Democracy depends on people being well enough informed about issues and policies and their implications to make responsible choices. In a perfect world there would be many different sources of information to cater for people with different concerns, problems or points of view and all of these different ideas and perspectives could be brought to the attention of decision-makers.
An important source of information for decision-makers and individuals in the USA, as in other countries, is pressure groups. Often these bring issues, proposals, policies, and responses to the proposals of others to the attention of the media and politicians. As long as all sides are equally and fairly represented, a legislator can make an informed choice, but often all sides are not equally or fairly represented and that is where the problems start. For example, someone who only ever heard news from Fox News would probably finish up with a strangely right-wing view of the world. And just heeding one or two pressure groups to the exclusion of all others — the American-Israeli political action committee’s (PAC) views on the Middle East, or the Catholic Church’s view of abortion — could lead to a distorted perspective on the world.
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