PF Topic for December 2011:In the US, current income disparities threaten democratic ideals.

First of all, please do not post your argument until the very last possible moment, because, in my infinite foresight, I now realize I will be away on Saturday, unless some one lends me use of a laptop. Contention 1 refutes: You have mentioned a report from freakonomics. However, freakonomics is about as reliable as Fox News. Many of their "reports" have been thoroughly disproven over the years. They even admit that they themselves have made mistakes. I never said that money is a decide-all factor, and I'd like to ask you- how –specifically– did they do this "study"? Was it a simulation? Or where they able to actually remove all variables from the campaigns you mentioned except money? If this "study" was in any way scientific, they would have been able to remove all variables except money in order to definitively prove this. Besides, the study is entirely beside the point. Whether or not the study is accurate, the politicians don't know that. The politicians believe that money is power and therefore they will do what is possible to obtain money. Your quote by Woodrow Wilson (although irrelevant) proves that politicians believe that money IS power. Contention 2 refutes: You are missing the point. I am not arguing politicians should be involved with business, as that has nothing to do with the resolution. In fact, your contentions further proves my point that businesses attempt to capture politics and politicians with special interest groups and lobbyists. You are not arguing to the topic in the second contention, you are arguing that regulations and attempts at regulations further the insidious (as that is what you are implying-that it IS insidious) aims of large corporations which detracts from government's main focus, which is to help the people. Contention 3 refutes: I never argued that the majority is right, simply that the majority should be able to decide the direction of the nation. NOT the 1% of people who give financial aid to politicians. And yes, the United States is a democracy. It is true that the framers of the US did not create a complete democracy, but at the same time, they did not want a complete republic by the traditional use of the term. Otherwise they would have completely adopted Rome's system, in which the lower house, the one representing the people, had very little actual power. Whereas the House of Reps. has a very significant amount of power. The OED defines a democracy as a "Government by the people; that form of government in which the sovereign power resides in the people as a whole, and is exercised either directly by them (as in the small republics of antiquity) or by officers elected by them. In mod. use often more vaguely denoting a social state in which all have equal rights, without hereditary or arbitrary differences of rank or privilege." This sounds very akin to the system we have. Now that that's out of the way, let me get at what is completely wrong in your contention. Th framers DID what government to do something. The one thing they DREADED was political parties, or factions, as you call them. George Washington feared this. Thomas Jefferson feared this.