[kahljorn]

"Being a face on television rather than a real live person in our individual experience goes most of the way to putting her beyond compassion for a lot of us. This is the way people tend to process things."

I completely disagree with this in every way. People might not go, "OH POOR MAMA MOONBAT AND HER POOR SON" but they would still at least see the underlying problem and feel something about it. If people didn't feel things about people on the television, nobody would watch it, and ratings would be nonexistent. Television, and news, doesn't "work" if it's not eliciting emotional response.
That's like saying nobody felt any "Compassion" for the victims of 9/11 and the Virginia Tech shooting. NEED I SAY MORE?

"All I'm saying is, what morons think shouldn't be a factor in what is eventually considered right or wrong."
It shouldn't be, but it is. In my opinion this is one of your biggest downfalls: that you think poor, stupid people's opinions don't have some effect in the real world. Like they don't exist or something. Regardless of whatever idealism you have, it's not very realistic -- especially in a "Democracy".