Once upon a time, there was a government founded upon the idea that the people govern themselves, and that in order to do so, those people elect representatives, who are responsible to the voters.  In other words, the voters govern themselves through representation. Then something went terribly wrong.  To make a long story short, the government stopped responding to the will of the people.  It had more important things to do, all of which entailed representing not the voters, but its own ranks.  Getting re-elected was the primary goal of elected representatives.  Getting rich was second on the list.  The representatives excelled at both. Only rarely did an incumbent who ran for re-election fail.  This was because the incumbents had lots of money in their campaign coffers.  The people who gave them that money expected lots of things in return, and they got them. The representatives learned how to pass laws none of them bothered to read,...(Read Full Post)