Guillotine Party!

Universal healthcare, securities tax, punitive top-tier income tax. We can get rid of these parasites like we got rid of the robber barons, or we can do it like the French got rid of their first and second estate.

True, true. Today, there is entirely too much silicon in their circuitry. Copper was - and is - a far more reliable means of delivering power to compressor.

They might have a good collision rating, but their decision to use electric door handles, (and hiding the manual ones) has killed a bunch of people.

The urban states greatly outnumber the rural states in the house, and California has fewer than the optimal persons per congressional district, meaning they are slightly overrepresented. The fact that 52 > 1 tells me that Montanans are not dictating policy to California.

I understand what you're trying to say, but the fact is that even if Montana were able to build a coalition of the 26 smallest states, they would not be able to enact law without support from several of the larger states. Especially if California opposed the measure.

My mom's deep freezer has been in her garage for 30+ years, reaching ambient temperatures as low as -30C.

Send it.

Replying here again to take the discussion a different direction... What if instead of each representative casting a single vote, they instead acted as a proxy, and cast one vote for each member of the district they represent? The Wyoming representative at large would cast 584,057 votes on every issue in the house. The Delaware representative would cast 989,948 votes. Vermont, 643,077 votes in the house.

Right, like "democracy".

What is the form of government of the fictional nation of Panem?

I would not describe Panem as a democracy, as the satellite districts have no effective voice in their own governance. Panem is missing anything resembling a Senate. There is no means for the satellite districts to limit or reject the imposition of the capitol district.

Currently we have a system where a minority of the people tell the rest what to do...

That is absolutely false. California is free to establish law for Californians, regardless of what Montana has to say about it. California doesn't have to listen to Montana.

Why did you feel you needed a mobile crematorium?

Would you consider that more "republican"?

Not at all. A government where the senate is eliminated, and California is free to impose itself against the will of Wyoming and Montana would be "populist" at best, and there are much more fitting terms. Not Democratic; Not a Republic. Eliminate the Senate, and you have Panem.

Populism is two wolves and a sheep voting on dinner. Democracy is what keeps the sheep off the ballot.

The vast majority of human history disagrees...

The vast majority of human history involved dictatorial regimes imposing their will on the unwilling. Democracy is a fairly recent development.

You certainly can establish a government without the consent of the governed, but you cannot reasonably describe such a government as "democratic".

Trying to fix our original system of government and update it for modern day iis like trying to turn a race horse into a Formula 1 racecar...

Democracy is government by consent of the governed. That means if you want to govern Wyoming and Montana, you have to get a majority of Wyoming and Montana residents to agree to your plan. And if every decision is going to be made by California, regardless of their local opposition, why the hell would they agree to be unilaterally ruled from afar? Why wouldn't they maintain their own sovereignty and independence from you, and govern themselves?

California certainly has no problem establishing laws for itself that the rest of the country broadly reject.

No you don't, because the House still favors small rural states after we froze the number.

That is only partially accurate. Mathematically, the ideal congressional district will have 761,169 people.

States smaller than x=761,169 are overrepresented. Wyoming, Vermont, and Alaska are the only states that meet this criteria. Wyoming has 584,057 people for its at-large district. Wyoming residents have about 1.3 times the house representation as a person in California.

You also need to consider that Single-district states between 761,170 and 1,522,338 (2x) are underrepresented. They have more than enough people for a single district, but not quite enough people to warrant a second district. These are North Dakota, South Dakota, and Delaware. South Dakota has 919,318 people. A South Dakota resident has 0.83 the representation in the house that a California resident has.

Similarly, 2-district states smaller than 1,522,338 are are overrepresented. These are Hawaii, New Hampshire, Maine, Montana, and Rhode Island.

2-district states larger than 1,522,338 are underrepresented. These are Idaho and West Virginia.

The way the math works out, the larger the state, the less the deviation between actual and optimal representation. Interestingly, California is slightly overrepresented relative to the ideal district size.

Exactly. Eliminate the Senate, and you have Panem: An urban Capitol district unilaterally controlling the rural satellite districts.

It's not genocide if they aren't people.

--Trump, Probably

The Onion buys rightwing conspiracy theory site Infowars with plans to make it ‘very funny, very stupid’

They're halfway there already.

It's 1/7th your age plus 2, right?

Certainly. Most of the 20th century, the top tier tax rate was set at a level that can only be described as "punitive". It was higher than 90% to kill off the robber barons.

While I am not morally opposed to beheading rich people, we really need to go back to the tax rates we had in the 50's. And add a securities tax, payable in shares of that security, that the IRS can liquidate slowly over time.

The Tea Party did not spoil a GOP election. The GOP caved and adopted their platform.

The Democratic Party will do the same thing with the Guillotine Party.

We have already seen a third party take over a major party. The current problem with the GOP is because it absorbed the Tea Party.

With the right symbol to rally behind, we can do the same thing to the Democratic party. We need to build the Guillotine Party.

Just like GOP refugees created the Tea Party, we need to rally around the greatest symbol of the French Revolution, and build a Guillotine Party.