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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 10th, 2023

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  • I don’t know if you realize how condescending it sounds to hear you say you “don’t want to ruin whatever enjoyment she gets out of it” by telling her… what? That you arbitrarily look down on the use of this absolutely grammatical construction?

    The thing that bothers me most about stuff like this is that it is effectively some kind of “gotcha” that makes people feel foolish, like their natural, completely grammatical speech has errors, or something they should feel bad about.











  • I’m not sure what you mean. Of course it’s never happened because we’ve never done it that way.

    If you’re saying that if you go back and calculate previous elections, then it never would have made a difference, that doesn’t mean it could not happen. Growing up I learned that there was only one time in history that the popular vote didn’t match the EC, but now it’s become a constant threat. If it becomes a viable path then eventually it is bound to be exploited.

    What you are talking about simply isn’t functionally equivalent to just straight up popular vote, for the reason I described. Votes are not worth the same amount in different places.



  • The thing is that the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is nothing until it’s all the way there. Having 95% of the necessary electoral votes has the same effect as 0. So there’s no reason for opponents to even care about it until it is within striking distance of the threshold. It seems to me that if we ever reach a point where it comes down to just a state or two, that legislation will be fought tooth and nail, not just in those last states, but there will be fights and legal challenges in states that have already entered the compact to reverse it too. And even if we manage to win the fight and it gets activated, we will still have to keep fighting in perpetuity because almost any state pulling out would undo the whole thing.

    I’m not saying people shouldn’t even try, maybe some good comes of it regardless. It just doesn’t seem like a solution as much as a statement.



  • Totally agree. Even back in the 70s, the wonderful feminist movie/record Free To Be You and Me (with songs like “It’s All Right to Cry” sung by an NFL player) was at least as much about men not being defined a certain way as it was about women.

    I think one hurdle for men right off the bat is the fact that it’s called “feminism”. That makes it clear that it has something to offer women, but doesn’t make it obvious that it has something to offer men too, so they don’t give it an open mind.

    (I’m not actually saying that I think the name should change, and in fact the movement could potentially drift away from its core mission over time if the name didn’t have women as the focus. Just saying it’s a hurdle.)