Resolved: Current Income Disparities Threaten Democratic Ideals

I would like to open with with a few quotes "I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defianceto the laws of our country." : Thomas Jefferson ï¿½€œRepresentative government is artifice, a political myth, designed to conceal from the masses the dominance of a self-selected, self-perpetuating, and self-serving traditional ruling class.ï¿½€ï¿½ ï¿½€• Giuseppe Prezzolini We're not a democracy. It's a terrible misunderstanding and a slander to the idea of democracy to call us that. In reality, we're a plutocracy: a government by the wealthy." : Ramsey Clark, former U.S. Attorney General "If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered." Thomas Jefferson "I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the civilized world. No longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men." Woodrow Wilson (speaking of his collusion in the creation of the Federal Reserve Bank of America in 1913) "Allow me to issue and control the money of a nation, and I care not who writes the laws." Mayer Amschel Rothschild (banker extraordinaire and war-bankroller) "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." -- Wendell Phillips Contention 1: The idea of a democracy is by definition "A system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives.". Thus it is reasonable to conclude that what the majority wants is what will generally be provided. However this is not the case. The Supreme court ruled in Buckly vs Valeo that money is speech. With that being said speech is protected by the first amendment. When a small of wealthy individuals are able to buy seats in the government it is no longer the government of the people. Contention 2: If wealth is speech then 70% of the speech in the united states is owned by the top 5 % percentile. This gap in wealth shows how much potential influence that the top earners can hold on elections. For elected officials will be quite interested in tending to the wants of their top campaign contributors. Contention 3: Be weary of being hoodwinked out of your liberties. It must be said although it may be hard to imagine, liberties can be taken away from you. Though it will not be obvious. Restrictions on the right to assemble, speech and press have all been diminishing at the hands of the wealthy bullying others to protect their public image or to keep their profits. Examples would include Monsanto's selling of Bovine somatotropin (a cow hormone to increase milk output). Bovine somatotropin was a iffy hormone still under research for possible side effects, but since Monosanto's already invested all this money in the production of this hormone and circulation of it. Monosantos paid off people to keep quiet about any negative effect of this hormone. I leave it to the rest of this video to explain the rest of the story. http://www.youtube.com... Other freedoms such as Speech are being undermined by excessive force for example take the students at UC Davis whom were peacefully protesting the rise of tuition costs. Then cops use pepper spray to remove the students. The police later reported that pepper spray was used to ensure the safety of the protesters and the people around, which in fact it was already a very peaceful protest in which the only danger was the repression of these students rights to peaceful assembly. 4) Money doesn't talk, it swears. If money is speech, and speech is owned by the few. Then it must be said that the government is working for the few and not the majority. Which is the opposite of a democracy. Thus it must be said that the government is servicing the few at the expense of the many because the few can provide what elected officials need to win an election, Money.