Russell+D

1st Draft This I Believe. . . That democracy is a false hope. I believe that everyone does not have the same amount of power and it will never be spread out equally. I was thinking that this was because of the enormous size of this country I then realized that it was not the culprit. I was thinking how equal power can only be achieved in small tribes in the Amazon or Africa were money is not the main focus. But when you think about it there are tribal leaders and stronger or older males who have more power than others. I think that power will always be unequally distributed no matter what you do to try and change that. I firmly believe in the statement of money equals power. People with more money have more pull in their individual communities for some reason that baffles me. I think that people just think that they can trust people who have a lot of money and are more willing to listen to what they say as the truth. The same goes for businesses where large corporations get away with murder while small businesses get inspected more.

I believe that power in the voting system can be spread equally but is unjustly not. You can not even run for president unless you are wealthy or come from a wealthy family because of the campaign costs. I think there should be a new rule put into place that would act almost as a salary cap in sports but it is flexible. It would be that any candidates running for any position may only spend the amount of money on their campaign that they fundraise. If they want a lot of commercials and ads out there then they have to fundraise more. I also do not believe in the voting system in regards to electoral votes. I believe that the electoral voting system makes some people's votes in larger states carry more weight than the vote of another resident of a smaller state. With the installation of a popular vote system deciding the next president, there would be no more "battleground states" where candidates spend more time in and focus their campaigning on. A perfect example of why this is unjust is that four times in our country's history the winner of the popular vote lost the election. I also think that elections are too much of a popularity contest and the media is at fault for that. Candidates' ideas are hidden behind an array of stupid stories about them that are completely irrelovant. Candidates are also saying what you want to hear to get elected and turn around and do what they want.