The problem is, there are so many Americans who are absolutely ignorant of what is going on. For too long the people have chosen to ignore the need to be informed and educated about what Congress and the government is up to. This is thanks to the press, Hollywood, television and even radio on occasion, each of which has informed the people they need not worry because said media lapdogs have our backs.

From the time I was a child, I could clearly see the bias in the media. I remember being angry with the NBC nightly news anchor because he was so snotty about Reagan and Bush and I thought it was wrong. My mom laughed and told me to keep watching. She knew I’d be even more angry as I got older and more informed. She was right. As I grew up, however, I came to realize that anchor’s views were common among the press. For decades the press have been telling certain segments of America what to think, believe, buy, sell and feel. And instead of questioning this, those who are too lazy to fight it simply fall right in line with what they’re told. There are others who were lulled into a false sense of fairness, especially during election 2008. These folks are beginning to wake up now, mentally barefoot and embarrassed, to find they’re standing in front of the rest of the world their jammies wrinkled, hair screwed up and ignorance and ill-informed votes exposed.

In order to fight this Congress, this president and the agenda they’re shoving down our collective throats, someone is going to have to give this segment of the country a giant pep pill, wake up call, Red Bull or something to get them out of their brainless state.

Already this group has allowed the press to dictate when and where 9/11 may be discussed. This group fell right in lock step with the DNC, doing as they were told, casting their votes to put a man barely qualified to run a register at Taco Bell into the White House. And many are still there, poised to simply sit or stand, drooling and vacant, as the government gets their dirty, corrupt, partisan mitts on a HUGE percentage of the American economy.

It’s truly scary to contemplate, but it’s happening right now. It’s as if the zombie apocalypse has already happened, but the zombies, instead of being walking corpses, are Americans whose minds have been wiped out by endless media assertions that Bush is evil, Cheney is Satan and Obama is Jesus returned.

I find myself alternately sad and angry, terrified and REALLY pi$$ed off as each new revelation comes to light. Purchased votes didn’t surprise me, Obama’s lack of transparency and blatant corruptioin didn’t surprise me. What caught me a little off guard was the speed with which many Americans have willingly handed their lives (and their children’s lives and the grandchildren’s lives) over into the hands of people I would not trust the care and feeding of a goldfish.

I pray every day that the people wake up and, as you’ve said above, look to those who really know what they’re about to repair the damage done. Our only hope is to rely on those who have had to work for a living, make a payroll, pitch an idea or otherwise actually created jobs/business rather than spend their time whining about how unfair life is.

The point of the story is that even when markets fail — and the authors acknowledge that they do — governments can fail too. When government failed in the second Bush Administration, people chose a different government. Perhaps next time they’ll realize that when markets fail, the answer is to use markets to solve the failure.

Unfortunately, human civilization has devolved. There just are not as many individuals in recent times who even know what “the markets” are or how to use markets to solve anything.

I do think that the process of “earmarks” in legislation has to be changed: specific legislation for specific reasons and no longer the use of the use of legislation to slip in earmarks as now.

What this earmarking process has accomplished is that few in our nation/population today even trust Congress to do anything that is not untoward, sneaky, crooked and otherwise, untrustworthy, so earmarking and the Senators engaging in it have accomplished the further denigration of not only themselves but our form of government.