[quote=@Kakumei] Well yeah, I mean every single one of the Dem candidate's are "One Percenters". I don't believe that having money or using money is morally wrong. Money is amoral. The corruption comes from the heart, not the amount of money that someone has. [/quote] Well, people are more complicated then that. Money in general isn't innately evil (you aren't being evil when you purchase a stereo for instance, unless it is an evil stereo), but money does represent power in our system. Arguably more so than individual government office does, especially in our system of checks and balances. Power isn't innately evil either, but the quest for power taps into a lot of strong human desires and emotions, and the maintenance of power does the same. So if you take an especially rich donor - any rich donor, I'm not specifying which political affiliation - they will be most likely driven quite strongly to maintain their money. Even if what they do is morally questionable, the fact that that thing is why they are so wealthy can easily blind them to it's moral problems. And if they can use their money to buy legislation, and they can buy politicians so that popular opposition is quenched, that is corruption. The problem with making it your own political goal as an average citizen to protect these people is peculiar, because they can clearly look after themselves politically at the moment, but the same can't be said for the rest of us. As for 1 percenters, that is a meaningless phrase really. I have an uncle that technically fits in this category but he isn't exactly influencing the political process with his wealth. What makes a person part of the super-wealthy (or aristocracy, lets call it what it is) is their ability to live souly off of the interest on their capital. And in that case... [url=http://www.forbes.com/sites/afontevecchia/2015/09/29/the-richest-and-poorest-presidential-candidates-from-hillarys-millions-to-marco-rubios-debts/]surprisingly, not all candidates fit that bill.[/url] It doesn't even cut completely across political boundaries. So anyway, to your thesis, I don't think corruption is an innate trait. Clearly you need something to be corrupt for, and money is the most obvious candidate. There are plenty of snake-oil salesmen and con-men in this world being corrupt among us commoners of course, but they don't have the capital to purchase politicians like the aristocratic hucksters have, so it would be dishonest to paint both as equally problematic. And there really isn't any reason to make excuses for them unless you think you will somehow get that much money (hint: [url=http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/07/america-social-mobility-parents-income/399311/]you won't.[/url])