Editing Talk:1127: Congress

Being a stupidly over political (please don't ask me here, this is an xkcd wiki not reddit) kinda guy, this one really interests me. Another one of those amazing visualizations of real-world facts xkcd is so great at. I have no idea what one might write for an explanation that would be useful. Everything is explained in pretty thorough fashion right on the panel... {{unsigned|Renegade4dio}}
:Well, there's always the transcript for us to <strike>waste time</strike> work on. [[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]] ([[User talk:Davidy22|talk]]) 12:36, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

The first thing that is missing is the explanation why there are two houses. Why never three or four?
I get why monarchy only had advisors but opposition varied with whichever branch of the family had most to lose. So there was a never ending and closely focussed stream of opposition, albeit short-lived if unsuccessful.[[User:Weatherlawyer| I used Google News BEFORE it was clickbait]] ([[User talk:Weatherlawyer|talk]]) 18:29, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

;Congress as check

Perhaps a pedantic point, but I couldn't leave the description describing Congress as simply a check on the president.  That would imply that the president has free reign (literally) and that Congress only acts (or, more often, doesn't act) to veto the president.  That is a much more accurate description of the president's role in legislation (or of a pre-modern English Parliament). {{unsigned|208.32.120.10}}

;Typo
There's a typo on the right-hand side of the comic around 1952 - "''Other than these few years after the war; the House [was] under control Democratic control for the entire period ...''". The "was" is missing. [[User:TheHYPO|TheHYPO]] ([[User talk:TheHYPO|talk]]) 15:27, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

;definition of conservative is pejorative

Conservatives are not interested in preserving wealth amongst those who have it - they are interested in creating as many opportunities to create wealth as possible by reducing unwanted government regulation and returning to constitutional limitations (aka 10th ammendment) on Federal power.  A different view of liberty and rights than what liberals maintain, but highly supported - I find your definition to be highly pejorative. [[User:Ghaller825|Ghaller825]] ([[User talk:Ghaller825|talk]]) 18:59, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

:That went completely over my head, but you're entirely welcome to change it if the definition in the article bothers you. [[User:Davidy22|<u><font color="purple" size="2px">David</font><font color="green" size="3px">y</font></u><sup><font color="indigo" size="1px">22</font></sup>]][[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>(talk)</tt>]] 09:16, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

::Perhaps the segment could be changed to say "conservatives believe the government should not interfere with a person's wealth", or something very similar. The resistence to government involvement seems to be more consistent across the various degrees of the modern conservative movement. I'll admit that my suggested statement is also false, because almost everyone believes there should be some amount of taxes, and taxes affect wealth. However, it should be more palatable to the political ideology.

:I understand your offense, Ghaller. On the other hand, the current phrasing using "making wealth" is also a loaded term, as many factory workers would feel that they are "the ones who make it" more than the CEOs, but are certainly not getting more money. I'm not saying I agree with that perspective, just that it's a suggestive statement, and this is not the forum to have an endless debate over it. The unsigned comment above me has the best compromise in my opinion, so I will implement it. [[User:Jerodast|- jerodast]] ([[User talk:Jerodast|talk]]) 18:12, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

;Errors
I notice the following: (1) George H.W. Bush is shown as serving in the Senate. He never made it to the Senate, just the House. (2) Abraham Lincoln appears to be shown as serving in the House for about seven years. He only was there for one term (two years). --[[Special:Contributions/99.14.234.119|99.14.234.119]] 02:18, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

It also lists John A. Garfield in the House from 1862 until his election -- it is James A Garfield, not John.

It lists Abraham Lincoln (and the Republican Party of Lincoln's time in general) as right-leaning, even though it's widely accepted that the Republicans of that era (whose base was made up mostly of Northern abolitionists) were the more liberal party, and the Democrats (whose base was comprised in large part by Southern slave-owners) the more conservative.

