"The U.S. system of presidential primaries are contrary to democratic values"

You would like the focus of the debate to be that the U.S.'s primary system doesn't hold up to "democratic values." Your statements as to why you feel this way depend on a certain criteria for democratic values. I don't find that criteria to be satisfactory. I suspect that your view of what "democratic values" are comes from a light education in the traditional political philosophy of western civilization. For starters, the key philosophies behind the Constitution began in Athens. Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, and a small host of other folks created almost every single concept that is thrown around in political thought these days. So, find yourself a half way decent translation of Aristotle's On Politics, sit down with it, read it, and then compare and contrast what Aristotle has to say about politics, governments, and human relationships and then examine the laws and constitution of our own country, and examine the current state, and consider that what we started with was a Republic with limited Representation, and what we have now is an Oligarchy with Universal Suffrage. You can glean the values of Democracy from my argument. The welfare of the state came first, every citizen was truly equal, therefore every citizen could be just as likely randomly selected to be an officer of the government. Mass assemblies were formed for the debate and adoption of policies, not for political rallies for the most popular oligarch. The popular people, also considered to be threats to Democracy, were actually voted out of Athens. A tradition began by Solon, who created this Democratic system, and then promptly took off for ten years so that his own influence wouldn't destroy the Democracy. Believe it or not, the values of a nation are expressed in the actions of a nation. The primary system follows completely with the values of our nation as expressed by historical action. Our nation began as a nation with limited representation, and our nation now has universal suffrage, but party bosses now call the shots. Large donors, or bundlers and people with political clout and control now call the shots. This is the way it has always been, and because you decided to adopt a view point based off of a fairy tale interpretation of our government told to our school children, you insist that our primary system is contrary to democratic values. My whole point is, and has been, that the United States is completely contrary to true democratic values, and is operating within many of the values defined by the nations actions in the last couple of centuries. You offer me the 15th amendment as an example of the "values" of American Democracy, well if the 15th amendment actually reflected the values of our nation, that whole reign of terror conducted by folks, like the Red Shirts, during reconstruction where they systematically murdered people who supported the 15th amendment probably wouldn't have been condoned. If the 15th amendment was a true reflection of American values, why did the civil rights movement need to take place and took more than a hundred years before it could be called a success, even though it's just been hailed as one to dismiss the effort? This nation has never been a nation of the principles that you expect the primary system to maintain. I took the contrary position because of that. I'm not attacking your arguments because I'm attacking the philosophy behind it which is inherently flawed. It's the same as using science to defeat a rhetorical argument based off of poor or incorrect scientific conclusions. You want to claim that the primary system is contrary to the ideas that this nation was founded on, but you clearly have not bothered educating yourself in those ideas. The founders of our nation, by and large, read in both Greek and Latin the works of Aristotle and Plato. The founders of our nation read in large part the works of Locke, and other political theorists , and when they created a nation, they drafted a constitution which by its very nature was exclusive to the majority of the people. They created a political system more inclined with the Roman Republic than any form of historic Democracy, and although they recognized that they were a Republic in many writings, including your pledge of allegiance, the common thing has been to let the people believe that they have a democracy. Do you know why the Constitution was exclusive? Compare the first five presidents to the last five, and wonder if any of the last five will ever be considered great men a five or six decades into the future. Popularity is not a part of any true Democracy, nor is popularity a part of any true Republic. Popularity is a defining characteristic of both oligarchies and tyrannies. To create a system that is derived solely by popularity, is to dismiss any democratic value from its existence.