Quote from: u9y42 on December 20, 2014, 10:41:29 PM

Quote from: exoton on December 20, 2014, 08:45:47 PM

Money being in politics is not a problem. Having money in politics allows people to make a statement that they agree or disagree with something that is more powerful then just their words. Money allows you to make a statement that can be heard by others (by allowing for tv/radio/print advertisements

It does indeed - but disproportionally more those with money to spend in such efforts, than those who barely scrap by day to day. I mean, it's not a coincidence that policy decisions tend to closely follow the interests of the wealthy, while pretty much disenfranchising the poor and average citizens.

Quote from: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/10769041/The-US-is-an-oligarchy-study-concludes.html

[...] After sifting through nearly 1,800 US policies enacted in that period [policy data collected from between the years of 1981 and 2002] and comparing them to the expressed preferences of average Americans (50th percentile of income), affluent Americans (90th percentile) and large special interests groups, researchers concluded that the United States is dominated by its economic elite.

The peer-reviewed study, which will be taught at these universities in September, says: "The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organised groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence." [...]

Excerpt taken from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/10769041/The-US-is-an-oligarchy-study-concludes.html.

Of course, this isn't to say you necessarily have to remove money from the system entirely - that isn't the idea behind those 2 sites I mentioned (I should have been a bit clearer in my last post). Rather, the idea is to find other ways in which campaign contributions, lobbying, and so on, can be made, that is more representative of the interests of the whole population.

The entire population may not have a strong enough feeling towards a specific candidate or a specific issue in order for them to want to donate to a campaign. If both sides of an issue are putting out their own one sided story to the issue then everyone has an equal chance of hearing both sides. If you were to force people to spend money on campaigns then it would be essentially the public financing campaigns that may or may not have a chance of succeeding