[mikeash]

Why is the rural minority so special? We don’t give other minorities this sort of treatment.

For example, the percentage of rural Americans is similar to the percentage of black Americans. Yet somehow nobody ever argues that black Americans need power disproportionate to their numbers to avoid being trampled.

[bzbarsky]

> Why is the rural minority so special?

It's not about rural vs urban. It's about the assumption that the US is a union of separate _states_ with separate legal structures, cultures, etc, etc. So it's not the "rural minority" that's special; it's states that are special.

Now you may disagree with the premises there, of course. But if one accepts the premises, then one needs a way to prevent "big" states from just imposing their will on "small" ones.

(There are in fact people who argue that black Americans need disproportionate power, and some voting districts are set up to effectively produce that, but that has nothing to do with the setup of the US constitution per se.)

[mikeash]

They called out NYC and LA so I don’t think they were thinking along the same lines you are.

Of course you need this if one accepts the premise that states are special. You’re basically just assuming the conclusion at that point.

I’m not aware of any voting district that’s set up to give black Americans a disproportionately large amount of power. There are some that are deliberately set up to ensure proportionate power.

[barsonme]

I called out NYC and LA because they’re high population areas.

My point is this: delegating power to solely the majority is a bad idea, full stop. In a properly functioning society, the majority needs to work cooperatively with the minority, which means the minority needs some sort of functional advantage (like we have in the US Senate, with respect to states).

How individual states set up this power balance internally is up to them. Obviously I think it should follow a similar model to the one we have at the federal level with our collection of states.

It annoys me when people rag on smaller areas like RI or WY because they get “extra privileges” or some such nonsense when it comes to elections or the US congress.

[mikeash]

This seems to assume that there is some fixed “the minority” that needs to be advantaged in order to be fair, and further that “the minority” corresponds to the smaller states.

In reality, there’s a different minority for every issue. Giving states with low population a disproportionate amount of power doesn’t necessarily balance the minority with the majority. Depending on the issue it may allow the majority to more easily trample the minority, or it may allow a minority to impose its will on the rest.

The solution to requiring cooperation with the minority is to require more than a simple majority to do things. See for example: removal following impeachment, constitutional amendment, treaty ratification, or the de facto situation in the Senate for most legislation at the moment.

[barsonme]

We're a federal republic made up of 50 states plus DC. Balancing the power between _states_ is standard among federal republics (Germany, Switzerland, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, ...).

Federal republics _need_ the power balance among _states_, otherwise there's no point in the states participating in the republic, thus no point in even having a federal republic. If that's your point, fine. But you can't have your cake and eat it too.

How states want to balance out things internally is up to them, and that can be used to help the minority on specific issues.

[mikeash]

A federal structure is a means to an end, not the goal itself. If it doesn’t serve the purpose we want then we should change it.

In any case, even if you take the state as the unit that needs to be balanced, my point stands: you can’t balance “the minority” by picking some arbitrary minority and giving them more power.