> I think people get who they vote for. It's not like there's an exchange where you can literally buy votes for dollars. People are unwilling to be the person

> I think people get who they vote for. It's not like there's an exchange where you can literally buy votes for dollars. People are unwilling to be the person others vote for. You can see this time and again on HN; every time someone points out, "This is a democracy; if you have a problem with it, you can run for office and do better," the response is a mindless, "Well, I can't afford it." On Hacker News, news aggregator for people without money starting up businesses. > I think the first step is for Americans to find a way to disagree about politics in a congenial way. As long as it's rude to talk about politics, people will continue to get their information from ads, talk radio, yard signs, comedy shows, and hack blogs. Agreed. One of the nice deliberative democracy ideas was that we would set aside time and space for discussing politics. I'd like to see more of that, even though I don't fully agree with the entire gamut of that philosophy.