In the debate over Occupy, out came, "America is a Republic, not a Democracy".  The implication is that a country elects representatives that go and make up a government body and decide what is best for the nation.  It is their job to make the decisions that impact a society.  It isn't a Democracy in that the will of the people are represented, but rather, that have the ability to vote out someone and put someone else in.

If this is the case, explain how that a Republic isn't anything more than a governmental structure where people have a chance to swap out one person with another, who doesn't even have to respond to the wishes of the constituents that elected them, but merely get themselves reelected?  In short, this form of government doesn't reflect the wishes of the people at all, but dictates on high what the rules are.  How is such a system not going to end up being subject to people with money being able to buy influence, and pay to get their favorite tool in office?

Well for one, because money tends to follow popularity... not the other way around.

Look at the Herman Cain campaign, he was cash broke until he hit a chord with the people, then the money kept pouring in. Then after it started pouring in, no amount of money could save him from sexual assault accusations.

The effect of money on campaigns is GREATLY overstated and there is money on EVERY side of just about EVERY issue. So nobody really needs to be "bought off".

I would suggest that cases of politicians changing positions after being elected has little to do with campaign money and more to do with lieing to get elected. As can be seen by all the little things that essentially have no "buy off" value.

Take Obama for example. Refusal to recognize the Armenian genocide and his about face on FIZA and just about every Bush added patriot act abuse.

What stops it, is people simply electing someone else when they do too much crap. It's pretty simple.

It's generally a needed system though to prevent short sighted, short lived reactionary beliefs from overwhelming the election process and causing massive harm by being implemented... although we aren't totally immune from that as we've seen some legislation passed due to the whims of the moment that largely ended up proving damning.

Like the Patriot Act and Stimulus programs.  When the Democrats and Republicans respectivly were eseentially forced by public sentiment to go with the others dumbass idea.  (Well, to be fair the stimulus program was half bush's idea, it's just the rest of his party knew better.)

I'd suggest Reading "Freakanomics".   In general cause it's a good book, but in particular for the actual effects of money on campaigns.

Though generally when people talk about the USA as a republic, they talk about essential "natural" rights that the government protects that mob rule can not overturn.

Such as free speech. Which as far as i can tell is one of the things OWS wants to overturn... since to stop corporate personhood in campaign finance you would need to essentially revoke the first ammendment.

Funny stuff, we may complain all we want, but creating the perfect government/economy seems unreachable.

How, precisely? Unless it would mess with the clause regarding freedom of assembly, but i always envisioned that as a rather narrow thing.

Or we can just redefine the legal basis of the corporation so that it retains the necessary advantages of forming a corporation without gaining certain legal loopholes

A good thing to consider really is how many relative longshots ended up later getting big funding and doing well or theoretically would have did well. like Obama and Cain...

vs those with ALL the money in the world who never got anywhere... those self financed billionaires rarely did anything, like forbes.

Except for Perot the one time before he jumped out of the race for a bit... and really only because he resonated with the people sticking to the same principles that brought him there.

it is.

they just hide and most people don't understand the difference

Corporations are nothing but people working together.

As the court put it in their ruling.

"If the First Amendment has any force, it prohibits Congress from fining or jailing citizens, or associations of citizens, for simply engaging in political speech."

You can't ban free speech soley because it's free speech from an assosiation of citizens because an assosiation of citizens is just that.  Citizens.

It would be like argueing that people have a right to be protected against unfair search and seizure, but only if they live alone.

Or in addition as it was put in the concurrence.

"the First Amendment was written in "terms of speech, not speakers" and that "Its text offers no foothold for excluding any category of speaker.""

Aside from which, I'd say campaign finance laws are essentially worthless anyway when you've got news stations like MSNBC and Fox News.

Either you have to censor actual news outlets or it doesn't matter.  Well or you get in the EXTREMELY dicey situation of trying to decide which news stations are legitamite and which aren't.

That's because some of the people in that debate are profoundly stupid or ignorant.

The US is a Republic because it doesn't have a Monarch as the head of state, it has an elected official.

What method by which the American head of State is selected? Democracy!