> The promises were made by the technology and its potential.
Still bullshit. By this measure, the machine gun and the IED are also democratizing and equalizing forces. An armed society is a polite society, yeah? Technology amplifies. A pen makes it possible to communicate with someone you cannot be face-to-face with, but it still comes down to the way you formulate and express your ideas. A sword makes it possible to cut and stab in ways that your hand can't, but it's still your hand being raised against another.
If you want to invoke technology, then all technology is a "democratizing and equalizing force". And, while we're at it, all technology becomes a tool for elitism and oppression when it fails to be equally distributed. And is it ever, really equally distributed to begin with? You have to pay people a profit to receive internet. There is no possibility of equality there while wealth and income inequality remain significant.
> So, you're now a representative of the powerless counterculture?
"Representative" is going too far. How about we stick to calling me powerless, rather than give me credit for participating in an actual culture?
> Now, you're hailing it as the solution to what is arguably the single biggest threat to democracy in U.S. politics today: money.
Hahaha. No. But it's funny that you can't read. I'd certainly take advantage of the Internet as part of the solution, but I would also take advantage of the fact that we have bookbinding technology.
And money is not the biggest threat. Democracy? Doesn't exist in America. Not really. The media is right: we are a country ruled by elites. Those elites might be liberal or conservative, but they're not us. There is no government by the people, because the people don't give a shit. That's why Dubya went up and thought that getting some elections happening in Iraq would make democracy happen.
I repeat: The fundamental problem isn't that no one gets elected without spending oodles of cash; the fundamental problem is that oodles of cash have to be spent at all.
> Direct democracy has its place, but you're not seriously suggesting rule by referendum, right? I mean, I'm having trouble seeing any implied alternatives in your question that don't lead to utter silliness, so please feel free to make your point.
No, if you can't answer the question one way or another, then I have no point worth making. My ideas aren't coherent enough for people who don't already have the solid grounding in what democracy actually is. Which you demonstrably don't, because you keep saying that the Net will save democracy or something. Indeed, you can't seem to get your mind off it.
> But, of course, your opinions of my capabilities in this area--even if accurate--have nothing to do with the merit of the statements to which you are responding.
It's pretty convenient, then, that I wasn't responding to any of the statements you were making there, right? It's almost as if I was responding specifically to the section I quoted. I mean, it's great that you feel we're in high school debate club or something, but I graduated from high school a while back. I assume you did, too?
Here's a fallacy you missed: the fallacy fallacy.