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

1. Pro again fails to explain why the Iraq War being unconstitutional means that the US government is unrepresentative of the American people. If the American people don't care about Constitutionality, then this point is irrelevant. To repeat my example from last round: "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?" Americans may think that the country would be better off if the leaders of the nation followed the public more closely, but this proves nothing. The American people are stupid, and want contradictory things--thus Congress can't do exactly what they want. Americans overwhelmingly support cuts in government spending [1], unless you ask about specific programs, then they oppose cuts in any significant part of spending. What the American people want is impossible. Maybe the nation would be better off if Congress could achieve the impossible, but they can't, so this hardly shows that the government is unresponsive. Yes, the Iraq War was based on a propaganda campaign. But this begs the question: why bother with a propaganda campaign? If Pro was right, and Bush could make whatever decision he wanted without regard to public opinion, then surely no propaganda campaign would be needed--he could just say, 'we're going to war, if you don't like it, you can suck it.' And yes, Canada was never accused of those things--that's my point. Since the American people don't see Canada as a threat, we would never go to war with them, even if the President wanted to. Pro suggests that rather than public opinion causing policy, it is the opposite--policy causes public opinion. However, he fails to demonstrate exactly how this is supposed to work--by what mechanism does policy cause public opinion? 2. Pro doesn't really respond to my point here. "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." Having an effect =/= having a significant effect. 3. It doesn't matter that a "majority" of the public didn't support the bill. I repeat my earlier point: "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." Pro quotes Bush saying that we "will" pass the package to suggest that this shows that Bush is forcing his will on the American people. But this is nonsense--it's just the way people talk, and isn't meant to be taken literally. What if Bush said, "We WILL hunt down and kill Osama bin Laden." Is he suggesting he's going to force his will on reality and that we will definitely find Osama bin Laden? No, he's just saying that he wants to kill Osama bin Laden and is going to try to do so. Saying "I will do something" rather than "I will try to do something" is just a rhetorical difference--the first one sounds stronger. 4. Links to other websites making your argument for you don't count, you have to make the argument inside the debate. "Con's argument here that "politician's either had to change their minds about civil rights, or be replaced by someone who had" insinuates that people can just vote out all of the bad candidates. This is dubious" It may sound dubious to Pro, but I think the fact that it actually happened during the 1960s outweighs his incredulity. [1] http://i2.cdn.turner.com...