This caught my eye:
But I honestly believe we live in a class society, and those at the top have more in the way of power than the lower classes, I think we should have a balance of power, that's what democracy is all about, but what's profitable for those at the top isn't always good for everybody else.
Okay, you said you are done, but this statement made me think of something that seems to be often overlooked.
So far as the representative part of our democratic republic is intact, the upper class does not necessarily have more power because of smaller numbers. If the rich held ALL the power even now, I think we'd be seeing a far different social, political and legal landscape.
One of the most interesting "theories" in this that I have seen came from a novel about the Vietnam War. One of the characters was a history buff and had developed the "dot in a sphere" model. His idea was that instead of a single line of left-right or rich-poor (or any other 2 dimensional false dichotomy), a better model is a sphere.
The surface of the sphere represents the positions of interest of just about any position or ideology. The dot in the middle is the "state" of the society or at least its level of peace. If one side gets to pull too hard on the dot, it moves away from the center and society is disrupted....in the form of revolt or war.
A few wealthy folks with a lot "financial power" can be balanced by a LOT of much poorer people with "voting numbers power." Thus the dot can remain somewhat in the middle (orthogonal pulls are not being considered here, only the specific dichotomy of rich/poor...but in this model, every possible diameter of the sphere is such a dichotomy).
I think this is sort of what you were saying in the quoted paragraph...that a balance is required. I just rankle a bit at the oft bandied notion (not by you Nukie, just in general) that the rich have prima facie more power just because of their money. In the absence of the 15th and 19th Amendments and other suffrage principles, that might be true, but Bill Gates' vote for President counts the same as a destitute homeless registered voter (in principle).
By the way, if anyone knows if this sphere-dot theory really exists (outside the fictional novel in which I read it), I'd love to see some sources; I've always thought it an intriguing idea.