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You are misinformed about the nature of public office. Legislators act on the will of the voters, unless their is influence from lobbying groups. Without the em

by Shinkei 13y ago

You are misinformed about the nature of public office. Legislators act on the will of the voters, unless their is influence from lobbying groups. Without the emails and phone calls, an elected official has no idea about the numbers on either side of a debate. Ralph Nader has a quote along the lines of, "if you aren't speaking for your interests, then who will?" Lobbying just became a backdoor access because with money, you could pay for the influence of insiders. But believe me, no amount of lobbying will overcome organized American voters. Just look at SOPA as an example. This is how a democracy works and you probably just aren't used to seeing media do what they are supposed to do--facilitate democracy.

Intermernet 13y ago
"you probably just aren't used to seeing media do what they are supposed to do--facilitate democracy." No-one in the last few decades has seen this. Most media is is actually part of the government structure now, and has very little impact on facilitating "democracy". If this were the case, various media outlets would agree with each other (as the voice of the common opinion) as opposed to the current state of affairs, where a media channel controlled by one organization will be at war with a conflicting channel of "news". I think that looking to the media to "facilitate democracy" is naive at best, disingenuous at worst.