Senate Vacancies Raise Questions of Framers’ Intentions [repeal the 17th Amendment]

Roll Call ^ | 2009-10-05 | John W. Truslow III

[gargoyle]

...Why would years instead of months be worse? If the state legislators can’t compromise on a candidate, let them go out of business. I can think of some states that should do so, especially in respect to the electoral college, for the election of POTUS...

[April Lexington]

Our 50 states need to become soveriegn again. Either the states reel in federal dictatorial power or the people will do it for them...

[MARTIAL MONK]

The North and South developed completely differently. At the end of the Civil War there was a 15% advantage for the North in literacy. Fifteen percent in literacy is the difference between Hong Kong and Honduras. Literacy in the North was enforced with an excellent school system. Schools in the South were poor and rare except for North Carolina.. The school year was of short duration. The goal for most was to read the Bible and no further schooling was required. The Northeast was the most educated society on Earth and churned out minor technological by the thousands and major ones by the hundreds. The South invented KY Jelly for mules.

After the Civil War the Freedman's Bureau opened thousands of schools for black and white. When Reconstruction collapsed the South closed them. The South remained grossly uneducated, a condition that carries through to this day, despite the gap closing somewhat. The South was not amenable to any but the most basic of manufacturing.

New York may be bleeding entrepreneurs but it is attracting more. It is still the financial capital of the world. That goes to show how resilient capitalism is. It can survive corruption, taxes, Sarbanes-Oxley and a thousand other bodyblows but it keeps on keeping on. It may be crippled but it still functions.

[metesky]

Pingaroo, Boss...

[dajeeps]

Thank you so much for giving me a glimpse into what the south is like. I have lived in CA and NY, but have never made my way down there.

It sounds like there are a lot of untapped resources down there that with a little bit of development could end up blowing the doors off any of the blue states in a competitive sense. The past does not have to dictate the future.

[Jim Robinson]

ping

[Jeff Head]

We must return our nation to the constitutional principles and limited governmance enumerated by the founders, with an equal seperation of powers bewteeen the three federal branches of government...but also with equal emphasis placed on seperation of powers between the states and the federal branches of government.

The 17th amendment put a big hole in that, and it needs to be repealed with an amendment that sets it back. Let the states elect the Senators through their own legislatures, but not through popular vote, so that that seperation and influence and power of the states over the federal government can be restored.