How are mail-in ballots protected from fraud? I keep hearing that fraud is not a problem, but I'm wondering (a) how do we know there is little fraud; and (b) what mechanisms make it safe from fraud?
"Democracy" and "the will of the people" are abstractions, and pretty crude ones, at that.
I'm not saying that we shouldn't have democracy, but we should acknowledge that it is far from perfect. As Churchill said, "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others."
Democracy is also not a scale-free process. Very different dynamics play out in a democracy the size of a city versus a state versus the size of a nation.
It's hard to explain briefly, but basically all of these separations of powers are designed to avoid some of the worst aspects of democracy. They happen to look less "fair" in an abstract sense, but it's more important to have some practical safeguards than abstract fairness.
A lot of our most heated political battles are playing out at the federal level (and have been for a long time), and I think that's a consequence of the 16th and 17th Amendments. If some of these battles were playing out in the states, I think our society would be a lot less polarized.
Think about it this way: collecting taxes from states was a two-party relationship. The states were compelled to pay in this transaction, but it's still two parties on opposite sides of the table, and their are other topics to negotiate later. If the federal government were to play an obvious game of taking money and then giving it back with conditions, then states would have exerted their power in other transactions. For instance, with senators who were chosen by the state legislature (the same body paying the taxes). Additionally, the state is a stronger entity to fight back against this kind of abuse than an individual citizen.
Now, let's change the picture to directly-elected senators and direct taxation. Now, the money is collected directly from the citizens first, and then the government's relationship with the state is entirely different. Now, the state and the federal government are cooperating, and the sucker is the one not in the room: the citizen whose money is being passed around. The state just becomes a node in a hierarchy, rather than a formidable agent with its own powers and responsibilities.
It's actually very similar to negotiations with a public employees' union. The government and the union are "negotiating", but they are really on the same side of the table. The sucker is the citizen who's paying for it all, but isn't even in the room.
I am confused about what you mean. First, the federal government clearly has authority over international commerce. Second, the price of drugs in legal markets would be much lower, which would likely reduce revenue for criminal gangs in foreign lands. Third, the U.S.-Mexico border is long and it's hard to enforce smuggling laws, anyway. And fourth, Americans are quite capable of producing drugs on their own, and even more so if they were legal.
The biggest flaw when reasoning about government is overestimating how well democracy works as a method of solving problems.
If everyone agrees about the major stuff, and you just need to finally make a decision on what color to paint the bike shed, democracy is great. A decision gets made, enough people are happy, and you move on.
But when you have real differences, you need a way to protect minorities against large coalitions of voters. Even if you aren't in a minority today, shifting politics (and divide-and-conquer politicians) will ensure that you are in a minority soon enough.
And it's even worse when society is polarized, because the coalitions form too quickly and too strongly.
But limiting the power of the majority is hard. The Constituion is genius because they recognized that and divded the power so many different ways. The protection of political minorities is much more important than the small amount of additional abstract fairness you get with direct elections.
This is why direct taxation (16th Amendment) was a mistake. It allows the federal government to take away the citizens' money first, and then give it back to the states, with conditions.
If the federal government had to collect from the states, then there would be more oversight and power for states to say "wait a minute, why are we giving you money and then begging to get it back".
In theory, the result could be the same. Congress could still pass spending bills and give the money over with conditions. But in practice I think states would be in a more powerful negotiating position.
Federal drug laws were upheld on the grounds that they are regulating interstate commerce ("regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;").
The idea that growing plants on your own land for your own consumption would some how fall under this legislative power is ridiculous. It's not "flexibility", it's fraud.
What are the consequences to people in Tulsa who aren't tribe members? Landowners who aren't tribe members? Can the tribe expel them and confiscate the land?
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
That would keep the pesky federal government out of our personal affairs.
What is the financing and implementation plan? Will it be donor-funded, publicly-funded, or are they looking into some revenue options?
If I donate now, what will the money be used for? Will it put green sand on beaches, or be used for bureaucratic paperwork, or be used for marketing to raise awareness?
I've been wondering for a while whether the concept of "open source" and its connection to freedom are becoming meaningless.
Source code has been a dynamic thing for a while, and I think that's part of the reason the GPL (at least v2) is not very popular any more. I mean, nobody really even wants source code, it's just a maintenance headache.
Even after complexity started to take over, there was still the argument that you could audit your computer if it was doing something funny, or ask a different company to maintain it for you, instead. But that seems less and less practical as time goes on. The company that wrote the software is really the only game in town to keep it useful.
Snaps are a logical extension of this phenomenon. They cross a line in the sand, perhaps, but basically just continue a trend already going on.
Also, the unix security model seems fundamentally bad. The idea that any code you execute can delete everything in your home directory is insane. It imposes a huge burden of trust on your software distribution system for the most trivial things. That reduces the practicality of using third-party sources.
I'm not really defending snaps and I will probably avoid them as long as I can. But I sort of feel like the battle might already be lost.