Yes, greed fear, and ignorance are the main tools of the business that is politics. I am just over 2 years of college, with a bachelor of arts. I voted independent. My main reason is that I distrust both parties. I believe that each election is a show, reality TV only its reality.

I think free market is excellent so long as the participants are ethical, and currently all of the US systems are lacking in ethics.

The current problem with the Systems of the world are the Incentives to take action, whether that action be evil, good, or neutral.

I urge all of the US citizens, who see this comment, if you take nothing away from here then take this: how many of you know what the Office of Government Ethics or Federal Office of Special Counsel are?

Please see: FAA Whistle blowers fired and defamed. The client serving culture costs the Consumer.

Take for example, the cure of HIV : http://www.baldwincountynow.com/articles/2009/05/28/local_news/doc4a1d63cb68531598814432.txt http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CCR5

Little publicity? Incentives! The big names didn't find the "cure" so they stifle the little names. We see the same thing when it comes to politics, wars, freedom, and traffic laws. HIV is treatable. Yet the public still thinks that it is not?

As to your question JiggaJphnson, allow me to quote Göring from the Nuremberg trials.

Göring: Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.
Gilbert: There is one difference. In a democracy, the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.
Göring: Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.

wow,
now THATS a response nordlichreiter!
i agree with the ignorance but not so much with the greed,considering the regional per capita income.
think about it:
education is not only information and knowledge but the tools to USE them.somebody not well versed in science may be more prone to believe a charlatans claims on..say..climate change or the world ending in 2012.anybody with a rudimentary high school knowledge would dismiss those claims for the BS they are.
same goes for history and the ability to contextualize a current situation using knowledge from that past.someone with little or no historical knowledge may believe that America was founded on christian principles,or that the federal reserve was a government bank and always had been one.
someone who has taken literature,the humanities or logic has a healthy skepticism while remaining open-minded.those that do not have the benefit of those courses bases much of their world view dynamic on assumption,presumption giving credibility and authority to those who may not deserve it.this can lead to an incredibly stubborn bias due to a knee-jerk revulsion of "elitist intellects" a dynamic carefully crafted by those whose powers they wish to remain solvent.
while i am always surprised how so many people will vote against their own interests,i really shouldnt be,they do not realize that is what they are doing.
i dont think i can really add any more,nord did a fine job by himself.
thats my 2c anyways.

Excuse me, but us "uneducated" folks prefer the term "less educated", thankyouverymuch.

Word up, MG. Yo, where's the keg?

Long ago, intellectuals were the first eaten by saber-toothed tigers, as they were "above" feeling fear. As humans tamed the wilderness and became agrarian, the opportunity for intellectuals to thrive arrived, but they still weren't explorers and thrill seekers and it's doubtful you'd find many on the Mayflower or taming the West.

America was founded by balls-out bad-asses who decided to take their chances instead of being a satellite of another monarchy. They would not for one second equate the line "promote the general welfare" with the welfare state of today that is going bankrupt, as they all eventually do.

Even in Jefferson's day, intellectuals were suspect, that's the way it was, and is. ACTION made America, and made America great, and there was freedom enough that Franklin got his libraries and anyone could be a seeker of knowledge. But the egghead has never been embraced, in any American era.

Constitutional principles and Republican principles have an eerie resemblance and are a lot closer cousins than modern liberalism. I have more faith in the "ignorant" Midwesterners who understand the Constitution better than the socialists in power now.

Karl Marx was a great intellectual, and yet he couldn't have been more wrong about economics and human nature. On a personal level he was disastrous with money and never held a job. It would appear that WISDOM--the fusion of time, intelligence and experience--has it all over plain vanilla high intelligence that praises theory over results.

As ignorant as they often are, and despite inevitable mistakes, The People are smarter than any king or bureaucrat. Or Bureaucrat-King. Even when they're "greedy".

If America continues to exist in some free incarnation, Obama will go down in history as just another Jimmy Carter, praised by revisionists and loathed by the people who were there.

Saying "less educated" is just more neocolonialism! How about saying "differently educated?!"