Part of the problem is that sort of “dialogue” — only it’s more of a monologue, because folk don’t want to hear what anyone who doesn’t conform to their belief system has to say.

Not everyone in the United States is of the same mind. Right now, we have congressional representatives who listen to the person with the most money, or the one or two “voting blocs” that they think will help them stay in office. You appear to think that’s a GoodThing™ and that it demonstrates a Congress responsive to the will of the People.

Problem is, it’s only the will of some people: the mob with the loudest voices and the hottest torches.

There’s a reason the United States of America was not constituted as a democracy. In a pure democracy, the rights of the few are trampled by the many.

In America, if voting studies and polls are accurate at all, what appears to be “the many” actually is made up of “the few.” It’s just that “the many” can’t get off their lazy asses long enough to tell their congressional representatives what they think, or to vote. Sometimes, that’s just as well, since they also can’t get the other lazy ends of their bodies to think or learn anything such that they could be educated about what it is they’d be voting for.

The distaste that modern Americans have for constitutional principles is nothing short of stunning. Perhaps it’s several decades of “McDonald’s Education.” Not only are too many high school graduates literally unable to read the Constitution, but they’ve been inculcated (not educated) to believe whatever corporations and those who own or financially benefit from them tell them to think.

More and more, that thinking is that “democracy” is a good thing. But, again, there’s a reason our Founders deliberately “crippled” any pure democratic form of government.

Sheep — and human crowds aren’t any smarter, or more independent, however much they like to think they are — are easily lead. When was the last time you heard a sheep stand up and say, “Hey! What’s up here?! I’m being lead about by someone else! I don’t want that!”

Corporations — and now the government as run by the Bush Administration — spend billions of dollars every year on advertising.

Ever wonder why?

Obviously, it works. And the greatest achievement of modern times has been to convince people that what the Constitution stands for is a BadThing™ — while simultaneously convincing them that they are actually defending that Constitution and the principles it intended to enshrine.

The truth is out there. Or rather, it’s right here, and it needs to be out there.