[dylan604]

Born in the country lessens the likelihood that you are beholden to more than one master. Born in another country then naturalized still does not rule out sleeper agent situations. Seems pretty obvious to me.

I'm one that questions the whole pledge of allegiance forced to be recited by children that have no wherewithal to understand what allegiance even means or the ramifications of that pledge. Yet, I'm okay with born in country and of a minimum age.

[kennysoona]

> Born in the country lessens the likelihood that you are beholden to more than one master.

Not in the modern world it doesn't.

[n4r9]

The UK's recent prime minister Boris Johnson was born in the US two British parents who happened to be studying in Manhatten at the time. They all moved back here a few months later. The idea that he could be some sort of US sleeper agent is hilarious, though.

[eru]

Well, formally the Prime Minister is just some random bloke appointed by king to help him run the country. The PM doesn't even need to be a member of parliament!

Now the king, that guy can't even be catholic! And until recently, couldn't even be female with living brothers.

[n4r9]

Tradition does dictate that the PM is an MP, and tradition in UK parliament is pretty binding. However, an MP does not even need to be a British citizen: an Irish or a Commonwealth citizen can become an MP and go on to command the confidence of the house.

[eru]

> Tradition does dictate that the PM is an MP, and tradition in UK parliament is pretty binding.

I hope it stays that way.

The US had pretty strong traditions in politics, too, but they are increasingly being eroded.

To give an example that's hopefully far enough in the past to be non-controversial: when they banned alcohol in the early 1920s, they felt that their constitution did not already explicitly give their federal government the power to do so. So they passed the 18th amendment to give the feds that power to specifically ban alcohol.

Decades later, in the context of the war on drugs, everybody seems to take it for granted that the federal government can obviously ban arbitrary substances.

[BrandoElFollito]

And yet when you look at the great espionnage stories, the perpetrators were citizens of the country.

When you look at people who were "almost born" (came to the country as toddlers) or naturalized because of the love of their new country, purple claiming that they are second category citizens are hard to listen to.

[dylan604]

Maybe because the policy exists that people have not so easily been able to get to the top position. Remove that policy and Putin himself could run for the office. It's an idiotic comment for an idiotic misunderstanding of why the policy exists

[eru]

> Remove that policy and Putin himself could run for the office.

And I say, if the American people want Putin to be president (and Putin is willing to take the job), they deserve him.

At least, if you believe in democracy.

If you don't believe in Democracy, I suggest putting some obscure German house of nobles on the throne.

[BrandoElFollito]

You seem to put people in the category of "born here, so good" and "birn elsewhere, less good". Fair enough.

If you are a supporter of, say, Trump you therefore say that Biden or Harris are much better than any other, naturalized citizen, as presidents?

It's hard to see the logic here, probably because I am an idiot, but if where you were birn defines the man for you then fine - everyone has their opinion.

[dylan604]

it's so unamerican it is part of the constitution that defines america and deliberately placed there by the founding fathers. i'm sure they were concerned that the king would try to undermine the new country the first chance he got by placing someone loyal to the crown to undo all of the work that led to the constitution.

it's not a good better best situation like you seem to think. at this point, i really think the unwilling to see how attempting to limit the new nation from being led by a foreign operative would be so important to the survival of the new nation. only, new is now 200+ years old (yet still a babe in the woods to other national histories) so the "threat" seems lessened by people like you.

i also started the entire thread by stating we have a foreign operative in place now, so if you can't read between those lines in who i didn't vote for then you're really just being deliberately obtuse about the situation is the only logical explanation i can see.

[vkou]

> it's so unamerican it is part of the constitution that defines america and deliberately placed there by the founding fathers.

Apparently, as of last year, the constitution also says that the president is actually above the law. Given that they've written it after having just gotten rid of a king, I'm assuming they also put that part in deliberately. Truly, their wisdom and foresight was boundless.

It's an interesting document, but as time passes, its practical uses seem to become more and more limited. We're now at the 'people are getting disappeared into a gulag in El Salvador because the president decided they are criminals' stage, by the way. No judge, no jury, just an executive order that makes a person go away, and no mechanism to stop it from happening.

(I don't actually have strong opinions about that provision. It's certainly saving us from, heaven forbid, a Musk presidency, but only by an utterly uninteresting accident of his birth. People like him aren't foreign adversaries, trying to subvert the country, they are domestic adversaries, who bear no allegiance but to themselves.)

[eru]

> Born in another country then naturalized still does not rule out sleeper agent situations. Seems pretty obvious to me.

Voters can take these things into consideration when casting their ballots. No need to make these choices for them.

[kelnos]

I think recent events in the US make it quite clear that voters don't really consider the things that actually matter when electing a president.

[Lanolderen]

Choose your evil:

Elect a dynasty to rule forever

Limit voting rights of group X,Y and Z to get "better" votes

Remain with the rule of the majority system

Elect ChatGPT to rule forever with a "be nice pls" prompt

[eru]

Well, you could at least move to Approval voting instead of first past the post.

Or you could try sortition, which you haven't even considered at all.

[Lanolderen]

The dream is probably dynamic voting through some login system where it's not done every X years but whenever you decide to change your vote maybe using ATMs as physical voting terminals for accessibility. Then voters can change their mind at any time and cause a change in leadership should the vote not be corrected over Y time. Then on top of that you can add multiple parties, individual person voting, etc. It probably won't happen in my lifetime since governments aren't built to be flexible\agile but one can dream.

[dylan604]

Good gawd that's a nightmare system. Election by mood based polling.

So if a person's poll numbers drop below some threshold, they are automatically recalled? Do you then set a minimum amount of time to keep the polling below that threshold. 0s? 24hrs? 1 week? You've now also limited the number of eligible voters to those with cards that work in ATMs, so people with some form of wealth which is probably in line with how the framers intended

[eru]

That's a nice dream. Let me shatter it: what you suggest might make policy reflect public opinion better, yes. But alas, public opinion is crazy and we can be lucky that policy by and large isn't quite as crazy.

Have a look at Bryan Caplan's "The Myth of the Rational Voter" for more background.

[ClayShentrup]

i co-founded the center for election science, which promotes approval voting.

my alternative proposal to simple sortition is election by jury. https://www.electionbyjury.org/

[eru]

That's interesting!

Though I would just directly fill up parliament with a few hundred MPs picked at random from among volunteers.

Parliament can then make laws and pick leaders for the executive (like in Germany or the UK).

As a slight complication, I would allow people to pre-declare proxies that would sit in parliament for them. Proxy declaration season would be akin to traditional election season.

---

In the UK or Germany, this way you could keep most of the existing political architecture intact. You'd just change how MPs get selected. Compared to your proposal, you also get the benefit of the law of large numbers, and you don't have to have a judge etc.

I would argue against picking a singular leader at random, just because the variation is too high. But in the US, you could re-use much of the existing system: fill up the electoral college at random.

You could take inspiration from the 'National Popular Vote Interstate Compact' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Intersta... for how to accomplish that gradually.

The US house of representatives and senate probably have enough members that you could bank on the law of large numbers.

[ClayShentrup]

do approval voting now.

fight for election by jury tomorrow. https://www.electionbyjury.org/

[eru]

Sure, that's a defensible position, too.

In that case, I suggest finding some obscure German house of nobles and putting them on the throne. Works reasonably ok for the UK.

[vkou]

> Born in the country lessens the likelihood that you are beholden to more than one master.

This may have held true sometime in the 17th century, but it really doesn't in the 21st.

[the_clarence]

And yet elon musk an immigrant is currently the president

[eru]

At least he's an African American.