The United State's government is no longer representative of the American people.

1. Pro's claim that "Congress held no vote" is simply wrong. Congress voted to authorize the use of military force against Iraq. [1] This isn't the same thing, Constitutionally, as a declaration of war, but that's hardly relevant to this debate. Congress using an authorization of military force rather than a declaration of war would only be relevant to the resolution if the American people cared about the Constitutional difference, which they don't. Pro claims that I am presuming to know the American people's concerns, worries, and desires, and that my talk about what the American people ‘care' about is illegitimate. This is nonsense—it's perfectly clear what I mean. For Pro's point about the Constitution to be relevant, Pro would have to show that not only was the Iraq War unconstitutional, but that such things mattered to the American people. For example, imagine, for the sake of the argument, that Social Security is unconstitutional. Which of these options would be Congress representing the will of the American people: A) following the Constitution and ending Social Security payments or B) ignoring the Constitution and continuing Social Security? Why bother with a propaganda campaign if the decision was "caused by executive decision alone"? Surely, if that were the case, they could skip all the false claims about WMDs and such and just say we're invading Iraq. I think it is the case that even though Bush made the decision to go to war with Iraq, the American people were still represented. The relevant question is: could Bush have made that decision without the support of the American people? I don't think so. Can you imagine Bush unilaterally deciding to invade Canada? According to Pro's model, he would be able to do this, and the American people would just have to sit back and take it. But, of course, Bush could not have decided to invade Canada—the public backlash would force Congress to stop him. And if Bush couldn't invade Canada for this reason, then why couldn't the public have stopped the Iraq War by reacting the same way they would to an invasion of Canada? The majority did later realize that the Iraq War was a mistake, but this doesn't show that the government is unresponsive to the public will. Thinking the war was a mistake doesn't imply that you think we should withdraw immediately, or even withdraw soon. This is not evidence of a 'four year delay' unless Pro can show that most people wanted to withdraw in 2007. More likely, most people just trusted political and military leaders to handle the withdrawal timetable. Even if it was the case that people wanted immediate withdrawal before 2011, that doesn't show that the American government isn't representative of the American people. Imagine someone saying 'speed limits have no effect on how fast people go, because everyone just drives 10 mph over the speed limit.' Obviously this argument is wrong. People will deviate by the amount they can get away with--but the speed limit still matters. You can get away with going 85 if the speed limit is 75, but not if the speed limit is 55. Now imagine someone says 'public opinion doesn't determine policy--look, politicians deviate moderately from public opinion.' Public opinion determines policy the same way speed limits determine speed. Not exactly--in a representative democracy, rather than a direct democracy, politicians have some leeway--but for the most part, they stay within the acceptable range. Moderate deviations are allowed, but public opinion still keeps politicians in check. 2. Perhaps this decision will give special interests more influence, but there's no reason to think it would be significantly more, much less enough to give them more power of the government than the American public. No matter how much money corporations can give, they can't vote. People can always vote out politicians that don't do what they want. 3. The numbers Pro cites seem to support his claim that the public didn't support the bailout—but only if you assume that everyone who didn't answer ‘support' on the poll was opposed to the bill. But that is not how polls work—people can select ‘undecided.' For all of the dates cited, the percentage of people supporting the bill exceeded the percentage opposed. [2] Pro then compares the % of Congress voting for the bill to the % of the public supporting it. But this doesn't necessarily mean that Congress isn't representing the American people. Imagine that exactly 51% of voters supported the bailout in every Congressional district. For politicians to represent their districts views, 100% of them would have to vote for the bailout, because each of them has majority support in his or her district. But even if politicians support for the bailout was more than it should have been based on voter support, that doesn't imply public opinion doesn't determine policy—see my speed limit analogy earlier. 4. According to Pro, the public isn't represented by the government because they're faced with a false dilemma between Democrats and Republicans. The public would prefer something completely different, but that isn't an option, so they pick whichever of the two parties is closer to their views. However, Pro failed to provide any evidence for this claim. How, exactly, would the government be different if the American public had its way? Would we spend less on entitlements? No—the American people strongly support those. Would we have higher taxes—no, people don't want tax hikes. Would we spend less on corporate welfare? Maybe. People say they're against corporate welfare in general, but this changes when you ask about specific programs. Most Americans support agricultural subsidies, for example. Would we spend less on foreign aid? Maybe. The American people say they do, but they think foreign aid is 25% of the budget. [3] If you asked Americans if they wanted to not eliminate it completely, but just reduce it down to just 1% of the budget (which is the actual current amount), they would probably support that. Would we have fewer wars? I doubt it—the American people support all the wars we start, at least initially. They later realize the war was a mistake, and then we withdraw. There is a delay between when the public realizes the war was a mistake and the troops leave, but this hardly shows that the public isn't represented, since the public never favors immediate withdrawal as soon as they turn against the war—they support gradual withdrawal. Pro has failed to show that what the public wants is significantly different from what the government is like now. Pro's claim that the establishment is able to use the 2 party system to keep the public's views from being implemented seems at odds with American history. When the public started to favor civil rights in the 1950s and 60s, what happened? Did the establishment shut them out? Did the people in power, as Pro suggests they could, simply continue to deny minorities civil rights? If Pro was right, surely they could have—they could just have the 2 parties both continue to oppose civil rights, and the American public wouldn't be able to do anything about it. It wouldn't matter that the 2 parties weren't anywhere close to the American public's true views—since they didn't have a choice besides those 2 parties, the American people wouldn't get their views represented. But obviously this isn't what happened. Politicians either had to change their minds about civil rights, or be replaced by someone who had. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org... [2] http://pewresearch.org... [3] http://www.worldpublicopinion.org...