The tea party isn't a great example at arguing against the effectiveness of money in politics, as the entire movement was partially founded on astroturfing done by Koch Industries and big tobacco. Now I wouldn't go so far as to write the movement off as an example of "democracy not working" or what have you, as the tea party had it's share of honest grassroots self-organization, but it isn't fair to say it developed independently from moneyed interests.

> the person who wins the election becomes the person in power, every time.

That is a joke, isn't it?

Well, almost every time. Shit does happen. But no, I would seem to be the shockingly uncommon American who has some measure of faith in the process of self-governance that has seen us through the last two hundred thirty years.

Cushman, you sound like somebody who believes everything that you were taught in school, and you are unwilling to entertain an idea that has the possibility of destroying the foundation of your world view. Don't try to impose your world view on events as they occur, rather, observe the world and consider all possibilities. Things usually are not what they appear to be. The expert is not always right, even if he thinks he is.

You tell this to the guy who's responding to the worlds most common imposed view. That of the internal workings of a system being dictated solely by malice and corruption.

"Why does this computer hate me?!" "The people who built it must be stupid."

It's not world changing in any way at ALL to say some entity or organization is corrupt. Find me an organization that hasn't being called corrupt.

Do you remember in 2011, when OPERA had some experimental results that suggested neutrinos were moving fast than light? I was in the reddit comment thread covering this story at the time. I made the point that there's no way this is actually happening, and that they were just releasing these results to get 3rd party analysis into what was happening.

By the next morning I had a flood of downvotes and comments about how naive stubborn thinkers like me are rejecting science and ruining the world, and that if only I'd open my eyes to the possibility of something new, even if it shook the foundations of my beliefs, then we could make progress as a species. ect. ect. ect.

Turned out it was a measurement error and they were just releasing results to the public to get 3rd party analysis.

Awwwww.

I am most certainly not an idealist, but I take it as a compliment to be called one.

I don't think arthurrr called you an idealist. Naive, maybe.

Well, let's agree to disagree.

Why are you so sure this concept of self-governance is what has kept the peace, and not, for example, some other forces involved? Why must we give all credit to the public sector?

Bullshit. The Tea Party was swept into power because they had financial backing from rich extremists and mass media support. I'm somewhat sympathetic to the point you're trying to make, but you could not have picked a worse example.

Yes, the Tea Party started out as a grassroots thing, but it was quickly co-opted by the existing power structure and its message lost.

I'm not talking about grassroots, and in fact I don't really believe the Tea Party was ever anything more than a covert big-money lobby that got wildly out of hand. But money is not what wins elections— it's the votes that get counted at the end of the day.

We're all so predictably unparticipatory that spending a hundred million dollars to move the needle a few tenths of a percent one way or the other makes good political sense. If everybody showed up to vote, that would simply not be true. That's the point I've been making this whole time.