regarding your points on democracy LH Id say that 1+2
1. the almighty dollar rules
2. those with money influence the electoral process (whether its George Soros or the Oil men that backed Bush and Cheney)

are essentially 2 sides of the same coin(if I can use that pun)

ie. decisions that come down to the almighty dollar rather
than the common good of everyone else. (and since the economic system
has no accounting for external costs -that is 3rd party costs accounting for pollution, or climate changing green house gases, or
the side effects of turning cattle into cannibal/carnivores by feeding them ground up meat -with subsequent effect on peoples health not to mention the british or canadian beef industry. etc)

Ultimately thats not a weakness of democracy but a weakness of the market based economy that doesnt allow for such 3rd party costs.

Point 3. Control of mass media by a wealthy few. I think that has changed quite a bit with the growth of the internet, and is likely to change even more- (most kids in their 20s seem to spend more time online than on tv - its definitely harder to have one common msg by a few wealthy corportations.

point 4&5 and even 6 again are weaknesses of the economic system, not democracy,
that doesnt place value on various 3rd party costs. BUt the market
system does have a self correcting mechanism (which is even more effective when you have freedom of information such as the internet)
ie. if people dont want to eat unhealthy food, like McDonalds fast food - eventually awareness goes up- sales go down and all of a sudden we have more demand for organic food. KFC and other fast food industries start getting rid of transfats etc. (I know its more complex than that along with a ways to go).

One of the weaknesses of Democracy is long term planning. The Chinese
politburo is planning 50 years ahead. Our govts only plan in 4-5 year periods until the next election - and when one party is elected they scrap everything and plan for the next 4 years.

Regarding the point on how much should the govt. provide for the individual? Id say that if we were completely provided for - that would spoil us, - but this same applies to children of the very rich.
Theres a billionaire in my province who publicly stated in interviews that the worst thing that one can do for his kids is to give them money.

But when discussing this idea of govt. handouts to the individual
one should look at the vast amounts of money given to corporations in subsidies and tax breaks. (Did you know Dickey that the US govt subsidizes the sugar industry with 4 billion a year - Americans pay 3x the world price of sugar, same goes for corn and for that matter the oil and gas industry - Right after Katrina, the oil industry in the gulf received 500 million to explore for oil in the Gulf of Mexico, why? one could go on and on -

- also the idea that the free market should be allowed to function and the govt should stay out of the way is ludicrous- after all the major automakers didnt build the interstate highway system - but they sure encouraged it and make good use of it (while they bought and dismantled all the tram systems in the big cities).


the last time we allowed market forces to govern themselves the US had the stock market crash of 29. All the talk about free enterprise and yet we always need to hear what Greenspan or Bernanke decide on what to do with interest rates.