded most of those limitations, mostly for the best. Senators were initially appointed by state legislatures, while representatives were elected by popular vote. This gave each state government its own representation, but the 17th Amendment made senators subject to direct election. There was a lot of insight that the founders gave us in the constitution, and this change is in my mind a mistake, which I hope is not repeated with elimination of the EC.

Other examples of Constitutional limits on direct democracy that have been eliminated, and for good reason, were that states could ban women from voting, and slaves were only counted as three-fifths of a person. The 14th Amendment abolished the three-fifths rule and granted (male) former slaves the right to vote, while the 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote.

So limiting true democracy is not unusual in the Constitution, and some of it was smart. We are a Republic, because in a true democracy the will of the majority will nearly always trample the rights of the minority. We can all see how well our directly elected representatives follow the will of the people, can't we?

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Right. That's the main thing: have our representatives represent us. If only.

heyrob Loc: Western Washington

LOL, yeah and I'm winning the lottery this week! :)