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Comment by zeveb | Hacker News Reader

> Why not have a legislature where every member is chosen based on a vote of the whole nation?

Because then whichever party currently has the support of the majority of the country would win every seat. Yes, you could do things like stagger elections, but overall I think it'd be worse: say each representative has a six-year term and there are six annual elections, you basically have six blocs in Congress instead of 435 members.

And of course the United States comprise a federal republic; most issues simply shouldn't be federal, and the vast majority are definitely not national. Who outside of Massachusetts cares if Massachusetts makes wearing a leek on St. David's Day compulsory or forbidden?

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"Because then whichever party currently has the support of the majority of the country would win every seat."

That is incorrect. Every democracy that I'm aware of, which uses national voting, also has proportional representation based on the vote. The rules vary from country to country, but generally speaking, if a party gets 10% of the vote, then it gets 10% of Parliament. If they get 43% of the vote, then they get 43% of Parliament.

About this:

"most issues simply shouldn't be federal"

This is a straightforward assertion of nostalgia, regarding an era that died out more than a century ago. Nowadays nearly all politics is either national or international. Small scale political divisions simply get in the way of efficient government.

Which countries have a nationally elected parliament?

See here:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_representation

Yeah, okay, but the candidates in those parliaments are still selected locally. It's just that the proportion is selected nationally.

> Nowadays nearly all politics is either national or international.

I disagree. Just the politics you hear about. The rest of it is happening all around us, but your local paper went bust.

Local papers going bust is a big part of why politics is so national now.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/all-politics-is-nationa...

Americans historically don't want an efficient government fucking them over efficiently. What do you want to do so efficiently at a national level? National defense, I'd agree, but with nuclear weapons, the early American ideal of no standing army seems like something to go back to.

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