;Definition of Liberal

While in the US, liberal might mean left-wing, in the UK it's pretty central and in Australia it's right-wing. Go figure.--[[User:Joe Green|Joe Green]] ([[User talk:Joe Green|talk]]) 04:23, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
:Classical liberalism [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism] is very different from American liberalism; Americans would recognize it more as Libertarianism. --[[User:Prooffreader|Prooffreader]] ([[User talk:Prooffreader|talk]]) 09:12, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

The socialists are well-known for hijacking the good-sounding misleading names. Such as "liberal" in America or "bolshevik" (a made-up word meaning literally "majoritan", a member of majority) in Russia. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.111|108.162.245.111]] 00:10, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

That comment makes it sound like there's some conspiracy behind the left thinking up good names for their movements. The words themselves don't really mean anything. You don't have to go back too far in US history to find 'liberals' and 'socialists' being demonized as spies and traitors, and even today the right is happy to call the left 'liberal' with strong undertones of 'weak'. Leftist are generally better at naming things I'll grant you, but then almost all leftist movements (barring the Khmer Rouge and cultural revolution era china) have had strong ties to both universities and the entertainment industry, people who are used to being persuasive with words so it's not surprising that they came up with nice friendly sounding terms for their movements.[[User:LostAlone|LostAlone]] ([[User talk:LostAlone|talk]]) 12:17, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

;Typo

In the "How Ideology Is Calculated" section, I note "acccounting".--[[User:Joe Green|Joe Green]] ([[User talk:Joe Green|talk]]) 04:23, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

;Conservative?

He didn't exactly say that Conservatives are interested in preserving wealth amongst those who have it; I think the implication is that "if you made it, you should get to keep it" (or as much of it as possible, hence lower taxes). One ''consequence'' of this is that the ''distribution'' of wealth tends to remain static, in that the rich stay rich and the poor stay (relatively) poorer. Whether or not that consequence is an intentional one is perhaps in the eye of the pejoratively-inclined beholder :-)--[[User:Joe Green|Joe Green]] ([[User talk:Joe Green|talk]]) 04:30, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

:I made an edit to that effect, but it appears to have been wiped out by another editor calling it "right-wing trolling". If you would like to try re-wording it, please do. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]] ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 05:05, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

::By changing just a little bit I think I removed most of the negative connotation.[[User:Bugefun|Bugefun]] ([[User talk:Bugefun|talk]]) 05:11, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

;Arteries
Kind of unrelated but the diagram to me looks sort of like arteries and veins, with the red and blue. And the branches look like how they branch off the heart and stuff. [[User:Bugefun|Bugefun]] ([[User talk:Bugefun|talk]]) 05:10, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

;Red inside blue and vice versa
What do the red strands inside the blue section and the blue strands inside the red section represent? It doesn't seem to be explained anywhere.
[[Special:Contributions/199.27.200.82|199.27.200.82]] 14:15, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

:Red on the blue side represents "Conservative Democrats" and Blue on the red side represents "Liberal Republicans". Confusing a bit, but so are both those political terms (lol). It is stated (in small text) on the top right diagram of the comic--[[User:Dangerkeith3000|Dangerkeith3000]] ([[User talk:Dangerkeith3000|talk]]) 14:53, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

;Left vs right - or why this comic is stupid
The traditional definition of left vs right (people attribute all sorts of things to it these days) is the support of change (hence the names progressives vs conservatives, or radicals vs reactionaries). The terminology comes from France where those that advocated reforms to government sat on the left of the chamber and those that wanted to do such things as restore the monarchy sat on the right. Your traditional Burkian conservative (smidgen to the right of the centre) would accept change is inevitable, but must be controlled. To the right of that people that want to maintain the status quo, further right people that want to go back to some "better time". To the left you get the, let change happen as it comes, further left lets make change a "good thing", to the furthest left "lets force change". A large part of the Marxist philosophy is that not only is communism desirable, but inevitable as according to Marx that is the final destination of all societies. Now to my point. Over time the parties have switched sides and often will be left on one issue and right on another. Often the parties themselves were divided (look at the civil rights act's passage) To simply say Democratic Party has always been left and the Republicans have always been is such a gross simplification that is renders the whole image a farce. [[Special:Contributions/192.43.227.18|192.43.227.18]] 01:07, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

;What can we learn from this?
I've learned that our congress (and law in general) is too complex. We are tying to keep outdated laws relevant by using an endless series of exceptions (legally called amendments). I hope someday we will be able to scrap the whole thing and simplify our laws so that our children do not have to spend up to a quarter of their lives learning our mistakes. XKCD, please help us simplify something like law so you don't have to waste your time visualizing something as broken as our understanding of it. - e-inspired [[Special:Contributions/24.51.197.187|24.51.197.187]] 18:36, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

