Damnskippy and Bootcamp,

I think you are missing my point or maybe you just don't agree with it. I am saying that our federal government, many of our state governments, and even a handful of our local governments are not truly representative of "us". Government is often not a reflection of the people. I'm sure it's quite hard to make a large organization, such as the federal government, perfectly representative of 300 million people, but I am sure we are far from even close to perfectly represented.

Secondly, I think most people probably put themselves first, family second, friends third, community fourth and so on, but too many people in this country never get past the friends level. If they did, I would see a lot more of them show up at public meetings where I work at a local government and they would be there to say "hey, I would benefit from the oil refinery, don't deny it just because the 10 people that live closest to it don't want it and all ten of them are the only ones here".

Third, I can't really blame the corporations for whatever level of "infiltration" they have in our (especially federal) government since if citizens throughout its history made our government more perfect and more representative of the people over time, the corporations couldn't have infiltrated it to the extent they have, and it would be more balanced. In the historical sense, our government was the best reflection of the people that the people thought they could make it at some early point in its history, but since then its gotten farther and farther away from perfect. Therefore, I don't disagree with what you say about how the culture has degenerated, I just think it is because of the above reasoning.

Finally, with my statement about my job and how I aim to give back to others through my job, I did not mean to come across in the wrong way (see last paragraph below). What I mean is that countries are made up of various segments: social, cultural, religious, political, economic, geographic, civic, etc. Our country is obviously very lopsided towards economics, relative to other countries. The claim is often made, as you have said, that our country was founded for free enterprise and capitalism (the pinnacle of the economic segment). I disagree, I think if you really go back to the founding and read some history books, you will see the founding fathers put as much into civics and community responsibility as they put into the free market. Somewhere along the way that was lost though. And I think you're belief that we are all merely cogs in a machine furthers this now common and prevalent thought. In other words, the real "individual" in the founding fathers minds, yes any one of us ants, has a certain and specific RESPONSIBILITY to the greater good.

And now think about public schools these days...there are many more classes on math and science (and they are required classes) as compared to geography, history, civics, and the arts. All important subjects, however I believe that this country needs more kids exposed and therefore able to get an interest in the latter if we want a professionally run government. It's bad enough that most of our governments are run by elected people that have no public administration, urban planning, or similar backgrounds. Our governments are mostly elected amateurs or people with backgrounds in other fields - the most common of which seems to be business, people with business adminstration or accounting or other more narrow-minded backgrounds. I'm sorry, but government is not business and it's not meant to be. Governments are supposed to have a long-term perspective, do bold things (i.e. the Eisenhower interstate system, man on the moon), and, yes as you state for politicians, LEAD! When was the last time this happened?

I think your cable problem analogy is excellent! That is a great way to put it. However, I didn't realize it at first, but you proved my point...