Weighted Democracy

When governments were still young, one guy would sit around and say, "This is what our kingdom will do!" Later on, a few other guys made arrangements so that those few guys could decide what the government will do. Even later, rules were made so that all rich guys could have a say in their government's doings. Then it was all grown men. Then women too. Next...?

These are all examples of weighted democracy. At one point, the richer you were, the more influence you had over the government. Of course that's not at all what happens today (that was sarcasm, of course. Lobbyists are seen by many (i.e. me) as the most powerful branch of the US federal government. But anyway). Later it was shall we say "chromosome-weighted" where your vote was proportional to the number of y-chromosomes you had. Yeah, I skipped over racism, so sue me.

Let me suggest a new way to weight our proportion of control in government: Literal weight. One pound, one vote. According to this chart from the internet, it looks like 30-60 year olds are the heaviest among us. So idealistic cheese-eating liberals under thirty who never worked a day in their lives would get less of a vote, but so would your great grandfather who still makes racist comments at every family reunion. So that about breaks even.

Is one side of the political side fatter than the other? I'unno. There's the perception of cheese-eating, cigarette-smoking, french-type liberals who meet in cafes. And then there's the wal-mart suburbanites. Not sure if either of these fully captures a real demographic, as I myself have been to both a wal-mart and a cafe (and spent about equal amounts of time in each, if you weight by area. But not by volume: wal-mart wins then, with their high ceilings). Anyway, two more charts from the internet: The first shows the US states by fatness. The other shows obama/mccain states in the '008 presidential election.

As you can see, there seems to be a correlation between being fat and being in the South. And the south votes republican usually. Other than that I don't really see any trends. Now the south has roughly one-fourth of the citizens of the US, but it looks like they have a somewhat larger proportion of the weight of the US.

How would this change to our democratic way alter our behaviors? Would we all try to be super-fat, to get more votes? Would pork-barrel projects become more literal, supplying barrels of port to ever-fatter constituents? I don't think so. There would be an optimum each person has to strike between "being happy and fit" vs. "having slightly more political power". In a nation that weighs about fifty BILLION pounds (not an exaggeration), will five more pounds really help you this november? More likely, you'll just chug a few bottles of water right before you vote. Or maybe replace your daily gym visit with a trip to a fast food restaurant during October, which would most likely capitalize on this trend by offering silly-sounding deals like "The Democratizer": two deep-fried chicken patties, a quarter-pound of cheese, and no frilly starches or empty vitamins to fill your stomach up so you can fit the whole thing in there. As Burger King might say, "We're pro-choice: your choice of super-size fries or a thickshake!"