This is something someone needs to contact Randall about. {{unsigned ip|108.162.219.105}}

; Mesage of the day

<div class="toccolours">Today's incomplete explanation of the day is 1127: Congress. Help us fix it!</div>
Yes. We desperately need to fix the Congress... -- [[User:Wesha|Wesha]] ([[User talk:Wesha|talk]]) 19:39, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

It might help to have a corollary chart that tracks gerrymandering, that is the practice of selecting and isolating minority and majority populations in districts so that there is virtually no contest at the time of election. A city can be carved up to include just enough suburban voters to overwhelm what would otherwise have been their political choice. Districts now often resemble convoluted, sinuous serpent creatures rather than geography divided along natural boudaries. If someone could write code that would redraw districts with the following parameters: number of voters, and walking distance to polling places - without regard to income, race, party designation, etc. It would change the map drastically.
At any rate, many districts have been redrawn to control election results. Such a chart would parallel the divisions in congress.[[User:Bralbovsky|Bralbovsky]] ([[User talk:Bralbovsky|talk]]) 00:25, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

Someone could (and probably has) come up with code to do what you suggest, but the courts won't let them use it.  

When districts are drawn without regard to race, some racial groups wind up underrepresented, because they are a substantial percentage of the total population, but are not a majority in a proportional number of districts (for example, if there are 4 districts and they are 25% of the total populations, then they should be able to elect someone from that group in 1 district, but if they are 25% of each district, then members of the other racial group, which is 75% of each district, may get elected in all 4 districts, when it should be just 3).  This is considered unfair and a violation of their right to "equal protection", so districts must be drawn along racial lines to comply with court orders to give these groups fairer representation.

 [[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.190|108.162.215.190]] 16:50, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

----

Not intending to worry anyone, but isn't it annoying that the colours are the wrong way around? In the UK we represent the Tories/Conservatives/Republicans with blue and the Labs/labour/democrats with red. This is why it  fits that the social democratic reforms promoted by social communism a flown on a red flag and the working capitalists and imperial monarchists are represented by a blue flag. Why the other way round? [[User:Raydleemsc|Raydleemsc]] ([[User talk:Raydleemsc|talk]]) 08:05, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

If this chart was about British politics, the colours would be wrong, but in US those are the standard colors for the parties. Blame mass media if you want [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_states_and_blue_states]] [[User:S42ky|S42ky]] ([[User talk:S42ky|talk]]) 18:51, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

:This is actually a pretty recent thing--and a silly one. Traditionally, each news outlet picked colors independently, and they were pretty evenly split among red for Republican or red for Democrat most years. In 2000, when the election was hung waiting on the Florida recount, everyone on TV was pointing at electoral maps on every broadcast. After two days, NBC switched colors. Other outlets began to follow suit, and once most outlets were using the same color scheme, after which pundits started talking about "red states" and "blue states" as shorthand for states where republicans or democrats won, and we've been stuck with that ever since. So, what made NBC change? Either their news director was annoyed that NBC and the Washington Post (the first paper he read in the morning) used opposite colors, or one of their pundits couldn't remember which colors they used and suggested that the alliterative red=Republican would help him stop screwing it up. Whichever of those is true is the ultimate reason red means Republican. [[Special:Contributions/199.27.130.180|199.27.130.180]] 12:24, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

:It's a shame this chart doesn't get updated.  It's going to need some infrared ink over the next 4 years! [[User:SteveBaker|SteveBaker]] ([[User talk:SteveBaker|talk]]) 14:27, 13 December 2016 (UTC)
::Our country is now led by a GOP monopoly... :( If only Sanders had won the Democratic nomination, we might not be in this mess. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.238.17|108.162.238.17]] 03:19, 31 January 2017 (UTC)
::: It would be interesting to see a more updated version of this at this point. Never understood US politics, but I'm under the impression your colour amounts would be looking different over the last few years. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.7.97|162.158.7.97]] 22:09, 5 January 2021 (UTC)