I'm sure you're manning the barricades Cool Rick. No doubt at all.

I loled

The fact that people share interests across the country does not change the fact that representatives vote in the interests of single member districts. Obviously there's lots of shared interests but in a single member district system people still reasonably expect to be represented.

I must finish grading before tomorrow morning, I'm telling you this so you don't imagine I have conceded the point!

Have a good night JB.

It's not joint interests, that's why we get eleven representatives instead of one!

This gets back to my point about proportional representation. You're tallying the consequences as if we Congress worked in a way that it demonstrably does not. I guess that's still consequentialism, but it's what... hypothetical consequentialism?

Right I certainly agree that the Texas decision hurt Virginians and people in other states in addition to really, really hurting Texas Democrats.

Whose welfare matters?

These are people. Yes?

Right. People who live in the western part of the state and are largely Republicans lose.

This assumes Virginians are better off in an situation where they're not represented in Congress than they are in a situation where they are represented in Congress but a lot of Texans aren't. That seems completely insane unless you think the welfare of western Virginians don't count.

I am realizing that some of the disagreement over Virginia is that a lot of people identify more with national parties than the communities they live in. This seems problematic.

If TX defects, TX loses. If VA defects, VA loses, if TX and VA defect, TX and VA both lose. This is simply not the payoff structure of the prisoner's dilemma. It's the wrong mental model. Antidemocratic decisions are harming both states.

That would be great!

*game

Yes, this is why that was bad.

I have no compunction against hurting them.

The nomenclature of "cooperate" is that I'm conceding something to them at a cost to me. I think we are conceding to them if we play their came on gerrymandering.

Maybe you're the one cooperating with fascism, in other words. Worth considering.

As I said, you are imagining one payoff structure and I am imagining another payoff structure and of course it looks like I don't understand game theory if I'm playing a different payoff structure...

...but then you look like you don't understand either by that standard!

All strategies - gerrymandering Virginia or not - are predicated on the assumption that there's little that we can do until after the midterms. In the meantime, keep gigantic No Kings pressure and influence the midterms. After the midterms we impeach, remove, and prosecute. Right?

People who live in the western part of the state of Virginia didn't redistrict Texas. It seems like we should respond to the administration and the elected officials rather than mimicking them.

They do matter, yes. I said that in the post you are responding to!

I worry the lessons this teaches Republicans is that Americans really genuinely don't care about democracy and the Democrats are ready to cave as soon as the Republicans do.

However you do the calculus on that, none of this is deontological at all. We care about democracy because it produces good results and degrading democracy produces real harms..

Now there is another consideration of sheer partisan control of the House. That's not nothing. And if this decided things it would make the choice harder, but it does not seem like the House will hinge on this.

Texas materially harmed Texas Democrats and our response is to materially harm Virginia Republicans. This does not reduce harm. This is not a consequentialist good! *Unless* you think those harms don't matter.

If there is no harmful consequence to gerrymandering why do we care about Texas in the first place? It's because there is harm.

...yes. That's been my point!

It's not deontological just because it has a phrase like "representative democracy" attached to it.

No the harm is loss of representation in Congress. Real bread and butter representation in a decision making body. It's the fundamental consequentialist case for democracy in a system like ours (if we had proportional representation we wouldn't even be having the conversation).

I think you are deploying "deontological" because there is a articulated principle involved, but that is not what makes deontological ethics. I've never thought of myself as especially deontological and I don't think articulable standards make me one. There are real harms here that's the point.