Yes, verily to all that.
We agree on every point. While I didn't address it, no question in my mind that apparent selfishness on the part of voters at all levels has for many years aided Congress and legislative bodies in general in their unending pursuit of venality...
We started educating people to preclude that and -- Hanlons razor here (mostly...) -- in the early 60s we quit, dumbed down 7-12 education to promote self esteem over basic competence and began insisting on a Degree for more jobs than should logically require one. That did tertiary education no favors. I know more than one degreed 20-30 something who's amazingly naive and short on, to me, rudimentary knowledge -- but they can tell me anything I want to know about their I-Pod or the travails of Amy Winehouse. Sad, really. I digress. That educational regression allowed a relapse to the 19th century model of US voting...
I know it's more complex than that but the failures in education are a big part of the flawed politics problem. The good news is that seems to be slowly being retooled.
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