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When 27-year-old hedge fund manager Gregory Chase offered $1 million to convince NBC to allow Mike Gravel to participate in the debate at Drexel University, the irony was rich. Chase spent $400,000 on newspaper ads, in part, to spread the message that money had too great an influence in politics. In an interview on NPR, he pointed out that NBC's decision to set a fund-raising threshold to limit the field in the debate only crystallized the connection between money and politics. When money becomes a proxy for political support then money becomes necessary to have your ideas considered and ultimately becomes the equivalent of free speech. The tragically inevitable result is that in the end only the wealthy qualify to lead or participate in the process.
The American experiment in participatory democracy grows out of rejecting the divine right of kings, similar to the Protestant Reformation challenging the belief that God communicates in an exclusive manner through a single individual. Protestant churches have responded by organizing themselves with varying degrees of power vested in the members. Some have structures that include hierarchies with differing amounts of power at different levels, while others have taken the congregational approach. This style of government closely resembles the New England town meeting, with which it shares common roots. The risk of such pure democracy is the tyranny of the majority. The interests of the majority are easily served, creating an opportunity to serve selfishness and greed. Simply put, no matter how just or right a cause is, it can never carry the day if only supported by a minority. One solution is to seek out a kind monarch who rules only and always with mercy and justice. Such human perfection being impossible, we are left with the hope of finding nobility and collective wisdom residing in the citizenry of a democracy. Churches with polities that include a hierarchy show less faith that the average parishioner will always choose the high calling of selflessness in pursuit of care for the least among us. On the other hand congregationalists must trust that God will intervene causing those voting to choose righteousness.
The framers of the Constitution chose not to risk pure democracy and also opened the door wide to all religions as well as to no religion. To find the strength that such diversity can bring we need to find ways to invoke the ideal of caring for others in terms that appeal to authority that is not exclusive to religious belief even if that is its source. These beliefs are free speech in the greatest sense since one is free to decide what to believe. But if speech in the public square only comes with a steep price tag then lofty ideals put forward by the few can never get a hearing. Gregory Chase's solution of fighting a money problem by throwing money at it is cynical at best and fatally flawed at worst. America needs an appeal to higher principles to restore the hopeful ideals on which it was founded.
